Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Figured this would be the best place to find an answer. Hope so! I just got a 1995 Jetglo 4003. It's awesome,of courseI replaced the bridge with a BadAss ( I'm sure someone is shrieking now) but since I play with a pick every night on tour the stock Ric bridge was in my way. I'm getting a bad farting sound on my E,pretty much from A down to F. So far, I've been trying to pick lighter on those notes & using an equalizer & compressor. It's driving my sound man nuts though.I'm sure everyone has dealt with this.Anybody have a solution? New nut? Any ideas on the Seymour Suncan replacement pickups? All suggestions are more than helpful.Thank you! I love this bass too much & want it to be the best.

Sounds like you need to do set up on the bass... Check out Joey's web site. Good instructions on neck adjustment. Flat is good.

http://www.joeysbassnotes.com

Your E string f a r t s? Turn down the gain a bit.

I'd check your height on the bridge pickup. The big phillips head screws above and below the pickup will adjust it's height. Sounds like it's too high on the E side. Also check the string height relative to the fretboard. Your E could be a bit too low. I like my E a little higher than my G and generally keep my action from around .110(E)-.090(G) or so at the 12th fret. Yes, it could need a new nut but if it wasn't a problem before the new bridge, then I'd look at the string height on the bridge side first.

Good luck.

Generally this forum tends to prefer stock Ricks, but SD pickups are pretty universally hated here. I've never heard one myself.

Thanks to everybody for the suggestions. I will try the string height adjustment. The guy that does my set ups knows I like it low action & we didn't think about it when I had this set up. Really appreciate the thoughts.

I concur with the others, this sounds like you're clipping. Make sure before your pickups are set for (relatively) even output among the strings and before yours gigs you need to set the instrument preamp to a level just below clipping. If the E string is the biggest violator, determine whether it's clipping or not based on that. Just be careful that the other strings aren't markedly quieter, but adjusting the pickup height will take care of that.

By the way, I find it easiest to set pickup height pole by pole with a small rule (6'' long with mm and inch marks, usually metal and sold in hardware stores).

I've never heard Seymour Duncan SRB pickups to know if they're any good or not. I believe people say they sound a little more "sterile" than other pickups for a Ric bass but you may like them in spite of or because of that. Plus they're humbuckers, which is useful on tour. But it's also easy to make your bass RWRP humcanceling with the stock pickups; and if you really want humbuckers, HB-1s (made by RIC) are around the same price as the Seymour Duncans and have a really great, full-bodied tone.

Hmmmm.... Never had flatuance from my bass. I concur with making sure the set up is right. I wouldn't change the pick ups away from other Ric ones.

I am a purest like that with my rics, only ric parts no others

Don't feed it beans....

sorry about that....

emac.

Alan Davey has SD neck pickups in his Rickenbacker's. You can check out his sound on Gunslinger's myspace amongst others. (Like Hawkwind between '1984 and 2007)