Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm so new I posted this in the wrong place..
I will admit that i am a new Ric owner after trading an old SG for a red 1990 610. I have no idea about Ric-ups. My question is: Can i replace the bridge pick-up with a humbucker type pick-up without any routing or major alteration? I want to keep everything Ric but i want a fuller sound without trading guitars or screwing it up.

Short answer is no. Except for the long-pole toasters, Rick pickups are made to sit above the body of the guitar. They are pretty short compared to standard humbuckers. Are your 610 pickups toasters or hi-gains? You might be able to find someone who could custom build a pickup that would fit in the existing cover, but it would be difficult. Rick makes humbuckers, but they aren't meaty sounding like a PAF. They are the same form factor as all current design Rick pickups so you can easily swap one in to try it out. Good luck...

A P

Pete Biltoft at Vintage Vibe Pickups is an awesome pickup maker (read the reviews) and he will wind just about anything to fit inside Ric covers...I am seriously considering asking him to wind me a set of vintage Firebird pups to fit in some Ric covers for my 650D....

I have a standard set of his PAFs in my Hamer Artist & they will never come out....

Thanks fellows, I believe them to be high output, but again, i'm a newbie..

Pete does great work--I have a set of his PUPs in my MIM Strat and they are very nice. I didn't know he would wind to fit for RIC. Interesting! I might have a solution for my 650C in that case.

Johnny--in general it is easy to determine what type of RIC pickup you have just by examining the covers. If the chrome top cover looks like a toaster with two black slots, then you have toaster design pickups which have alnico pole-pieces and a single coil ranging from maybe 6k-12k in DCR. These produce the classic Rick jangley tone.

If they have no center chrome bar, but have six protruding pole pieces down the middle they are high gains which are also single coil, but which use steel pole pieces and ceramic bar magnets on the back. These tend to be a bit hotter and have a more aggressive tone, but still with some jangle on tap.

If the top of the pickup is just a slightly rough plastic piece with no protrusions it's likely one of their more recent humbuckers with rare earth magnets. These are standard on most 650 series and some others. They tend to be brighter than other brands of humbuckers, but have less jangle than the single coil types above. They do have pretty high output, though.

With a 1990 610 its most likely that you have high gains.

When you say that you are looking for a fuller sound, exactly what are we talking about? Please remember that pick-ups are only part of the equation. A 610 is a neck through design made of maple. No matter what pick-ups you use, the guitar is always going have a tight, bright and well defined sound. If you really like the guitar, you might want to attack this problem from the other end and experiment with different amps to find the sound you're looking for.

As noted elsewhere, a Rickenbacker humbucker will be an exact swap-in-and-out. The 350SH has a RIC humbucker in the bridge position. I also own a three-pickup 620 with a RIC humbucker in the bridge position.
I've not really done much comparison of the sound from these ... someday when I have time, maybe!

doctorwho wrote:I also own a three-pickup 620 with a RIC humbucker in the bridge position.

So that would make it a 670 HB...cool !

Did you do the conversion youself?

Where can you get a used RIC humbucker at an affordable price? that sounds like a commercial...
and do you have to change to 500K pots?

You can order them new from the RIC boutique. You want the HB1.

http://www.rickenbacker.com/cart.asp?category=Pickups

mbomn8r wrote: Where can you get a used RIC humbucker at an affordable price?

You can also post over in the RRF Rickenbacker Marketplace viewforum.php?f=67 under the "Rics Wanted" thread and scour the Rics for Sale thread for somebody cleaning out their parts drawer or looking to swap.