Anyone actually use Rick-O-Sound?

[mellowinman]

I have heard it said that Squire did in fact double his baselines on guitar, on Fragile I think.

I dont know if this is true or not, it is the internet, after all.

It's true. Here's the Ric by itself:



Quoted from another forum (not my words)

Chris also plays a 12 string (Acoustic) an octave higher and is doubled right on top of this track on the studio. Chris shares many cool techniques and tips in a great interview in a book by Dan Hedges back in the 70’s. It features the who’s who of rock guitar and bass at the time including Beck, Page, Hackett, Rutherford, Chris, Howe, Harrison, Clapton, Frampton and many more. By the way, Tracy the fret noise is a signature part of his sound and no it’s not an Ampeg it’s a Marshall head with Sunn speakers. He started his first American tour with Sunn head and amp and for the next 6 tours but eventually went back to his Marshall with two Sunns with a custom speaker configuration. For Studio it’s the Marshall with a low powered 4×12″ speakers config.

I have read conflicting posts; some say one of Howe's electrics, other say a different bass, but there seems to be more than one interview saying he double tracked in real time.

 

[rusheroo]

Did Geddy run his in Stereo? I know Squire modified his old V63 to run stereo, and you can really hear it in the old Yes recordings. There is the warm Macca bass in the background with the treble clank up front, sounds like two separate basses or double-tracking. I have literally never seen another bassist (besides me) try it live, and I only did it twice that I can remember.

Geddy did always run his stereo. IMO he had the best 4001 tones I've ever heard (not just because he's my favorite bassist). He always changed his tone between albums and my personal favorite tone of his is when Rush played live at the 1979 Pinkpop Festival. My goal is to get a Ric and reach that tone someday

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Geddy is probably my second favorite living bassist after Squire, both Bass Gods and masters of tone. A Ric is nearly essential to that tone, but they both processed it a lot to get that sound. I couldn't afford to sound like Geddy!

 

[JMacBass65]

It's true. Here's the Ric by itself:



Quoted from another forum (not my words)

Chris also plays a 12 string (Acoustic) an octave higher and is doubled right on top of this track on the studio. Chris shares many cool techniques and tips in a great interview in a book by Dan Hedges back in the 70’s. It features the who’s who of rock guitar and bass at the time including Beck, Page, Hackett, Rutherford, Chris, Howe, Harrison, Clapton, Frampton and many more. By the way, Tracy the fret noise is a signature part of his sound and no it’s not an Ampeg it’s a Marshall head with Sunn speakers. He started his first American tour with Sunn head and amp and for the next 6 tours but eventually went back to his Marshall with two Sunns with a custom speaker configuration. For Studio it’s the Marshall with a low powered 4×12″ speakers config.

I have read conflicting posts; some say one of Howe's electrics, other say a different bass, but there seems to be more than one interview saying he double tracked in real time.

That is such an amazing sound!

Not sure what double tracking w/ guitar would do to improve upon it really.

 

[Jaco Taco]

Rickenbacker Basses offer stereo output - they do to this day - I recall that it used to be called "rick-o-sound" (don't know if they still call it that!) - -

That always seemed silly to me - but then, I never owned a rick. Can any of you rick owners shed some light on this, and if it's a dandy feature, tell us how that is please?

Bi-amping is very cool. Guys like Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, and John Entwistle bi-amped for a reason, and that reason is killer tone.

 

[mellowinman]

I love that this particular discussion has been going on for seven years.

 

[Jeff Scott]

Bi-amping is very cool. Guys like Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, and John Entwistle bi-amped for a reason, and that reason is killer tone.

Let's not mix up our technical terms and definitions, it only serves to confuse, in the long run, thanks. Bi-amping is something totally different from what they do/did.

 

[Jaco Taco]

Let's not mix up our technical terms and definitions, it only serves to confuse, in the long run, thanks. Bi-amping is something totally different from what they do/did.

It is??? How? I thought they bi-amped via Ric-o-sound.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

The Best Squire sound I've heard on the Net, I think this guy is a TB'er too:

Check out where he reaches over and de-tunes the E to D at 30:00, damn this guy can play!

Mark, if you see this, enlighten me, do you use the Ric-O-Sound, or is this just mono? Incredible playing, BTW.

 

[Jeff Scott]

It is??? How? I thought they bi-amped via Ric-o-sound.

Bi-amping (or tri-amping as in the following example) is a method where crossovers are used to split up the frequency band, such as in a pro PA system where the various drivers are driven from separate amplifiers, post crossover. This way the bass cabinets are limited to just the bass frequencies, for example, only up to 200Hz, the the mid cabinets would, say, reproduce the range from 200Hz to 2KHz, the the high frequency cabinet/horns would cover from 2KHz on up. I am sure you are familiar with this concept as it has been around for many decades, now.

