Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I own a 99 V63. I have noticed a strange "reverb" like effect coming from the RIHS when a note is plucked. I soloed the toaster and don't notice the effect so much. I can hammer on an A note[G string, 14th fret] and hold it and I get this strange effect. If I touch the other three strings, stopping their vibration while holding the A note on the G string, the effect stops as well. I have never heard anything like this before. Help? Mark

My guess is that since it stops when you mute the unplayed strings that it is just sypathetic (or not ) vibrations. Maybe the HS PU is just more sensitive to picking that up.

Does the wiring look right? Mark

Assuming that the red wire is the shield on the cable, and the black wire coming from the lower center hole goes to the center conductor on the cable, yes.

ricmic wrote:Does the wiring look right? Mark

Can you post more photos, showing the wiring a bit less obscured? The red wire should be coming from the coil out of the center hole (between the two inner most screws) and go to the lug on the left, with the black (center/hot) lead of the shielded cable going to the coil through the smaller hole near the edge of the mounting plate; the shield of the cable gets soldered to the left hand lug, also. The lug that is on the right hand screw (not correct) should be attached to a longish black ground lead soldered to the left hand lug that attaches to one of the height adjustment screws right under the surround to ground it so it can act as shielding. Does that make sense?

This originally started on another thread, where I posted this pic of a new RIHS:

That is how mine looks, too.

Jeff's description matches CJJ's picture, and is also how my RIHSs are.

jps wrote:My guess is that since it stops when you mute the unplayed strings that it is just sypathetic (or not ) vibrations. Maybe the HS PU is just more sensitive to picking that up.

+1. I'm guessing the RIHS is hotter and that extra gain will translate to more of the sympathetic noise being transduced. Let me ask you this Mark, if both pickups are on full does this noise decrease a little?

Rics are neck-through and more prone to sympathetic vibrations. You can put a scrunchie over the nut to cut down on it if you want. It's part of what makes them sound like they do, though; some consider this trait desirable.

I can get lots of sympathy from the unmuted strings when I play on my 4004 (that happens to be in my hands, at the moment) if I am careful to not mute the strings (as I normally would) while playing, so.........proper playing technique plays into this very much. It is very much an unsubconscious thing after all these decades of playing but I use either my left and/or right hands/fingers to mute unplayed strings. I may play around with this unmuting of strings as when hitting strings prominently at positions that excite the other strings this could be a cool technique in and of itself.

Another +1 to Jeff on that one!

Mine is wired incorrectly. When performing the shoe spreading procedure the red wire became unattached. I didn't know exactly where it went for restoration. One of my neighbors is an electrician and offered to try to bail me out. We got the print off of the Ric web sight and were sure we had it close. Well I was wrong. The center hole on the bottom of the bobbin, where the RED wire should be coming from is just filled with solder. No wire protruding. I think there has been a problem before my snafu. Not so shift the blame though, I should have come to you guys first. I will look at it more today. I am returning to work tomorrow morning for two weeks. I may have to string the bass back up, and revisit this when I get back. Mark

OK, I'm back with a question. The wife, knowing I'm not going to let this go, says " why don't you just get a new one from Rickenbacker, and send the old one out to be reconditioned. You can do that , can't you? " That's her solution to me stressing over this RIHS. They are so practical, aren't they. Back to the question part. How do the new RIHS pups meter out. The one in the bass now metered at about 9.1. Does anyone know how hot they are? Mark

The DC resistance of the one I took the picture of is 10.92k.

Now, for the "more info than you wanted" nerdy part, here are the AC measurements on that pickup taken at 4 different frequencies. Sorry the formatting is messed up, the forum compresses tabs/spaces). Ls is series inductance, Rs is series resistance, Cp is parallel capacitance (interwinding):

Freq (Hz) Ls (H) Rs (Ω) Cp (F)
100 5.95 10.926k 44.53nF
120 5.92 10.985k 42.10nF
1k 5.42 15.788k 3.84nF
10k 3.87 105.76k 55pF

Thank you CJJ,JPS and all who help me sort out my mistakes. OK, here's what is happening. New RIHS, along with new mounting screws for both the surround and pickguard on order from Ric. I promise to get with you guys first before I get creative again. As I said, back to work tomorrow for 2 weeks. Everything should be here when I get home. We'll install this together. Again, thank you to all. Mark