Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

New 4004 cII Arrived safely today, very well made bass, and the easiest ric to set up, prefer the tone with the toggle switch down, the treble pickup, the middle setting will take getting used to. plays great and feels good.

Congrats!

geofio wrote:

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New 4004 cII Arrived safely today, very well made bass, and the easiest ric to set up, prefer the tone with the toggle switch down, the treble pickup, the middle setting will take getting used to. plays great and feels good.

Curious to hear your impressions of the different settings. What's up with the mid position?

I got mine with the VVT mod pre-installed, so it doesn't sound the same, but the neck pickup soloed is the Voice of God. Deeeeep, not muddy, plenty of growl.

That JetGlo is mighty sharp looking !! Congrats

8mileshigher wrote:That JetGlo is mighty sharp looking !! Congrats

That's right, no matter what Tony and CJ think! Congrats George!

Looks great, George! Tony thinks the same, BTW.

Whew-SLICK! Congrats!

Congrats George!

Stunningly gorgeous -- and don't get me started on the figured fret board.

The middle switch selection almost has a kind of phase effect going on , in particular the E string i adjusted the levels on both pickups to see if that would cancel it out but no still there!!! is that normal?? when i select the treble pickup the bass sounds awesome. could it be a pickup height problem?? totally new to this bass. cheers

rickenbrother wrote:

8mileshigher wrote:That JetGlo is mighty sharp looking !! Congrats

That's right, no matter what Tony and CJ think! Congrats George!

Oh, I think that Jetglo with the gold looks fantastic...

found the problem for the strange phase sound the nut on the E machine head was totally loose now tight and sounds right.

geofio wrote:The middle switch selection almost has a kind of phase effect going on , in particular the E string i adjusted the levels on both pickups to see if that would cancel it out but no still there!!! is that normal?? when i select the treble pickup the bass sounds awesome. could it be a pickup height problem?? totally new to this bass. cheers

Interesting! I had a hunch you might say something like this. My 4004 has a very similar thing going on. It's VVT, so the control layout is different from yours. When the volume knobs are set to the same volume (Anywhere between totally open and totally closed) I get a phasing effect - the mids seem to be cut very noticeably. It happens on all strings. Panning either knob near the "equal" point almost makes it sound like a wah pedal, as different frequencies are cut or boosted.

The tone at equal volumes is quite different from either pickup soloed, and not what I would call "classic rick with rounds." But it actually works really well for certain moods.

thanks forthe reply john interesting, i was getting this weird phase almost like a slow sweep from the e string so i just looked at everything and thought to try the machine heads the nut was loose, on the e string so tightened it up and huge difference in sound . a sound i can be happy with, the e string sounds like a string now not a phaser lol. interesting bass to be honest pure ric tone on the switch down love that , bass pickup is very beefy too, just glad i have a decent sound using both pups . cheers

BU-LING man that is stunning!!! Liquid coal with gold!!! And the fretboard jeeeeze! that is so good looking!! Congratulations!!!

A Jazz Bass or any other two-pickup bass will do the same thing your 4004 is doing. It's called comb filtering, and it happens when equal level signals are slightly out of phase with each other so some frequencies get cut and others boosted. In nearly every case what you hear is a mid scoop; same as a Jazz Bass. It's totally normal. The effect can be defeated by putting a cap or resistor in series with one of the signals (for different reasons), or just by sending one of the signals even a little to ground as is observed with the VVT wiring. The Roscoe Beck bass uses a resistor in series, so there are no impedance or tonal changes, just an overall dip in one pickup's output allowing the other to "rise to the top" and the full signal comes through again.