Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

So based on your experience with your stock five string Ricken Bacher or your 4 to 5 conversion which would you say is best to do for someone who doesn't need One right away but wants to get one eventually.

1. Do 425
2. Buy used
3. Wait for ric to put out better version with the pickup issues resolved.

Actually, I would vote for Option 4, buy another brand 5-string and figure out if you really even like having 5 strings before you decide you need a Ric 5er.

For me it's highly situational to want the 5th string, no matter how much I like the bass itself. In my case, I am really happy with my custom 4003/5's tone and playability. I also owned a Fender Roscoe Beck V for a while and then Dingwall Combustion, both legendary 5ers. But unless the gig calls for it, that B string may just get in your way.

Here are two negative experiences I had trying to force a 5-string bass into a gig that calls for a 4-string:
1. I try to arrange the bass lines to routinely incorporate the B string -- this is fun and works fine past the 5th fret, but often times when you hit those lowest notes for a bass line originally written to a 4-string it's like a funky earthquake is happening. It's distracting from other elements in the arrangement when that happens. Leading to option 2...
2. I ignore the B string the whole time -- okay, not negative, but shows I didn't need the 5er.

So when DO I want to use my 5-string? For intense gospel sets, hip hop and acid jazz it is pretty useful. But I can take a 4-string to those gigs and no one really misses the low B except when a song is arranged for it.

Do yourself a big favor and buy a decent 5er, spend a year and a day with it and see whether that's what you really want. I think a 5-string P would be semi-comparable to a Ric in tone. Jazzes are more common, but I don't hear as many similarities between Rics (deep thumpy/warm growl) and Jazz Basses (cleaner, restrained upper mid bark).

Nothing out there is going to get you ready for the 5-string Ric neck necessarily, but that's just how it is. The good news is a Ric 5-string neck plays FAST. The bad news is that you have to learn to restrain your plucking/picking with several hours of steady practice before it feels normal again.

Best of luck.

1. Do 425

Never! Not only does the headstock look terrible with the 5th keywind crammed in, I've noticed that almost everyone who has had one of these conversions done, wants to sell not long after getting it. There must be a really good reason for that.

2. Buy used

When the 4003S/5 was availble new, I never thought I could get used to the tight string spacing, since I'm mainly a fingerstyle player. I gave in a bought one used. Glad I did. I love it. I can play it fingerstyle and I gave me incentive to use a pick more often.

3. Wait for ric to put out better version with the pickup issues resolved.

If you really need those extra 5 lower notes, do what I did for a few years, tune down. I had one 4001 at BEAD and another at C#-F#-B-E until I got a 5 string Rick.
Until then, things have been changing at RIC, slowly, They have some great ideas, that they haven't gotten to implement because of several constraints. Maybe we'll eventually see a 5 string again.

I have a Carvin LB75 that I use on one song. Tom Petty's "Running Down a Dream" just sounds better going down to the low D and C instead of up. It's also easier to play "Mississippi Queen" on the 5-string than on the 4, so I try to arrange the set list to put those two together.

I tried downtuning to BEAD, but that's a non-starter unless you widen the nut slots to accommodate heavier strings. Even heavier gauge standard strings are just too floppy.

I tried switching over to the 5-string completely a while back, but I never did adjust well to the closer string spacing or the extra string. Also, the bands I play in suggested that the Rics just sound better than the Carvin.

Tried a 5-string (a very nice Carvin) for about a year,ultimately decided it wasn’t really my thing. I’d already done the BEAD thing twice over the years,and would only use the BEAD bass for a song or 2,reverting to my regularly tuned 4.
So,I just don’t seem to really feel the need for those extra 5 notes Enough to bother with it.
I’m also more comfortable playing up and down the neck than across the fretboard. (Which is supposedly the other main reason to play a 5-6 string bass.)

lumgimfong wrote:So based on your experience with your stock five string Ricken Bacher or your 4 to 5 conversion which would you say is best to do for someone who doesn't need One right away but wants to get one eventually.

