Do you have any experience with using the Rick-O-Sound? I love to experiment with different setups and one of the bands I'm in might really benefit from bi-amping my bass parts live.
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Rickenbacker Users: Honest thoughts on the 4001/4003?
- Thread starter May Cassidy
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- rickenbacker
Do you have any experience with using the Rick-O-Sound? I love to experiment with different setups and one of the bands I'm in might really benefit from bi-amping my bass parts live.
it's cool but for practical purposes I don't think it's really significantly different from something like the tech21 2112 pedal which runs a parallel low pass channel and a distorted high pass channel, and that works on any bass.
for non-practical purposes it's a lot of fun.
for non-practical purposes it's a lot of fun.
I paid $450 cash with OHSC in 1978 at EU Wurlitzer, so that sounds right in line. It wasn't uncommon for them to have several in stock back then. I played my way through a stack of 5-6 basses and settled on a Jetglo, which had the skinniest neck. These days it's unusual to find more than one or two in stock anywhere, most are pre-sold, so they never even make it to the sales floor. the only place that stocks them in Boston now is Mr. Music in Allston. They had two Jetglo last I was there, but one had a SOLD sticker on it, and both were hung out of reach to discourage tire-kickers.
As another price point, I paid $425 for a used '78 4001 in June 1980 at a shop in New Haven, Connecticut. They had two used 4001s and a 4005 on the wall.
Yes, I did the same, the salesman pulled out a few boxes and opened them right in front of me. That was a great place.
Some folks complain that the pickup outputs are unbalanced; Rick-o-Sound solves that.
You can use separate amps with settings optimised for each.
I drop the bridge pickup down to almost equal the output from the neck, sounds good like that.
I found splitting the signal with a crossover gets me better results. It's not like the bridge or neck pickup is all treble or all bass.
Adding effects to just one pickup and keeping the other "clean" or simply eq-ing each pickup differently certainly has it's merits but with a signal split with a crossover I can keep the lowend unmolested and have effects on the mid and upper ranges of the frequency range. Just my opinion of course.
Well, after 13 pages, I'd imagine all the horror stories have been repeated - again; and most of the "fanboi" stuff been said - again, as well. And, all the usual stuff - useful, but cautionary - about the horrors of the 4001's Dreaded Hairpin Trussrods; the goofiness of the old-style bridge; the Blight of Tail Lift; etc., etc., etc.... Anyway; my experiences with Rickenbacker basses...
I learned to play bass in 1968, on a fellow lefty's blue '68 Rick 4001. That 4001 felt good in my hands. The neck - like all those really early 4001s, was really narrow, with a very thin, shallow "D" contour. On my shoulder, it hung perfectly, and my hands went unerringly to the controls. And, played through his big Vox rig? The sound of that 4001, with it's factory Maxima Flats, was to die for. Even today, when I own both a '73 4001 and an'01 4003? I still dream about that blue '68... So, yeah, it's true; you either love Ricks - or you dislike them a lot. Very few people seem able to take them or leave them... For various reasons, I wasn't able to get my hands on a Rick of my own until about 2008, when I got the '01 4003. Which, I guess, was one of my few bad experiences with a Rick. RIC announced in early 2006, that they were stopping production of left handed instruments, due to a 5 year backlog of orders - and, they doubted that they'd ever make lefty's again in the future. Which, of course, sent the price of used lefty Ricks - basses and guitars - through the roof. I won't tell you what I paid for that 4003; suffice to say - I paid a lot. When I got it? Turns out, it's a Desert Gold, Color-of-the Year 4003, and it arrived apparently unplayed. Turns out, the reason why is that RIC had terrible troubles with that color, and cut the production very short, with many orders never filled. Not only are there very few Rick instruments in that color, but there are almost no leftys. If this one isn't the only one they made, it's one of a very tiny handful. So, since it was more or less a unicorn? I decided that, of course I had to buy another Rick bass to actually play. So, this time I bought a very heavily played, converted to righty and back - twice - '73 4001. And, yes; I paid through the nose for that one, too... Despite it's looks, though, it plays like a dream - which is the good. The bad? Well... '73 was sort of a transition year for 4001s. That year, 4001's started out with checkerboard binding; the real, genuine Horseshoe bridge pickup; the real Toaster neck pickup; and the "Wavy" Grover tuners. By the time mine was made in October? Plain white binding; and, 2 "High Gain" pickups, with the bridge one under the plastic, faux Horseshoe thingy that they still use today (and, yes; a new one will fit on an old 4001 just fine, in case anyone's wondering). Still has the Wavy Grover tuners, though - until they decide to blow their back off and fall apart (which they've been known to do...). But, the really bad with this bass? Before... 1978, IIRC... 4001's had their neck pickup right under the fretboard, in an overly large routed hole - that removed most of the wood that transitioned the neck into the center block of the body. Sometimes, if the bass wears high tension strings for too long, the thin piece of wood at the bottom of that hole begins to act like a hinge. Which causes those strings to lift the entire neck up - like a drawbridge opening. If that happens? It can be fixed, but it's very time consuming and very expensive - and very few people can/will do it. And, I'm afraid that it's starting - starting - to happen to mine. RIC fixed the problem by making the pickup route much smaller, and by moving the neck pickup to the spot it's still at today. But, other than all that? Yes, I like both my Ricks very much. Both still fit me like that '68 4001 did; both their necks aren't quite as thin and shallow as the '68's - but they're pretty close. And, although I have to use strings with very low tension on the 4001, with Optima's near-clone "RB" copies of the original Maxima Flats that the '68 wore, on my 4003? It sounds very much like the Bass I fell in love with when I was a 17 year old kid...
