Ric vs. Jazz

[songwriter21]

Check it out.

No contest...playability on a Jazz, alone, blows away a plastic-feeling Ric any day of the week, especially the Rics with that annoying binding that digs into your forearm.

 

[FunkHead]

My car has an arm rest. My bass doesn’t.

 

[micguy]

I think the fact that Jazz pickups hum cancel when played together had the effect of boosting mids too.

Pickup positions (all of them) impart comb filtering on the signal - a comb filter is a filter where the response goes up and down with frequency - in this case lots of times within the audible range. The comb filter is more complex when there are 2 (or more) pickups involved. For a J setup, the thing you hear most is a dip in the response that's in the mid frequencies - exactly where you can't say; it's different on every string - the E string's first dip is a musical fourth lower than the dip on the A string, and so forth. When you play chords (or muted notes) on a strat in positions 2 or 4, you hear a "quack" - the sound is the result of your ear hearing the filtering/dip change on every string

This comb filter has an interesting phenomenon, though - you can alter the comb filter (and thus the timbre of a note) by playing the same note on a different string - we all know this, which is why we play things in different locations to get different sounds. Another interesting coincidence is that the relative locations of a Jazz neck pickup and a Rick bridge pickup are about a musical fourth apart in the fraction of the string length they are from the bridge. This means, if you play a note on a Jazz bass, with the neck pickup soloed, and the same note on a Ric with the bridge pickup soloed, but play it one string lower (but higher up on the neck), the comb filtering will be the same. Any differences you hear are related to other factors (pickups, wood, fret materials, strings, etc).

 

[micguy]

No contest...playability on a Jazz, alone, blows away a plastic-feeling Ric any day of the week, especially the Rics with that annoying binding that digs into your forearm.

My first bass was a Ric 4001. I never felt it was "plastic-feeling", but the annoying edge - absolutely agree.

 

[LetItGrowTone]

I've said this before, sorry: micguy is the greatest of them all.

 

[micguy]

I've said this before, sorry: micguy is the greatest of them all.

I'm that kid that, in grade school, actually liked word problems in Math. Pursue that long enough, and they make you a Physicist. Couple that with being a musician, and this is what you get. Glad I can be helpful; thanks for the nice words.

 

[woodyng2]

Like Willie said, one of each.
2 of the most distinctive classic designs in electric bassdom.
My current Rick/Jazz choices are what i consider to be “modernised” versions of the classic designs.
Rick 4004 and GL JB2.

 

[staurosjohn]

I better take a Dramamine. Good comparison, but my motion sickness just kicked in. Blyyyaaatt.

Yah… vertigo kicked-in before I made it thru 10sec