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Rickenbacker 4003!!!!!!!!!

#25
The advice is sound,I went down the route of raising the pups to balance them and it sounded pants.One day I went the other way which was down in small increments starting with the neck and balancing the bridge with it and hit the holy grail.
I should also say it,s a 4003 with hi-gains,straight neck,hipshot bridge,black scratchplate.
Could it bre the black scratchplate ?
The pick ups are very sensitive to height and have plenty of output so lowering is not going to make it a quiet bass,you could always increase the gain a bit on the amp which is no bad thing tonally.Sometimes you get blinded by output figures always striving for high K values-mine runs out at 11k on my meter but some of the best sounding vintage basses run out at 8K ohms so there is plenty headroom on the pick up front.
In conclusion once a Rick is set up properly like a Rick which is unlike any other basses they are out of this world.
Could it be that there is a lot of magnetic pull from the magnets on the pups due to there size shape ?.loadsa theories but the song remains the same-set em up properly.
 
#28
I was guilty of selling my slightly unique Ric when I went on my 5 string experiment. Luckily the guy I sold it to just kept it in his collection and in pristine condition. It came back to me in 2009 and will not leave me again. (Except for a V63 :))

You have to own one at least once. Not just plunk on it in the store or in the bedroom, but actually experience it in the mix. You may eventually move on, but you had to try a 4003 because it has such a unique voice. If you try to get this other bass's sound or a that other bass's tone out of them, you'll eventually move on to that Jazz Bass or Stingray you were trying to emulate. But if you let a Ric go and rattle its "rubber coated chains in a garbage can" (I can't remember the author of that quote) and you really enjoy what you are hearing, you'll never look back.

P Basses are like that too. Allow them have their twangy percussive bark on steel round wounds or their chest thumpy punch on flats. Don't try to "effect" them into something they're not, let'm do what they do best. If it's not for you, gas on. At least you tried them and you know.
 

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