Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I recently noticed that the neck pup on my 75 4001 has more output than the bridge pup. When selecting the neck pup and the middle position with the toggle switch there is no change in volume. But when the bridge pup is selected the volume drops considerably.

I recently had the neck pup rewound by Lollar Guitars, and the ohms on both pups are about the same.

Any suggestions?

Are you in the Seattle area?

If so maybe a visit is in order .

But if not ...these are some things to check,

the neck pickup is not really height adjustable and should not be forced .It should be screwed up to touch the guard and nothing more.More pressure will and does crack the guard.

Once that is checked and varified,we move to the bridge pickup .This is usually hotter than the neck pickup.Reason...?You have the adjustable factor.

Press all the strings down at the last fret ,

Raise the pickup ,using a #2 Phillips screw driver.Raise it until the treble side is about 1/16" to 3/32" away from the G string .

Do the same on the bass side ,but keep the pickup about 1/16" lower.This will give you a good balance on the string volume .

Now plug in and check the output.Is there still a difference?

Jason is a very knowledgeable pickup and guitar man .But his knowledge of guitars is Fender and Gibson driven .At least to the best of my knowledge.We are in the same general area but have never met .I would not know him if he knocked on my front door.

Winding coils is (when you know how to do it and have the setup)not rocket science ,but we sure love the mystery of it !It makes us the alchemist of the times.

Do you have a volt/ohm meter?
What is the resistance of both coils ?

Did he reverse wind one of these?

Is the lead the same shielded cable?

Thanks Mark. Unfortunately I live on the east side of the state, otherwise you would probably be seeing a lot of me!

I'll check the pup heights and resistance tonight, but this is what I can tell you now:

I can't quite remember what the resistance of the pups are (either 7 or 10 ohms), but both pups read the same resistance.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by reverse wound coils. If the neck pup was reverse wound, wouldn't that produce a humbucking effect when both pups were selected? The pups aren't out of phase with each other (i.e. no drop in volume when both pups are selected).

The lead is the original shielded cable.

I was in fact trying to figure out if the coil was out of phase ....good one !

Check the height and then lets go from there .The resisitance is the next check ....then it's ,well lets do that all first.

And yes the reverse winding would give you a hum canceling effect in the middle selection on the switch.

Mark, how about getting Dan to bypass the .0047 capacitor on the bridge pick-up. The output on my 72 4001 doubled when I did this. I was complaining about the same low output from the bridge p/u as Dan, before I found out about bypassing the .0047 capacitor.
Over the years i've recommended this to lots of 4001 owners, and all were amazed and very happy with the results.
Cheers

bassman, I thought about that. When I got the neck pup back, I removed the .0047 cap and replaced it with a straight lead. Now I'm beginning to wonder if I bypassed the right one. One more thing to check tonight.

Yes the .0047 cap will do that but it may not be the issue ...I thought we'd get the meter thing done first ....one thing at a time .

On a related bass issue, I have the Opposite
situation I helped a friend with. He has a '69 4001 he put a reissue horseshoe bridge PU in,but has a 60s toaster in the neck..When he assembled his bass out of parts new and old, he put a 60s harness in it. Last I saw it, we plugged it in, and the bridge PU just overshadowed the neck PU alot.The neck by itself did not seem particularly weak, had a nice deep tone to it, but the bridge PU just overpowered it.
I had him go home and open it up to see if there was the .0047 cap in it[he didn't remember]and I sent him home with one just in case.Turns out there was no .0047 in it, and upon installing
it, he said he was Amazed at the positive transformation that took place.The PUs were now nicely balanced! So you see, this problem Can go both ways.

I checked the reistance of the pups through the jack and got the following:

neck - 8.5ohm
both - 55.6ohms
bridge - 55.6ohms

I then removed the pickguard and checked the wiring and found a short under the bridge pup. After fixing that, I got these results:

neck - 8.5ohms
both - 4.2ohms
bridge - 7.7ohms

The output of the pups are relatively the same now, and the bass has regained it's lively tone.

Thanks for the help.