Ricks shipped with flats and the warranty was voided if the owner used roundwounds, at least until the 4003 came out with more neck reinforcement.
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70s fender precision basses with factory flats
- Thread starter wolfkeller
- Start date
Ricks shipped with flats and the warranty was voided if the owner used roundwounds, at least until the 4003 came out with more neck reinforcement.
My understanding - which may be incorrect - is that the frets on older Ricks were made out material that got chewed up by Roto 66s very quickly hence the void of warranty as a detrimental measure against using them...
I've used Rickenbacker flats on a couple of basses and don't recall them being all that stiff. Many flats in the old days came in light-ish gauges...Gibson's factory flats were something like 55-95 in the early '70s, and that was short scale...
That's true - sorta. 4001's with the neck pickup right under the fretboard, had a pickup route that was... well, let's just say - overly large... and it removed most of the wood just where the neck transitioned into the center body block. Which resulted - in some cases - of the resulting thin, skinny piece of wood that was left, acting like a hinge; and, under string tension, let the entire neck rise up - like drawbridge opening. Rick owner's call it "negative neck angle". And so; putting any strings on your Rick - rounds or flats - that were higher tension than the factory round core, 45-103 Maxima #4440's - would void your warranty. The Roto 66's eating the frets - much as people like to believe - wasn't the reason they'd void your warranty. While they definitely could eat your 4001's frets? It was their higher tension, and the possibility of folding your bass in half, that would void the warranty. Frets can be replaced comparatively easily. OTOH, stripping the bass down to bare wood; steaming it back flat; and rebuilding/refinishing it? Not so much...
Plus; that's assuming that you still had a warranty. RIC had - and probably still does have - this little trick in the fine print; the bass's warranty starts when it leaves the factory - NOT when you buy it. Which is the reason you'll wind up needing to go through your dealer, most of the time...The last years that the 4001's were made, had the neck pickup moved to the position that it is now on the 4003's. And, they quit routing a hole big enough for 2 pickups to party in. The neck's didn't have more reinforcement, really. My '01 4003's neck is every bit as skinny as the neck on my '73 4001. And the 3-ply neck was a thing, before my '73 4001 was made. My 4001 is beginning to show the first signs of the neck problem; my 4003 is not - and probably never will. Especially since it wears Optima 4440 RB ("Rickenbacker Bass") Flats; their clones of the original low-ish tension, original Rick Maxima Flats...
And, as for the "factory string" thing now? About 10 years ago, the members of the Rick Resource Owner's Forum (Me included) backed the then CEO - John Hall - into a corner, and "persuaded" him to change the string policy. Any round wound strings would thenceforth be OK - and not void the warranty - as long as "they were the equivalent of Rick's factory round wounds". As for Flat wounds? There are some - like TI Jazz Flats, at the time - that would have probably passed muster. There's probably still a list, somewhere on the RR owner's Forum, with all the strings - at the time it was made - that had not voided a member's warranty. Not so much an "approved" list, as a "didn't void my warranty" one... So... that "failure to use approved strings" policy, while pretty reasonable for the 4001's - was, IMO, just a "weasel out" policy for a long time, after they introduced the 4003...
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Maybe it isn't what you are going for back then but your recordings just scream Vancouver. Has to be something in the water. Those sound awesome. I saw DOA with Chuck Biscuits on tour with The D+cks it was pretty mind blowing. So loud.Same here - born in 64 and played hardcore in the early 80's. In my case I managed to get an Aria Pro II SB600. I was using Rotosound RS66 and Bass Boomers IIRC, going for more of a Klaus Flouride tone.
I managed to save some audio and put it here:
unknownfibres
Listen to unknownfibres | SoundCloud is an audio platform that lets you listen to what you love and share the sounds you create.soundcloud.com
My string of choice on the mighty Peavey Foundation was Rotos as well. It isn't like you can't get flats to sound pretty much like rounds and rounds mostly like flats. I don't think it mattered much for my band as long as I held down the low end. If you listen to the bass on this record you can't tell if I was using flats or rounds.
Thanks! For sure DOA was a big influence. Chuck Biscuits was amazing! We worshipped them, the KTels/Young Canadians, the Subhumans, Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys.
I'm enjoying listening to your stuff - thx for posting that!
Thx. It is interesting how much an area can influence hardcore and punk bands. If you look at bands early on there were these pockets of similar sounds even today. For awhile there was a bunch of NYHC bands that sound YOT for a bit, then there was everyone sound like fill in the blank here, Madball, SOIA, AF, etc....
The Boston scene was for a while pretty diverse. I was "hanging out in the scene a little bit" when I was super young, so when I joined The Catatonics we shifted to a Jerry Kids crossed with Metal and Discharge sound. One area influencing another area. Especially since record distribution sucked and half of your collection came out of ordering things out of MR&R.
