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Rick-o-sound question

V

Vitamin Beer

Sep 17, 2012
18
18
Mildmay, Ontario
#1
Hello everyone.
This might be a stupid question but I've been looking for the answer and I'm not sure if I fully understand what I've come up with.
So I want to play my Rickenbacker in stereo. I only have a bass amp and cabs and a guitar combo amp.
The ric has the "vintage tone knob".
What I've done in my work shop in low volume is play the bridge pick up into my guitar amp and neck pickup in to my bass amp. I understand the guitar amp will be ok but will the low sound blow the speaker in the guitar amp?
All this is played with the vintage tone knob pulled up.
But my band is playing this weekend and I really want to rock the rick-o-sound.
Cheers
 
#3
Vitamin Beer said:
What I've done in my work shop in low volume is play the bridge pick up into my guitar amp and neck pickup in to my bass amp. I understand the guitar amp will be ok but will the low sound blow the speaker in the guitar amp?
All this is played with the vintage tone knob pulled up.
But my band is playing this weekend and I really want to rock the rick-o-sound.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Although the bridge pickup puts out far less low bass than the neck pickup, caution is still advised even if your running some very robust guitar speakers.

It really depends up how much power you push and the speakers you use. I used to run both pickups of my 4001 into a blackface Fender Twin driving a pair of JBL E120s. Basically that's an 85W amp pushing a pair of speakers with 300W of RMS of total power handling.

The cabinet was open back and the speakers stayed below their Xlim as long as I kept the Bass and Volume controls at 4 or lower. If I pushed the Volume or Bass higher and plucked hard, the drivers would make a clacking sound...not good. In other words, it took less than 85W to overload the JBLs.

Ric-O-Sound produced nice results running the bridge pickup to the Twin and running the neck pickup into either a Yamaha B100-115 combo or an Ampeg SVT driving an 810E.

If the Twin was running stock Utahs I would have quickly destroyed the speakers. I don't think I have ever come across a stock combo guitar amp that could take much bass.
 
#5
Vitamin Beer said:
I kinda thought the "vintage tone" switch was a high pass filter. So it's ok to use a guitar head into a bass cabinet for the bridge pickup? also called the treble pickup, that's how I got confused.
Ok, I was convinced that my guitar tube amp would be ok.
Click to expand...

You understand the function of the vintage tone switch correctly. But the bridge/treble pickup still puts out more lows than many guitar speakers can handle even in vintage mode with the HPF engaged. I am not saying it won't work, but caution is advised unless you have an unusually robust speaker in your combo amp.

Using a guitar head with a bass cabinet should be fine. Just make sure the speaker provides an impedance that is appropriate for the amp.
 
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#8
2 two channel amp...will that drive two separate cabinets?
All I want to do is stand in-between two cabs with mean bass from one and awesome effects in another and just rock out.
And maybe dragging all that to gigs but it seems a little over kill.
I guess I also want to take advantage of the Rick-o-sound.
 
#9
Vitamin Beer said:
2 two channel amp...will that drive two separate cabinets?
All I want to do is stand in-between two cabs with mean bass from one and awesome effects in another and just rock out.
And maybe dragging all that to gigs but it seems a little over kill.
I guess I also want to take advantage of the Rick-o-sound.
Click to expand...
No, not separate cabs. But you will have more control over each pu’s sound/tone. When you use a two channel amp. I have done this lots of times.

Also, I wouldn’t recommend splitting the cabs apart when doing ROS. Do it like this, bass on the bottom(no effects for Me), treble
PU on the top. Trust me it’s better not to split the cabs.
7ACF125A-9596-456D-ABD9-8D292592129A.jpeg
 
Last edited:
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#12
BassmanPaul said:
I would think that a high pass filter before the guitar amp would be a good precaution to take. It’ll limit the guitar speaker destroying low frequencies. Understand that the Rick-o-sound is not stereo but two mono signals. Spreading the two amps apart may well be less than ideal.

That said, where the heck is Midmay? :)
Click to expand...

"Mildmay is a community of people of primarily English and German descent in the municipality of South Bruce, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada. it is northwest of Minto and south of Walkerton on Highway 9."

Well, that's 90 seconds of my life I'll never get back. Are we being tested on this material?

Riis
 
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#13
Ok, since I have a back up amp head I've never used and my bass rig has 2 cabinets I'll give it a shot at practice tomorrow night and see what happens.
I liked the idea of standing between the cabinets.
I don't think I'm going to fork out the money for a new amp head with two channels yet.
I'm only experimenting. I saw a youtube video with the bass player from Clutch and I had big ideas.
 
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#14
Turnaround said:
Practically speaking, Ric-O-Sound is probably only useful in the recording studio. Even then ....
Click to expand...
I found Ric-O-Sound most useful when I ran each pickup through a dedicated speaker, and I personally thought it sounded best with the speakers together. It's been years since I did this, but I felt Ric-O-Sound gave the notes more clarity and focus.

I also tried splitting the channels into my MTI era SVT and felt this only gave a fraction of the improvement that can be realized by running Ric-O-Sound through a true stereo rig.

YMMV
 
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#15
Vitamin Beer said:
Ok, since I have a back up amp head I've never used and my bass rig has 2 cabinets I'll give it a shot at practice tomorrow night and see what happens.
I liked the idea of standing between the cabinets.
I don't think I'm going to fork out the money for a new amp head with two channels yet.
I'm only experimenting. I saw a youtube video with the bass player from Clutch and I had big ideas.
Click to expand...

This sounds perfect...let us know the results.
 
#16
Vitamin Beer said:
Hello everyone.
This might be a stupid question but I've been looking for the answer and I'm not sure if I fully understand what I've come up with.
So I want to play my Rickenbacker in stereo. I only have a bass amp and cabs and a guitar combo amp.
The ric has the "vintage tone knob".
What I've done in my work shop in low volume is play the bridge pick up into my guitar amp and neck pickup in to my bass amp. I understand the guitar amp will be ok but will the low sound blow the speaker in the guitar amp?
All this is played with the vintage tone knob pulled up.
But my band is playing this weekend and I really want to rock the rick-o-sound.
Cheers
Click to expand...

For you it will be well worth it however I doubt anyone but other bass players will
truly appreciate it

As I had 2 bass rigs I wasn’t worried
so much

I would set one rig full treble on my side and full bass on the other side of stage when playing larger stages

When I used another Ric o rig with 4-12 guitar speakers stacked atop my 18 I could only hear the 12s and feel the 18

Frankly was a Lot of trouble for little gain in long run

Don’t be discouraged as it is fun to run a bassy neck and bright bridge with effects

Lots of tonal control but as a performer I found it more effective to find a good mono - tone to cut through ; set it and forget it as there is no time to twiddle knobs while drummer counts off next tune

Good luck Enjoy and tell us how it went!
 
#19
StereoPlayer said:
As much as I respect you.
I disagree.
I never use the mono jack.
Click to expand...
To be fair, I only used the stereo setup once live. What there was of the effect was lost in the overall sound of the band. I had far better effect from running stereo chorus through the FOH. Ric-O-Sound just didn't work for me live.
 
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