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Another weak ric pickup thread.

jucas

jucas

Dec 14, 2003
2,048
8
42
Alberta
#1
Well, sorry to start another thread about this, but my search didn't help much.

Got a ric not to long ago. A few years old, seems to work ok... but the output seems pretty quiet, and the bridge is way weaker than the neck pickup. So much that both pickups sounds the same as the neck alone.

Tried a hight adjustment, and with the bridge so high its distorting and the neck so low its ready to fall out its still the same.

I dunno... I'm kinda at a loss and don't think that I should be thinking about a replacement yet.
 
#2
Bump for thoughts? Just went throught the wiring with a multimeter and everything looked about the way it should... but the bridge pickup is painfully low in volume.

Vintage switch didn't sound like it was making a difference, but measured like it was doing its job...

Any thoughts? How do I measure a pickup?
 
#3
Assuming this is a 4001/4003, which of the two output jacks are you plugging into? Just wanted to make sure you're not plugged into the Ric-O-Sound stereo jack with a mono plug, since that will only give you the output from one pickup (the neck, I think)...
 
#5
Assuming that you have a recent 4003 with the push/pull pot, what happens if you solo the bridge pickup? Do you hear any difference between up/down positions? If not, maybe the switch has failed, or the wiring is wrong? The bridge pickup should be much louder with the bass-cut capacitor out of the circuit (standard). On mine (1982 4001), the bridge is louder than the neck if run full range, but quieter than the neck if the bridge bass-cut is engaged.
 
#6
Hi the pickups of my seventies 4001 are on the weak side too (but not that much, that I would mind). If you can, you should meassure the resistance of the pickups. Should be around 8-10 kOhms (mine are like 7 or so), though I don't know if that applies to the newer Ricks as well.
 
#7
12bass said:
The bridge pickup should be much louder with the bass-cut capacitor out of the circuit (standard). On mine (1982 4001), the bridge is louder than the neck if run full range, but quieter than the neck if the bridge bass-cut is engaged.
Click to expand...

This is not my experience, on Rics with two high gain pickups as most of them have.

If the bass has a toaster in the neck position and then a high gain in the bridge, and the high pass cap is either switched out or was removed or never installed, then yeah the bridge is the hotter of the two, but not by much.

Generally speaking bridge pickups should always be quieter and brighter than neck pickups, unless the two pickups are of different types or considerably different output, or something (like the high pass cap or a volume or tone control) is downstream in the circuit and affecting volume (due to a setting or a problem).
 
#8
Don't have a recent 4003 to compare. However, the older basses were designed with the bass-cut capacitor in mind - perhaps wound hotter? Bridge sounds pretty wimpy on its own, but take out the bass-cut capacitor and the bridge gets louder than the neck, at least that's the case with my 1982 (with two "high gains"). Also, from what I've gathered, Ric has altered the winding of their pickups somewhat over the years, so not sure what other model years might be like.
 
#9
Pickup coils made in the usual ways have a certain natural variation. It's possible that they select hotter pickups at the factory for the bridge position, but my guess would have been that they just grab two pickups out of a bin and put them wherever. Especially in the old days.

If true, that could explain how your bass could be hotter at the bridge and the OPs hotter at the neck (above and beyond the natural difference in volume from those respective positions).

If the difference was big enough to warrant the troubleshooting, what I would do next is just swap the two pickups, which may be possible without unsoldering if there's enough wire on the bridge pickup to reach the neck position.
 
#10
Well... to start, the OP's bass is not working normally. Also, the Ric 400x uses neck and bridge pickups with different designs which are not at all interchangeable. So, there's no way to mistakenly (or deliberately!) use a neck pickup at the bridge position (or vice versa).

Not sure how this sidetrack addresses the OP's problem.... :/
 
#11
12bass said:
Well... to start, the OP's bass is not working normally.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure we know that. Without hearing it, it's unclear from the description whether we are talking about the normal volume difference between bridge and neck pickups, or an actual problem.

I can't remember how easy or hard it is to separate the bridge pickup coil from the base, or how big the route is for the neck pickup, so maybe it is possible to switch them, or maybe not. But the bridge high gain is essentially the same thing as the neck version other than the way it is mounted, which is only there to preserve the appearance of the earlier basses that needed the metal ring and cover for the horseshoe pickup

jucas, if you can post DC resistance for each pickup, at least that will shed some light as to whether the bridge pickup might have some shorted turns on the coil, which can happen sometimes in such a way that the pickup still passes a weak signal. It's possible although wouldn't have been my first guess.
 
#12
Yeah, I really don't think it's working right. The volume difference between the two is massive. Not just a bit weaker in the bridge, but I need to crank my amp way higher than with any other bass or guitar to get anything.

Not sure about the switch. It measures ok (continuity at all poles, bypasses the cap with a wire in "modern" position and breaks the connection for "vintage" to let the capacitor cut its lows.)

DC resistance in the circuit (I was too lazy to remove the solder... maybe on the weekend) was a bitunder 12k for both pickups. (I'm assuming I just measure resistance with my meter?)

Thanks for the suggestions though, the help is appreciated.

EDIT: restrung it and the switch seems to be doing nothing. I'm gonna try chaning the lugs on the switch and without the switch, although I don't fully understand how it could be measuring ok and then not working.
 
#13
Well, I know you've all been sitting in front of the computer waiting for this thread to get some resolution and I think your wait could be over.

I think that one of the volume pot lugs separated from its internal connection. If I short that side out the bass works perfectly, and I also can't get my meter to read the pots resistance from that lug. I'd assumed it was one of the external connections or switchs that went, not a bad pot.
 

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