The Rickenbacker Club Part Seven

[sloppy_phil]

Originally Posted by sgiacomo

Introducing my Dorothy, 2012 Ruby Red.
Sorry about the rotated pic, busy playin...

Nice stereo set-up; I imagine that would sound pretty killer!

[willsellout]

Originally Posted by sloppy_phil

Nice stereo set-up; I imagine that would sound pretty killer!

Stereo? Looked to be just plugged in straight.

**edit** I see it's plugged into two inputs, but going through one cab? I though for stereo you needed separate rigs basically?

[sgiacomo]

Ya, have read lots of debates about definition of stereo with Ricks. Basically the Ric O Sound takes a 1/4" stereo cable out from the bass so that the signals from the bridge pickup(treble) and the neck pickup(bass) can be split and sent to separate amps/channels. In this case I am running bass pup to the bass channel, and treble pup to the normal channel. I like it, I like it a lot.

[thiocyclist]

Originally Posted by willsellout

Stereo? Looked to be just plugged in straight.

**edit** I see it's plugged into two inputs, but going through one cab? I though for stereo you needed separate rigs basically?

You can use ROS as two signals being processed separately and re-joined. Which I think would be more useful than a true stereo rig anyway.

[willsellout]

Gotcha, learn something new every day.

[Ric5]

Ric-o-sound was designed to run the signal from one bass into 2 different amps. It works best to run the neck pickup into a clean bassy amp and the bridge pickup into a distorted amp with mids and treble. It actually sounds pretty good. I tried it once at home. Most of the Rics that I played did not have Ric-o-sound. My 1968 4001 was mono. The 4003s5 basses are also mono, and the 4004 basses that I play these days are mono.

[sgiacomo]

She sounds fantastic split across the Bassman channels, I was pleasantly surprised. Obviously no booming low end with this setup but a killer tone. Love my Fenders but my Ruby Red Dorothy growls like no other in mono as well. Next on my experiment list is to send only the treble pup to my Bassman (probably jump normal/bass channels) while sending the bass pup to my Genz Benz.

[sloppy_phil]

The Ric-O-Sound is cool, if perhaps a bit limited. It's great for my Rush cover band, and I even manage to make it work for my reggae/funk band. This track by my band has the neck p'up DI and the bridge pickup through an Ampeg Micro VR stack. I can really get the best of both worlds this way! It's not always the sound I need, but it can be pretty awesome!

[Jazzstick]

My 4003 and my 4001cs newly purchased I hope I can get it into 100% playing condition the neck may have a bit of a "pull" to deal with. Does anyone know of a very good Rickenbacker setup guy in or near Connecticut?

And can I join the club?

thanks
Brett

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by Jazzstick

...the neck may have a bit of a "pull" to deal with.

thanks
Brett

?

[Spectrum]

I've experimented with Ric-o-sound at home using by old Peavey Basic 40 for the neck pickup and one of those little Danelectro Honeytone guitar amps, the little battery-powered jobs with the belt clip, for the bridge pickup. Sounds awesome in a low-volume living room setting.

I also used it at band practice with neck pickup into my Ampeg Portaflex rig and bridge pickup into a cheapo Crate guitar amp. Sounds great, but needs a better guitar amp if I'm going to gig with it.

The best thing about this is that the volume controls on the bass make it easy to adjust your sound very quickly. The downside is that with two signal chains you can't run both pickups through your pedals anymore. I'm looking at switch box options so I can toggle between Ric-o-sound and mono into the Ampeg rig. If anybody has done this, please let us know how.

Ric-o-sound is great for tech geeks like me, and it's one of the coolest things about Rics. When I showed it to my band their eyes bugged out.

[bill reed]

[quote=Spectrum;13554789]I've experimented with Ric-o-sound at home using by old Peavey Basic 40 for the neck pickup and one of those little Danelectro Honeytone guitar amps, the little battery-powered jobs with the belt clip, for the bridge pickup. Sounds awesome in a low-volume living room setting.


The best thing about this is that the volume controls on the bass make it easy to adjust your sound very quickly. The downside is that with two signal chains you can't run both pickups through your pedals anymore. I'm looking at switch box options so I can toggle between Ric-o-sound and mono into the Ampeg rig. If anybody has done this, please let us know how.

QUOTE]

I did this on my old hondo bass but i used a stereo Jack rather then two mono jacks, that way I only had the one cable out the bass, it went into a spliter box that i made and then the bridge and neck pick-up into two of the 6 channels of my 200 watt pa, like you said you have so much more control over the set up of both pickups, and you can have the bridge pick-up with more treble and the neck with more bottom. it lets you mix so many more blends of the pick-ups.
i think a lot of Ric players dont use the Ric-o-sound and they could get so much more out there bass if the did.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

Replace with tubing; search YT for a video that shows how the rods are created and installed by RIC, it is a section in a vid showing a tour/history of Rickenbacker. Joey's Bass Notes will give you required info too, search for that, also.

I think this is the video. Somewhere around 8 minutes in the factory tech shows how the rods are heatshrinked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEuqg...ure=g-high-rec

The whole vid is awesome and drool-inducing.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by bill reed

I did this on my old hondo bass but i used a stereo Jack rather then two mono jacks, that way I only had the one cable out the bass, it went into a spliter box

That's also how Ric-o-sound works. ROS-equipped basses have two output jacks, a mono jack and a stereo jack. You only use one at a time.

The instructions that come with the bass say not to use both at the same time but it doesn't say what happens; I'm guessing it creates a black hole which destroys the earth. Rics are kind of powerful and quirky that way.

[Duke21]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

I think this is the video. Somewhere around 8 minutes in the factory tech shows how the rods are heatshrinked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEuqg...ure=g-high-rec

The whole vid is awesome and drool-inducing.

Thanks you and Scott for helping out here!

[sgiacomo]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

That's also how Ric-o-sound works. ROS-equipped basses have two output jacks, a mono jack and a stereo jack. You only use one at a time.

The instructions that come with the bass say not to use both at the same time but it doesn't say what happens; I'm guessing it creates a black hole which destroys the earth. Rics are kind of powerful and quirky that way.

LOL!!! Yup, only use one at a time due to complex switching that occurs...

[bill reed]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

That's also how Ric-o-sound works. ROS-equipped basses have two output jacks, a mono jack and a stereo jack. You only use one at a time.

The instructions that come with the bass say not to use both at the same time but it doesn't say what happens; I'm guessing it creates a black hole which destroys the earth. Rics are kind of powerful and quirky that way.

that would be why you need the Ric-o-sound box to spit the signals to two outputs.
i think it does give you a lot more options when you can output each pick-up to a diffrent amp. suprised that Ric seemed to be the only one that does it!!!

[mccartneyman]

I always though the best way to use the Rick-O-Sound with effects is to run effects on one pickup only. This way you can solve the age-old problem of, say, having a fuzz strip all the bottom out of your sound. Still need two amps, but you will have one amp with clean signal and one with effects. You'd need two DIs, too, of course.

[Niff]

glamour shot of my 4001 for you guys, ha.

[sgiacomo]

Originally Posted by Niff

glamour shot of my 4001 for you guys, ha.

Cool!