Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Put the new pickguard on and it looks great, but the neck pickup seems to be limited on coming up. There are 4 little "button" thingies on the edges of the pickup under the pickguard. Another 1/8" would be great cause it's a little quiet right now.

I'll post a pic later.

You can put the pickup on without the cover screws. It can be done. I did it very carefully with my Toaster.
Twisted very fine wire to hold the cover on, then also removed the grommets. I tried cutting them in half and even that wasn't close enough for me.
So, in the end I installed it VERY carefully back on w/ no cover screws and no grommets, moved it up until it would go no more, but NEVER push it, or you'll crack the PG!

It made a big difference in balancing level wise between the toaster and the hot 4003's bridge pickup.

Sounds like a plan, it's a 4001. Definitely don't want to crack the new guard....wonder why it doesn't fit the same? anyhoo

Any other suggestions?

Is the guard made of thicker material?

Even if the PG material is thicker the pickup would still be at the same height since that would be relative to the bottom side of the PG wouldn't it?

It's from pickguardian, i haven't measured it.

Lower the treble pickup until you get about the same output from both pickups, with no volume drops.

I already did that, just really liked the tone where the bridge was at, it's pretty dialed in now.

jps wrote:Even if the PG material is thicker the pickup would still be at the same height since that would be relative to the bottom side of the PG wouldn't it?

Yes, but they wound appear to be lower to the top of the thicker guard.

This is true. My primary interest would be distance to the strings, though.

There is another trick that I learned from Ted Staberow to boost the neck pickup's output without raising the pickup. Just put one of these Neodymium magnets under the pickup.

http://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=BZ082

The magnet intrigues me. I have neo's for my slot cars

Ordered one, which way do you mount it?

It will pull itself to the back of the pickup, don't worry. It's a really strong magnet.