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The Rickenbacker Club Part Five

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#401
About the "askew" thing, i wasn't sure at all i was using the good word to describe the problem. here's a pic:
323_3.jpg


As you can see, there's a small shift (i don't know if this word fits). Maybe a tech can re-drill the holes on the body to have a correct positionement of the bridge?
 
#402
greggster59 said:
I didn't see it either. The tech laid the bass on his bench and using a straight edge showed me the neck was straight. But, it sloped upward from the body to the headstock. In other word, the the neck did not lie parallel to the body as if the headstock was being pulled toward the body. It created very high action around frets 9-12. He said he sees this now and then on older Rics.
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Sounds clear now. I'd send it back, every now and then a defect slips through. Wildwood is super to deal with. Last fall, I pulled the plug on a 4001c64 from them. Great price. However, UPS schmucked it pretty good, the horseshoe was crushed into the body breaking the mounting plate and lord knows what else. Wildwood offered either a repair or a refund. I didn't want to take any chances with any other hidden damage showing up later, as the bass must have been severely abused in transit. Rather than ask for a repair of the pickup, I opted for a refund. Wildwood sent a UPS call tag, my card was credited for the full amount. They originally shipped it at n/c as part of the great price.
 
#403
Bigfoot92 said:
I am finally not going to send the bass back, it's really too expensive to do so (183€ with ups for germany, ouch!).
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I'm not familiar with EU or German rules. In the states, your credit card offers protection when receiving merchandise 'not as described' or defective. The credit card company will take the return freight fees paid by the buyer right out of the merchants account and credit it back to the buyer when a merchant won't send a UPS call tag.
 
#404
Coolhandjjl said:
Sounds clear now. I'd send it back, every now and then a defect slips through. Wildwood is super to deal with. Last fall, I pulled the plug on a 4001c64 from them. Great price. However, UPS schmucked it pretty good, the horseshoe was crushed into the body breaking the mounting plate and lord knows what else. Wildwood offered either a repair or a refund. I didn't want to take any chances with any other hidden damage showing up later, as the bass must have been severely abused in transit. Rather than ask for a repair of the pickup, I opted for a refund. Wildwood sent a UPS call tag, my card was credited for the full amount. They originally shipped it at n/c as part of the great price.
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Yeah, no problems with Wildwood other than their tech should have caught my issue. They were very nice about the whole thing and felt awful that I got a bad one. Their price included shipping. I paid for the return (insured) and sent an email thanking them for the way they handled my complaint.
 
#405
Coolhandjjl said:
I'm not familiar with EU or German rules. In the states, your credit card offers protection when receiving merchandise 'not as described' or defective. The credit card company will take the return freight fees paid by the buyer right out of the merchants account and credit it back to the buyer when a merchant won't send a UPS call tag.
Click to expand...

I don't know if things works this way here in EU, i will check. Thanks for the information
 
#407
Tomorrow i will see the guy that usually sets my basses, and ask him what he thinks about that bridge thing.

Concerning the pickup problem, the neck PU sounds like there's a low-cut filter on it (the bridge pickup have a fuller sound, really more bassier), any idea of what the issue might be?
 
#408
I saw the guy today, he told me that everything was okay, that the bridge was placed to compensate something that has to do with the luthery, i don't really know how to explain it in english, but according to that guy everything is fine and i'm really happy.

I can't wait until my next rehearsal to hear how the beast sounds!

And btw, can i have a number please?
 
#410
Bigfoot92 said:
Concerning the pickup problem, the neck PU sounds like there's a low-cut filter on it (the bridge pickup have a fuller sound, really more bassier), any idea of what the issue might be?
Click to expand...

Is this a brand new 4003? Newer ones from the last few years have a feature called 'Vintage Tone'. It's essentially a low cut filter (approx 200 hz) on the bridge pickup, a .0047 cap. It is active with the bridge's tone knob push/pull switch in the up position, and is bypassed when left down. On older 4001/4003's, that low cut .0047 cap was always on.

Is it possible the pup wiring is backwards, and the .0047 cap is on the neck pup? Another place to check is your connection to your 1/4" cable. Are you using a standard mono cable partially plugged into the 'Rick-o Sound' plug instead of the 'Standard' plug?
 
#412
I think you're just hearing the fact that the neck pickup has a smaller magnet and possibly less impedance in addition to being set lower. To get it to grind like the other one you'll have to play mostly with the POLE PIECE height, not pickup height. It has a lot of low end that is "felt not heard", which you'll notice when you're plugged into a quality amp.

The pickups have rather distinct roles. The bridge pickup works a lot like a P Bass pickup with a bit more treble in the signal, basically filling in most of what we recognize as a bass guitar sound, and then the neck pickup brings in a foundation of fat lows that most basses don't even really have... but as I said they are so low (because it's so far back toward the neck) that it's not an easy thing to hear (for a slight lack of harmonics/mids) and good amplification really brings this pickup to life. My fEarful 15/6, for sure.
 
#420
Bigfoot92 said:
No, it's clearly written in their conditions. That sucks. I've checked UPS, they ask 183€ for shipping it back, DHL is even more expensive. If it was something like 50€, i'll say ok, let's do it, but for 183€ i prefer to keep them to eventually fix the bridge problem (that's the biggest issue for me).
Moving the bridge is possible, right? That should fix the string alignment issue with pickup poles.
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Depending on how far it has to move, you might have to fill the old screw holes before aligning the tailpiece, but that should not be difficult. Once you take the strings off and pull the tailpiece, you will know.
 
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