Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I bought my 1992 4003S FL used off of evilbay and it came with these blue-silk, flat wound strings:

http://www.rickresource.com/register/us ... llsize.jpg

They have brass drums at the other side and no silk.

I'm just curious what they are. The previous owner didn't know.

My 4003 has La Bella Deep Talkin' Bass flatwounds on it, and they have that blue silk on them.

I don't know that La Bella strings are the only flatwound string maker that uses blue silk, but there's a lead for you anyway.

I've used GHS Brite Flats in the past and they had blue silks. Check the smoothness of the string wrap, they may be Brite Flats.

Daddario Chromes also have blue wraps. If the strings are Very smooth and shiny I would think Labella medium gauge.

My LaBella DTFs have red silk, and my GHS Brite Flats, while called flats, really felt and looked like rounds. So I would have to guess Chromes.

I had no idea that the LaBella DTB flats had so many silk colors - I use the 760FS and they have black silks.

Jeff, those look like D'A Chromes to me; but I'm not sure if they also have same-color brass ends (unlike say, Fender strings, that have color-coded ball ends). I'll check at home tonight. Another piece of evidence is the position of the silk end relative to the nut. Chromes typically have very even silk ends that, on a full 34" scale, come within about 1/4" of the nut. Given that Ricks are slightly shorter scale, the proximty of the silk ends to the nut would be consistent with Chromes.

If I recall correctly, LaBella uses different colored silks to designate between differently gauged sets.

They're not Rotosound Jazz Bass 77's, these are blue, but at both ends.

bigbajo60 wrote:If I recall correctly, LaBella uses different colored silks to designate between differently gauged sets.

I believe you are correct.

Just checked my Chromes and they have color-coded drum/ball-ends, so it looks like Chromes are out.

Also, I checked my LaBella DTB FS's and although those have black silks, they only have silk on the headstock end and they also have identical brass drum/ball-ends. So, we need Jonathan/coolingitdown to let us know what his gauges are and we might be in business. LaBella makes FX, FL, FS and FM, in order of increasing tension. If I know Joshua, he uses FL's and I use FS's, so my bet is on FX (0.039-0.096) for the blue silks.

Or, they're GHS Brite Flats or something else!

I don't remember the model number, but the set is gauged .049, .069, .089, .109.

Wow, those are the 760 FM's. I'm surprised to hear that someone would use such heavy gauges on a Rick, but those 4003 truss rods (and necks, at least recently) sure are different from the old style on the 4001.

Jeff, I would think that you'd certainly be able to tell if your strings are 49/109; if they aren't, then maybe you have the GHS's?

I must state here that my 4003 is a 2010 with a 2-piece neck (strong enough) and that my band tunes DGCF, so the tension is about equal to a set of .100s at standard tuning. I used to tune it standard about 10% of the time, but now that I have a 4001C64, the 4003 stays tuned a full step down all the time.

Well, those gauges make sense for full-drop tuning. I figured you had the FX's only because you tend to hear more about lighter gauges on RIcks as opposed to heavier gauges.

FretlessOnly wrote:Well, those gauges make sense for full-drop tuning. I figured you had the FX's only because you tend to hear more about lighter gauges on RIcks as opposed to heavier gauges.

I use the FL set which I would consider fairly standard (I see you use the FS which is probably even more so).