Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

For guitar (not bass guitars), is there a difference in design between the treble (bridge) and bass (neck) toasters? Are the pole pieces different lengths?

It depends;

Early to mid-60s Ricks used a short pole toaster (some of the 3 pickup models have a middle p/up short pole toaster as well). IIRC, these have lower K ohms as well; I know the RI 360/12 C63 does.

The long pole toasters are generally the same between neck and bridge, IIRC, as musch as the older hand wound p/ups were consistent wrt output.

For the "hot" 12K reissue toasters, both the neck and bridge toasters are 12K; my 381/V69s came with 12K toasters in both the bridge and neck, as did the factory-installed toasters on both my AZ Blue and TUR 360 WB models. For the RI "Scatterwounds" the neck and bridge pickups are the same as well. The only ones that are different are the reproductions of Fab Four models.

Paul,

Very interesting....thanks for the response.

How do you tell if a toaster is scatterwound?

They will have slot screws in the corners and small dimples on the ends of the black plastic "toast slots".

My 1997 and 360/12V64 (only three months apart) both have 12k long pole toasters that sound pretty similar. I hardly know anything about short-pole and long-pole toasters and I've never played a Ric with scatterwounds in them. (But that will all change Saturday...)

Paul A pretty much covered the ground about the toasters.

My friend's 381 has scatterwound toasters in it. The neck pickup gets a lot more bluesy and bassy than I thought toasters could.