Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Happened to be browsing at some online retailers and came across a few of these 4030 Short Scale basses in Midnight Blue with checkerboard binding and black hardware. Anyone have any experience with these? I know there have been a couple of previous VERY limited versions of this floating around. Wilcutt has zero information posted on it and I don't see them elsewhere. Looks like the bridge is shifted forward and it has two pickups mounted in the guard, with a black-painted fingerboard, 24 frets, and some interesting pickups. It's all black hardware and the pickups almost look like toasters with a hi-gain cover? I love short-scale basses, but that is quite a plunge to take with no in-hand experience. Is this a limited model or something that will become more widely available? Any info is appreciated!

https://willcuttguitars.com/products/ri ... 89-2237768

I’m curious if the measurement from nut to 12th fret is 30-31”.
24 frets?!?!
Those pups look strange. Like Toasters with 6 pole pieces.

Odd. I would have rather 21 frets and shifted the whole neck back in some.

I vaguely remember seeing that bass on RIC’s Facebook page as a factory one off, maybe the short scale 24 fret neck was a test for the 4005XC?

teeder wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 9:24 am Odd. I would have rather 21 frets and shifted the whole neck back in some.

https://imgur.com/o11US1X

Like this!

Uffingdon wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 2:18 pm

teeder wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 9:24 am Odd. I would have rather 21 frets and shifted the whole neck back in some.

https://imgur.com/o11US1X

Like this!

That's close!

Yeah, this looks to be basically a regular 4003 body and neck with a different scale fingerboard and the bridge shifted forward. I would personally much prefer a fully scaled-down body with a slimmer neck and traditional pickup configuration (and vintage-style tuners), but still a killer bass. All of the short-scale basses I've loved (Dano longhorn, Fender Mustang, Hofners) have a smaller and lighter feel, and I'm not prepared to drop $3.5k on a short-scale bass on a long-scale bass platform. I'd have to get some more information on it prior, and don't want to make a 7+ hour round trip to the only shop that seems to have them (and is appointment only for in-store business).

I personally think these are very cool basses. I'm not into short scale, but nonetheless, they are very cool in my book.

Heck yeah, another lead bass! Not to knock the 4002 but with the neck shifted forward this one has that same vibe but looks a tad less awkward. HiGains with no poles? I really wonder how it sounds. I bet this one has a tighter sound than the 4005xc does with that pickup placement.

Those look like the hot toasters like on my 480XC. Which I love the sound of. I wonder how they would be on this thing. Probably good?

jdogric12 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:26 pm Those look like the hot toasters like on my 480XC. Which I love the sound of. I wonder how they would be on this thing. Probably good?

That would be my guess, since they are shifted towards the bridge. Would like to hear one!

I picked up one of these a few months ago from Willcutt Guitars, and it has become my #1. The fretboard is Richlite, and has the same FWI's as 4003's. The pickups are indeed the same ones used in the 4005XC, only with black powder coated hi-gain covers. The bridge and strap buttons are also powder coated, but the power coating on the strap buttons caused them to jam up in my Schaller strap locks, so I replaced them with a set of black chrome Schaller S-Locks. The powder coating on the tailpiece prevented the tailpiece from grounding to the string anchor, so I cut the ground wire off of the mute bar, soldered a 2" piece of tinned 22gauge wire to it, and ran it to the string anchor taped down with a piece of copper shielding. Since the volume pots measued about 275k, and the push-pull vintage tone pot measured around 500k, I left them in place. I only replaced the neck pot with a 500k CTS pot, and the weird metric mono output jack with an actual Switchcraft jack. I've never cared for the old Schaller M4 12:1 tuners, so I replaced them with a set of the newer (and slightly larger) Schaller 20:1 ratio M4's. There's no place to anchor my thumb when playing finger style (which is all the time in my RUSH tribute band) so a made one from black acrylic shaped exactly like the upper 1/2" of the guard above the pickups, and secured it using longer screws that also go through the guard. I crank the bridge controls and role the neck controls back equal amounts till the usual mid freg phase cancellation goes away. The tone is perfect for the music we play, and I didn't even pick up my Fender Jaguar at our gig Feb.3rd. We played almost 2 1/2 hours without a break, and I only retuned the bass once, which is amazing considering how hard I have to play to get the tone Geddy got in the 70's. It's the only bass I've ever payed list price for, and I don't regret it. The cost was a little less painful because I got it while our state wasn't required to collect sales tax on internet purchases.

A couple in Ruby Red up at Wilcutt now:

Can any owner here confirm the measurement from nut to 12th fret, please? Thanks!

I Reckon a fully blacked out version with crushed pearl inlays would be amazing hopefully Wilcutt will consider doing a batch of those they seemed to have sold out really quickly must be popular.