Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Has anyone tried reversing their bridge pickup to reduce hum? I had this mod done awhile back and was pretty happy with the results. I just wondered anyone else has done this. Just curious.

Here's the skinny. If you run both of your pickups at full volume and like that tone, this is a good mod for you. If you don't, this mod is useless to you. Since I don't like the sound of both pickups at 100% most of the time this mod is not one that I will be doing any time soon.

Well, not exactly useless with less than full volume, it's just that the hum canceling effect reduces along with the volume reduction. This is because the cancellation is due to the "same" hum signal level being out of phase from the 2 pickups. Note that if the pickups themselves have inherently different output levels the cancellation effect will be reduced as well.

This mod is entirely useless if you use Ric-O-Sound to separate amps/channels though...

I also don't run both pickups wide open, I usually run the bridge at 100%, neck about halfway. That being said, I can get some very nice sounds using both pickups full on and tweaking the eq on my amp a bit. My thought was that at times it is useful to have a lower noise floor than what the stock 4003 can offer without radically altering your instrument. I can get all the stock sounds BUT I do have the option of a near quiet tone if I need it, mainly for live applications. It cost me 15$ cad and took my tech a half hour to complete. Oh yeah, it's also reversible if need be.

I think the vintage tone switch also messes with the rwrp mod too..
It could get you out of trouble on a noisy stage (fluro lights and dimmers etc) but in truth I have never had any real noise problems with my Rickenbacker basses they seem to be better shielded than J basses etc. (I'm not knocking the "J" though)
Eden.

I actually had the vintage switch removed, I guess I don't have much appreciation for the vintage tone of the older rics....sorry

weemac wrote:I think the vintage tone switch also messes with the rwrp mod too..

Right you are! The cap in series with the pickup causes a phase shift in the signal. The only way the RWRP works is if the hum signal is exactly 180 degrees out of phase pickup to pickup, the cap won't allow that...