ROS is just sending each individual pickup to a different amp, those of course, could be bi-amped (such as with a SWR SM-900 or Gallien-Krueger 800RB, both of which have crossovers in them) but most folks just run the pickups into full range bass or guitar amps. I suppose this could be called multi-amping but that really suggests running a single source to more than one amp at a time, with no crossover to divide the frequency band up to various smaller segments, like with a Y-cable from the output of a bass.

 

[Jaco Taco]

The Best Squire sound I've heard on the Net, I think this guy is a TB'er too:

Check out where he reaches over and de-tunes the E to D at 30:00, damn this guy can play!

Mark, if you see this, enlighten me, do you use the Ric-O-Sound, or is this just mono? Incredible playing, BTW.

There's another guy on youtube that I'm particular fond of when it comes to Squire comping, it's this guy. He's great.
miguelbass - YouTube

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Yep, he's real good, dug the Astral Traveler cover with the CS signature Ric.

 

[JMacBass65]

The Best Squire sound I've heard on the Net, I think this guy is a TB'er too:

Check out where he reaches over and de-tunes the E to D at 30:00, damn this guy can play!

Mark, if you see this, enlighten me, do you use the Ric-O-Sound, or is this just mono? Incredible playing, BTW.

OK, first - what an awesome sound (and the playing ain't too shabby either.

I didn't notice until I saw him reach down and put the pup selector in the middle, but Heart of the Sunrise was all neck pup until around the 6 minute mark in the vid when he flips it to the middle and plays those chords and then the arpeggios. And MAN - you can hear the treble from that bridge pup, clearly there is the "cap" on that one.

Correction - I see it was both pups unit about 4:30, which jives with the tone I was hearing at the intro.

I'll note that my 4003 CANNOT cop that neck pup sound. Can't describe the difference exactly, but it aint the same. Assume it's the high gain pup and pup position that makes the difference.

 

[Jeff Scott]

The old toasters do have a much clearer tone to them.

 

[DigitalMan]

I'll be happy when we stop misapplying the word stereo to two channel output.

 

[JMacBass65]

The old toasters do have a much clearer tone to them.

So the bell like top end clarity, along with the full low end, is a toaster thing??

Think I would do OK w/ a toaster in the modern 1" position, I'd rather not carve up the body.

 

[Jeff Scott]

Sure, they are my favorite pickups for all positions!

 

[rarbass]

But live this seems wasted. In a live situation, most of the nice subtleties of tone that we players love tend to get washed out by guitars/keys/cymbals...

I think Geddy did it to get his signature tone, even live. Check out his tone on Exit Stage Left. Depends on the kind of music you play, of course.

EDIT: landed here on a Google search, forgot how old the thread was. Oops.

 

[Deleted member 264575]

Bumped again.

Yes.

This way you can put an effect on one pickup (say, distortion on the horseshoe) and leave the other pickup (toaster) clean and you get distortion and clean with no bottom drop out. You can blend the level of effect vs. clean using the volume pedals. You can also switch pickups using the volume pedals, hands free with no 'click'. Blending the 2 pickups/sounds using the volume pedals is a lot of fun and sounds amazing. Maybe put a touch of Tremolo, Chorus, Reverb, or Flange on the clean sound? Just set it up and press the volume pedal. Too much effect? Back off the volume pedal. It's like driving a car. Gas/Brake. It does work well. BTW, I mix it all to mono before my amp, or the send signal to the FOH.

 

[OKBill]

I love that this particular discussion has been going on for seven years.

Make that nine!!

I use ROS in a unique "save my hearing" scheme.

I have tinnitus plus some hearing loss in the high frquencies. I play at church, where we use both IEMs and for me, an on stage Fender bass amp. I run a stereo guitar cable from my RIC into a simple home made splitter box, and that sends my neck pickup through my Boss TU-3 and Boss NS-2 and then back to the amp, and on to the sound booth. My bridge pickup goes straight to a Shure PSM200 wireless transmitter where I mix it with the composite vocals-drums-piano-guitars-click output from a Hear Back on stage mixer before its transmitted to my clip-on Shure IEM receiver.

I use Shure SE-315 IEMs and custom silicone sleeves in my ears for basic hearing protection, and around that I wear ordinary 3M safety earmuffs from Home Depot to kill all of the onstage decibels which would otherwise aggravate my tinnitus for days at a time.

So the bottom line for me now is I have virtually total control of all sound sources entering my brain, with the ability to adjust my in ear mix on the fly and make my own intrument dominant over "everybody else", thanks to ROS and a dual channel wireless receiver.