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New Rickenbacker 4030!

#21
Gilmourisgod said:
Zon Basses use something called "famowood" for their fingerboards, I Know it's been used for knife scales for years. Pretty sure this one Michael Manring plays is the same material, or another very much like Richlite. It's the "responsible" way to treat a dwindling natural resource. Sounds pretty good to me!
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Phenowood. I had a few Zons with it.
 
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#24
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#25
Gilmourisgod said:
I tried "Rocklite Ebano", which is some kind of actual wood infused with resin and jet black dye, it looks nearly identical to ebony, and machines and sands like any other hardwood. Unfortunately that company went under during Covid, but now there are a bunch of companies experimenting with (and selling) ebony and rosewood substitutes. Let the violin and cello makers have the true jet black ebony, IMO (while it lasts). The knock I've heard on Richlite is that it's basically compressed layers of paper, infused with resin and dye, so it can have "witness marks" where the final sanding exposes the transition from one layer to another. Not seeing that on the 4030 pics, in which case looks good to me. It's a very hard, dense material that mimics ebony pretty well. The Squire Vintage Modified Fretless Jazz used a lined Richlite "Ebanol" board, and it "mwahs" like a champ. Maybe the cork sniffers could hear some incredibly subtle tonal difference between that and ebony, I myself could not.
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I have a bass coming with "Obsidian Ebony" as the fretboard. It's a resin impregrated and dyed thermally modifed (roasted) maple, so it is solid wood.

thermalwoodcanada.com

Obsidian Ebony -

Hear what the experts have to say! In an effort to learn more about our product through the eyes of instrument and furniture builders, ThermalWood Canada sent Obsidian samples all over the world. None of these videos are paid promotions, these were all made with the understanding that if they...
thermalwoodcanada.com thermalwoodcanada.com

I'd personally have no issue with Richlite or Rocklite or whatever other alternative wood/composite product. I've never really derived a lot of tone difference from fretboard woods and I've played and owned basses with a lot of different woods and carbon fibre and whatever the heck Bass Lab basses are made out of and in no case did I feel that the fretboard material was degrading the tone.
 
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#27
Isaac_James said:
I'm of the opinion that the wood in the fretboard matters somewhat
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I've got basses with ebony, maple, rosewood, pau ferro, Indian laurel, and ebonite synthetic fingerboards. The only difference I've ever detected among them is their cosmetics. There was no difference in tone or playability.

I've also tried swapping different necks on a few FSOs in the past to test the sonic effects of different fretboard materials. And to my ears, along with the ears of a few musician friends mine, it didn't make any difference at all in terms of tone. Not to say it may not make a difference in every circumstance. But l came away from those experiments still maintaining that 99.9% of the tone you hear is from a combination of your: pickups, strings, amp/cab, and playing technique. Everything else either doesn't - or doesn't audibly - affect the tone of "the bass."
 
#29
Basically, it's a 4003 with a short-scale fretboard (and bridge repositioned accordingly). Same body, same neck, same total length, same bulk.
(The 24th fret precludes the neck pickup from being located there; however, the rear pickup might be where it usually is on a Rick, i.e. at the virtual 36" location, or thereabouts.)

The concept - a short-scale bass that feels like a long-scale one, because it's actually the same size - seems similar to the Fender/Squier Rascal, only with more frets available.
 
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#30
So are they putting these into production or is this just another one-off?

I guy near me home made one from scratch and did a respectable job, minus the cheapo knockoff pickups. Nordenbockers fixed that. It was a cool axe, but I purged it off to a local.
 
#31
cornfarmer said:
So are they putting these into production or is this just another one-off?

I guy near me home made one from scratch and did a respectable job, minus the cheapo knockoff pickups. Nordenbockers fixed that. It was a cool axe, but I purged it off to a local.
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I randomly contacted Rickenbacker at the beginning of October and asked how many would I have to order and how much would it cost.. They told me to wait/contact willcutt because they had just ordered another batch. I'm waiting to hear from willcutt as I requested to be on their waiting list so we'll see how that goes.. not sure I actually want one considering they're full sized.. but it seems like they'll do production runs if the price is right? Would be sweet if we could get the preorder numbers high enough for rickenbacker to make a true scaled-down short scale
 
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#34
Nolan Tremblay said:
I'd personally have no issue with Richlite or Rocklite or whatever other alternative wood/composite product. I've never really derived a lot of tone difference from fretboard woods and I've played and owned basses with a lot of different woods and carbon fibre and whatever the heck Bass Lab basses are made out of and in no case did I feel that the fretboard material was degrading the tone.
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There's a bunch of blind test videos floating around comparing maple and rosewood fingerboards, the results are fairly predictable: people can't tell the difference with their ears, but "hear" a snappier tone from maple with their eyes. If there is a difference, its vanishingly small, I can't hear it. . I had an extremely hard and glassy smooth polyester coating put on an ebony Jazz board by Pedulla years ago, when they still did side jobs like that. It definitely sounds different than a raw ebony board, but it's the coating, not the board. I'm guessing you'd hear a similar difference with a CA coated board.
 
#36
FRoss6788 said:
Seems the reach would be the same as a long scale with the bridge positioned that far up the body. Weird.:eyebrow:
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This is exactly why I like the 4030. The reach to the nut is the same as a 4003, but the finger spread is a little shorter. My muscle memory transfers from one bass to the other with no problems. Now if they would only make a fretless...
 
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#37
Bass4ThePublic said:
Looks pretty cool! Hot toasters with the short scale sounds like it would sound absolutely enormous, especially through my SUNN.View attachment 7080639
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There are five of these for sale on Willcutt Guitars this morning. Now it has an ebony fret board. Bass Guitars

Screen Shot 2024-12-15 at 7.25.45 AM.png
 
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