1. Do 425
2. Buy used
3. Wait for ric to put out better version with the pickup issues resolved.

1. I've done a few 425 conversions on Ricks, mostly on the older 4004's with the wider neck, but I don't cram another tuner in on the treble side of the headstock. I have a luthier dowell all of the holes, then redrill them with even spacing that allows for all of the tuner keys to clear each other. Unfortunately RIC actually did the crammed-in-extra-tuner thing with a 4001C64 last year that they sold on Ebay, so now there is some precedence for this from the factory. The tight spacing on 425 conversions, or a factory 4003S5 makes for a difficult playing bass for most though.

2.Used 4003S5's usually go for north of 2K, which is a bit much for what you're getting IMHO. Used 4004Cii's are quite rare, but the pickup coverage was aweful on these, providing poor string response on the B & G strings. Replacement pickups were used on a few of these that I've seen to make them playable, but the neck is WIDE.

3.RIC has a new pickup developed for 5-string use, but has yet to introduce a bass to feature it, so in the meantime, you might try one of the many inexpensive 5 strings out there to see if you can deal with the extra string. I've found it difficult, so I have a couple Ricks strung and tuned to BEAD. I actually use the extra low notes more than the extra high notes. When I saw Eric Clapton's bassist, Nathan East playing 5 string bass on all those classic Clapton tunes when he toured with him, I felt that it brought out something new in the music, so I had to give it a try. I've found there to be a lot of places to use the extra notes in classic rock, as well as newer tunes.

...............PS:What's "acid jazz"?

aceonbass wrote: ...............PS:What's "acid jazz"?

I think of it like funk / disco music with some jazz elements. Jamiroquai would be a good example.

Isaac wrote:I tried downtuning to BEAD, but that's a non-starter unless you widen the nut slots to accommodate heavier strings. Even heavier gauge standard strings are just too floppy.

Kalium makes a set of "BEAD" strings for me with a .136 B with the same 40lbs of tension that the other strings have, so no floppiness there.

sloop_john_b wrote:

aceonbass wrote: ...............PS:What's "acid jazz"?

I think of it like funk / disco music with some jazz elements. Jamiroquai would be a good example.

I’ve always thought of SUN RA as jazz on acid......

aceonbass wrote:...............PS:What's "acid jazz"?

Here's some for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZSg3iedeG4

aceonbass wrote:What's "acid jazz"?

It's a nebulous genre, but when I say it I'm thinking of a lot of the DJs who are famous within it, especially Mark Farina (he even has a series of albums called Mushroom Jazz) and the artists he favors.

lumgimfong wrote:... which would you say is best to do ...

All three at the same time, whichever hits first is the winner (although on the 425, I would find one used rather than do one - if it's not your thing in the end, damage done). Or, #4, tune a 4 stringer to B-E-A-D to see how you might like that, losing only the top few notes of the G string in the process.

I started with a Squire 5 string to see if it was something I'd like and use. The answer was yes, so I found a 4003s5. There is a little adjustment in how you might approach the 5 vs 4 string environs. normally I prefer a low profile neck, The s5 is rather thick but the pitch on the strings is a tad narrower than other basses. I find it to be a very quick play. when switching from 4 to 5 I have to run scales a couple of times to get used to it. mostly because of the right hand - getting it used to the spacing of the strings...

Thanks for the input.

I have played 5 string Fender/Squire bass at church regularly before and had no problems adjusting.
I also played 8 and 10 string classical guitars so I have a long history of diving board-like neck experience.
So I hope it would not be hard to adjust to a 5 ric.

It may be just as easy to tune down for the songs I need the sub-E string notes for though. Seems like alot of contemporary Christian music these days at church uses these notes, unless they are synth bass tracks I am hearing.

Sounds like waiting for them to put out a good one is the best option.
Tune down the E string until.
Maybe I will get skilled at tuning down and won't even want a 5-er by the time they come out.