70's Univox Stereo Bass - Rickenbacker Clone Sound

I wouldn't turn my nose up at a Univox. It'll be good build quality (I'd surmise) but I couldn't say much more until you show us some pix?

 

I owned one of these briefly in the mid 90s. Mine didn't really get that Rick sound at all...to my ears, it sounded more like a generic P bass with the neck pickup only. The bridge pickup gave me nothing but a clacking sound, even when I wasn't using a pick. What gives?

So, off came the pickguard and into the electronics I went, hoping to find some obvious reason why the bridge pickup sounded odd. What I found was a capacitor in the bridge pickup circuit that seemed to be bleeding all the lows off, no matter the tone setting. I unsoldered the cap and soldered a bit of hookup wire in its place to complete the circuit, and wouldn't you know things sounded much better? The bridge pickup actually sounded darn good just straight, and the bass began to sound Rick-ish with both pickups on.

I guess the answer is that it CAN sound like a Rick if you're willing to do some tweaking under the hood. Just my experience.

 

Had the trim been painted over or the red bled into it?

What kind of tuners has it got? Are they oval clovers or wavy Grovers?

 

Wavy Grovers, then. The screwed-in versions.

 

Better than the Rick poppovvs! Truly!

 

Buy that bass, fella.

 

I had a natural one a few years ago. It was beautiful and extremely well-made. I should have kept it, but I bought a second actual Rick and so it seemed a bit superfluous. It had a Bart replacement pickup in it that really did make it sound like a P-Bass.

 

That's the way 4001's and early 4003's were, they had a cap in the bridge pickup circuit also, so Univox really did their homework. When i bypassed the cap in my 79 4001 it was a revelation.

 

$300 is where I would start. That's fair considering there's some damage, although it probably won't affect the playability.

 

Yeah, try to get him down to 300 bucks, can't go wrong for that kind of money, then you can save up for a real one!