If you have a reputable tech in your area ask if they offer this service.My Luther in R.I. Noll Guitars does this and I believe it cost 60 bucks.I don't know where you live but chances are there's a shop nearby that can do it.
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Harley Benton RB414CS
- Thread starter kodiakblair
- Start date
To raise the bridge pickup, and also because it was a nuisance in the way all the time.
Now this has got me confused.
Can one of you please explain why you think the pickup cover hinders raising the pickup ?
The cover attaches via the pickup height machine screw. That screw goes through the mounting plate, under the mounting plate is a nut or washer then a spring. The machine screw then passes through the pickup caddy ; where it is secured on the underside by another nut. With Rics the caddy is threaded.
When you tighten the screw to raise the pickup, the screw below the caddy does the lifting.
Once the spring is compressed fully there is no further travel.
Where does the pickup cover enter into this process ?
It is above the mounting plate, all the work is being done below the mounting plate.
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The cover doesn't affect the pickup height. When the spring fully collapsed, that's your limitation. I removed the springs, cut one of them in half, and installed the two half springs and lifted the pickup up to where the two were more ballanced in output. Leaving the cover off is simply individual taste.
Yup! Right on the nose. IMHO that is a design flaw that should have been corrected early on by the folks at Thomann.
But in order to diagnose, unless one is lucky enough to stumble onto this or one of the other few places where the solution is noted, one is left to try and resolve this fault on their own.
Granted we aren't paying thousands of $$ for the bass. I'd be willing to bet that Thomann is selling thousands of them with full knowledge of this built in flaw.
Now you know that the cover played no part in raising the pickup.
How do you explain your "improved tone" after removing it ?
I just got my RB414CS out of the case for the first time since my bypass surgery last year. I'd forgotten just how screwy the wiring / 3-way switch set up is & the tone pots don't do diddley either. Anybody else ?
The switch doesn't select a pickup it just reverses the volume pots.
The switch doesn't select a pickup it just reverses the volume pots.
Sorry, perhaps a poor choice of words on my part. Until I removed the cover and cut the springs I couldn't raise the pickup high enough to get any appreciable volume and therefore "tone" out of the pickup.
@PaleAngel_90
Did you also forget to mention the spring cutting part ?
@Charlie28711
Nearly 7 years after I started the thread I still keep an eye on it and offer advice , if it's deemed worthwhile.
I see your post regarding pickup heights and covers. Now the cover part is incorrect and you neglected any mention of spring cutting. If I didn't draw attention to that ; this pickup cover/ pickup height myth would grow legs.
I'm sure you appreciate my position
Did you also forget to mention the spring cutting part ?
@Charlie28711
Nearly 7 years after I started the thread I still keep an eye on it and offer advice , if it's deemed worthwhile.
I see your post regarding pickup heights and covers. Now the cover part is incorrect and you neglected any mention of spring cutting. If I didn't draw attention to that ; this pickup cover/ pickup height myth would grow legs.
I'm sure you appreciate my position
I don't believe that I ever heard anything about the springs. I simply looked at the situation and saw that the springs were completely collapsed and thats what was preventing the pickup to come up. So that's when I cut the springs and achieved the height I needed.
I changed the pickup under the bridge because I was not satisfied with its sound. the humbucker under the neck sounds beautiful, but not the single on the bridge. I had the J pickup from the old ibanez and I did the transplant
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Has anyone attempted to move the neck pickup that's relatively in the same position as a real Rickenbacker bass? I'm considering doing it, because I've noticed that with my flatwound strings, I'm getting a distinctly different timbre than recordings of the Rickenbacker with flatwounds.
I’ve looked at other threads saying the pickup position is what gets the sound closer to a Rickenbacker more than the actual pickup model you’re using. I’m not stupid :/
If you put Ric Hi-Gains, with a Ric wiring harness, and brand new rounds on almost any bass with pickups in the Ric positions (theoretical 24th and 36th fret positions), it's going to sound a hell of a lot like a Ric. I highly doubt most people could tell the difference in a true blind test. The scale length is slightly different on Rics, 33.25" vs. standard 34", but fret to fret, the difference is neglible. The solid maple neck though construction on a Ric makes some difference in tone, but it's miniscule compared to the effect of pickups, strings and electronics, which is true for all solid-body electrics. I don't know much about the Harley Benton pickups, are they single coils? The Ric Hi-gains and tosters have a pretty distinct tone, particularly the bridge pickup.My G&L L2k, which has humbuckers with coil splitting, can do a half-decent Ric emulation in treble boost mode, but if you really want a Ric tone, buy a Ric, or at least the Ric electronics.
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The RB-414 has a single coil in the bridge position and a humbucker in the neck position. Some have said the neck pickup has a mud bucker-like quality to it. I should probably record a little demo of the bass with my Daddario Chromes on it for reference.
TBH, it's not wound high enough to attain 'mudbucker' status; it's just a pickup up by the neck.
Gibson Sidewinders were wound to over 30k ohm. DiMarzio's replacement, the Model One, dropped the wire count to 16k ohm and were at pains the mention 'lack of mud' in their sales blurb. Sentell took things a step further with their Sidewinder replacement, naming it the 'UnMudbucker'.
It's great to read, 10 years after I started this thread, there's another enjoying the RB414 in the neck position with flats; still have only fond memories of this bass
