Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I recently picked up a 2014 4003 bass. The bass sounds and plays better than any previous Ric’s that I’ve owned with the exception of the tone controls for both the neck and bridge pickups. The problem Im having is there doesn’t seem to be any gradual increase (or decrease) in either one of the tone pots. It’s either full on or off. Even turning up the control slightly sounds as though the control is full on. Same thing when I’m rolling off the tone on either pickup-it’s full on until it’s full off. There’s no variance whatsoever. It’s either full on or full off. What could be the issue and how do I fix it?

Welcome Tom. I seem to recall reading that can happen with pots sometimes, they just go bad or are bad. Should be easy for a decent tech to repair or replace. See if the seller will pay for that. Otherwise return it. A 2014 4003 is a nice bass but not rare enough to be worth putting up with that. Good luck! If you do return it, and are bent on recent... the new bridge on the 2020's make that worth looking at.

sounds like a taper issue, are the pots stock?

No, not at all. It’s just the tone control (or lack of it) on both pickups. There’s no difference between the tone control being on 1 or 10.

Even though the 275k pots in current Ricks is responsible for a darker tone, the taper of the pots is normally much more gradual from 0-7ish, then much quicker after than. If you replace the pots, I recommend 500k CTS pots. I stock these as well as complete harnesses.

aceonbass wrote:Even though the 275k pots in current Ricks is responsible for a darker tone, the taper of the pots is normally much more gradual from 0-7ish, then much quicker after than. If you replace the pots, I recommend 500k CTS pots. I stock these as well as complete harnesses.

Dane, do you recommend audio or linear taper pots to replace the tone pots? I have heard over the decades the pros and cons of each. Personally, I have used both for tone pots. For volume pots, especially with single coils, I like 500 kohm audio taper pots bridged with a 1 meg resistor so I get effectively a hybrid curve 330 kohm pot. Your thoughts?

I don't know that CTS makes a linear taper pot that has the same physical specs that the short bushing RIC sourced CTS pots have, so I just use audio taper pots.

I was actually considering have the pots replaced with 250 and 500k’s and removing the .0047 cap. It would entail losing the Push/Pull pot entirely but I’m ok with that. The vintage setting is too thin sounding to my ears so I don’t really mind losing it.

If you replace the existing pots without replacing the vinyl insulated wire, you'll melt a lot of the insulation with the heat required to remove the pots from it.

aceonbass wrote:If you replace the existing pots without replacing the vinyl insulated wire, you'll melt a lot of the insulation with the heat required to remove the pots from it.

Is this the reason why someone could buy and use “vintage” cloth-covered wire?

aceonbass wrote:If you replace the existing pots without replacing the vinyl insulated wire, you'll melt a lot of the insulation with the heat required to remove the pots from it.

Would replacing the entire harness be a better idea?

aceonbass wrote:If you replace the existing pots without replacing the vinyl insulated wire, you'll melt a lot of the insulation with the heat required to remove the pots from it.

How did they solder the wires on, then?

Isaac wrote:

aceonbass wrote:If you replace the existing pots without replacing the vinyl insulated wire, you'll melt a lot of the insulation with the heat required to remove the pots from it.

How did they solder the wires on, then?

The cloth insulation is braided and flexible, and works by having been saturated with wax. The wire is clipped to length, and instead of using and insulation stripper, the cloth insulation pushed back away from the tip of the wire.

iiipopes wrote:

Isaac wrote:

aceonbass wrote:If you replace the existing pots without replacing the vinyl insulated wire, you'll melt a lot of the insulation with the heat required to remove the pots from it.

How did they solder the wires on, then?

The cloth insulation is braided and flexible, and works by having been saturated with wax. The wire is clipped to length, and instead of using and insulation stripper, the cloth insulation pushed back away from the tip of the wire.

Also, as you heat the top spot of the pot where the wire will be soldered, the wire isn’t there yet. Once the pot spot is hot, positioning the wire and flowing / reheating pre-applied solder goes very quickly — minimal heating / short term heating of the wire. But when you remove the wire, as you can see, the wire is already part of the assembly that unavoidably gets heated for as long as it takes to melt the solder and remove the wire.

This is not something I’m going to attempt to do myself. I’ll be having it done by a professional repair person. I’m all for DIY’s but not on something like this.