Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi All,

I recently purchased a 2004 4003 Bass and I'm really pleased with it - however I do have one teeny glitch with it, when I got the bass I found, whilst the action was high, I kept hitting the bridge pick up pole pieces when "digging in", resulting in quite a loud popping noise through the speakers of my cab.

I had a look at "Joey's Rickenbacker Set Up pages" http://www.joeysbassnotes.com/Rick_maint.htm#rem as recommended on another forum (Basschat) as I was struggling with understanding how to set up the intonation - I usually set up my Fenders etc with no worries and having checked out Joeys pages I feel confident in having set up the Rickenbacker quite sweetly now (at least how I like it).

The only thing is now whilst I don't get any fouling of the pole pieces there's definitely a minor loss in volume when switching to the bridge pickup, which leads me to thinking that I could really do with adjusting the bridge pup a little nearer the string - it seems worse when playing the E string but as I said it is only minor loss in volume (but definitely noticeable), is there any easy fixes or perhaps something I may have overlooked? I'm really pleased with how the bass is now playing/set up but in an ideal world it would be cool to have consistency between neck & bridge pick ups.

Would anyone know if/what the nominal height should be between pole piece and string?

Many thanks in anticipation,
Pete

Bugger! Just realised I've posted this in the wrong place

Would on of those nice moderator peeps please move it?

Thanks again!

If your playing style is causes you to hit the pole pieces there's not much else you can do other than move the pickups/set up the guitar accordingly.

If the bridge pick up is lower volume now, you could move the neck pickup further away from the strings to balance them better. Kind of obvious, but i don't think there's much else you can do. The pickups don't have to be balanced. Depends how you like the sound of the guitar when the pickups are mixed.

Hey Bill, how's that CS of yours? Mark