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Well, after 13 pages, I'd imagine all the horror stories have been repeated - again; and most of the "fanboi" stuff been said - again, as well. And, all the usual stuff - useful, but cautionary - about the horrors of the 4001's Dreaded Hairpin Trussrods; the goofiness of the old-style bridge; the Blight of Tail Lift; etc., etc., etc.... Anyway; my experiences with Rickenbacker basses...
I learned to play bass in 1968, on a fellow lefty's blue '68 Rick 4001. That 4001 felt good in my hands. The neck - like all those really early 4001s, was really narrow, with a very thin, shallow "D" contour. On my shoulder, it hung perfectly, and my hands went unerringly to the controls. And, played through his big Vox rig? The sound of that 4001, with it's factory Maxima Flats, was to die for. Even today, when I own both a '73 4001 and an'01 4003? I still dream about that blue '68... So, yeah, it's true; you either love Ricks - or you dislike them a lot. Very few people seem able to take them or leave them... For various reasons, I wasn't able to get my hands on a Rick of my own until about 2008, when I got the '01 4003. Which, I guess, was one of my few bad experiences with a Rick. RIC announced in early 2006, that they were stopping production of left handed instruments, due to a 5 year backlog of orders - and, they doubted that they'd ever make lefty's again in the future. Which, of course, sent the price of used lefty Ricks - basses and guitars - through the roof. I won't tell you what I paid for that 4003; suffice to say - I paid a lot. When I got it? Turns out, it's a Desert Gold, Color-of-the Year 4003, and it arrived apparently unplayed. Turns out, the reason why is that RIC had terrible troubles with that color, and cut the production very short, with many orders never filled. Not only are there very few Rick instruments in that color, but there are almost no leftys. If this one isn't the only one they made, it's one of a very tiny handful. So, since it was more or less a unicorn? I decided that, of course I had to buy another Rick bass to actually play. So, this time I bought a very heavily played, converted to righty and back - twice - '73 4001. And, yes; I paid through the nose for that one, too... Despite it's looks, though, it plays like a dream - which is the good. The bad? Well... '73 was sort of a transition year for 4001s. That year, 4001's started out with checkerboard binding; the real, genuine Horseshoe bridge pickup; the real Toaster neck pickup; and the "Wavy" Grover tuners. By the time mine was made in October? Plain white binding; and, 2 "High Gain" pickups, with the bridge one under the plastic, faux Horseshoe thingy that they still use today (and, yes; a new one will fit on an old 4001 just fine, in case anyone's wondering). Still has the Wavy Grover tuners, though - until they decide to blow their back off and fall apart (which they've been known to do...). But, the really bad with this bass? Before... 1978, IIRC... 4001's had their neck pickup right under the fretboard, in an overly large routed hole - that removed most of the wood that transitioned the neck into the center block of the body. Sometimes, if the bass wears high tension strings for too long, the thin piece of wood at the bottom of that hole begins to act like a hinge. Which causes those strings to lift the entire neck up - like a drawbridge opening. If that happens? It can be fixed, but it's very time consuming and very expensive - and very few people can/will do it. And, I'm afraid that it's starting - starting - to happen to mine. RIC fixed the problem by making the pickup route much smaller, and by moving the neck pickup to the spot it's still at today. But, other than all that? Yes, I like both my Ricks very much. Both still fit me like that '68 4001 did; both their necks aren't quite as thin and shallow as the '68's - but they're pretty close. And, although I have to use strings with very low tension on the 4001, with Optima's near-clone "RB" copies of the original Maxima Flats that the '68 wore, on my 4003? It sounds very much like the Bass I fell in love with when I was a 17 year old kid...
Ric discontinued real horseshoes in mid 1968, they then put screw top high gains in them (not sure of the correct name) until some time in 1973. They were adjustable but weren't adjustable as all they were just a screw with electrical tape wrapped around them. I had a 72 and made the mistake of turning one and it opened the coil and never sounded the same after I got it back.
I do! The secret is to buy a splitter cable and have 2 amps handy. Plug the single end into the Rick O Sound jack and the other two ends into the amps. Adjust your amp settings, turn the amps on, and play away!
You can also have a clean signal going to one amp and an effects signal going to another. This way, you can be clean and dirty at the same time if you wanted.
Or if you also have two pedal boards you can have multiple effects going on at the same time unaffected by each other!
If anybody's interested, there's a Rickenhackers FB group which has a description of building a splitter (Rick-o-Sound) box.
Rickenhackers | Facebook
(or just look at this diagram!)
You can always buy one of these, I got one, they're worth the money although they are very simple and they're now collectors items meaning the selling price will keep going up, they have a stereo input where you plug your stereo cord in and two hard wired mono outputs for each channel. They're less noisy that stereo to mono cables for some reason. I bought one of the last new ones about 20 years ago.
I used to run my 4001 into both channels of an SVT. It seems to open up the sound of the pickups.
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I used to run my 4001 into both channels of an SVT. It seems to open up the sound of the pickups.
Link Removed
