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I thought this might help anyone who has the saddle wobble issue.
Last night I replaced the saddles on my 2010 4003 which had begun to wobble with the original saddles from my 1976 4000.
It's odd, since the saddles were quite stable up until about 3 or 4 months ago and I've had the bass since March 2010.
Apparently when new they must be pretty stiff on the intonation screw and eventually work free with use.
When installing the old saddles, the screw went in fairly hard since they were misaligned slightly.
I know there were quite a few complaints about loose and/or wobbly saddles in the last few years.
Apparently it's a machining issue with the saddle itself, not the bridge.
The hole for the intonation screw is drilled slightly off from the original position, positioning the base of the saddle a little too high off the top surface of the bridge and allowing the saddle to rock from side to side.
A thin shim will cure the wobbling, but it's annoying to have to do that.
Another cure would be to have a machinist cut new saddles using older ones for patterns.
I had brass ones made some years ago since I found the roundwound strings made grooves in the originals on my 4000, and I though that might have contributed to me breaking a lot of A strings (which was mainly due to playing too hard).
Last night I replaced the saddles on my 2010 4003 which had begun to wobble with the original saddles from my 1976 4000.
It's odd, since the saddles were quite stable up until about 3 or 4 months ago and I've had the bass since March 2010.
Apparently when new they must be pretty stiff on the intonation screw and eventually work free with use.
When installing the old saddles, the screw went in fairly hard since they were misaligned slightly.
I know there were quite a few complaints about loose and/or wobbly saddles in the last few years.
Apparently it's a machining issue with the saddle itself, not the bridge.
The hole for the intonation screw is drilled slightly off from the original position, positioning the base of the saddle a little too high off the top surface of the bridge and allowing the saddle to rock from side to side.
A thin shim will cure the wobbling, but it's annoying to have to do that.
Another cure would be to have a machinist cut new saddles using older ones for patterns.
I had brass ones made some years ago since I found the roundwound strings made grooves in the originals on my 4000, and I though that might have contributed to me breaking a lot of A strings (which was mainly due to playing too hard).
Let's see: One, two, three, four . . . . damn; lost count. One, two, three four, five, six . . . nuts. Try again. One, two . . . .
WOW! You've got a regular music store showroom there! Love the roll around racks!
I think this is one of the largest personal collection of Rickenbackers I have seen! Such a nice clean room too! Wish I had the kind of space!
I think I will show this to my room mates who are always telling me I have too many guitars! lol!
My desire for non-Rickenbacker basses has waned somewhat. I still want more basses, though.
I kind of agree. I love the look and feel of the 4003's classic clear coated fingerboard and the shape and thickness of the neck, but when it comes to versatility of tone and just overall playability, the nod would have to go to my 64 Jazz Bass.
While I love both of them, the 64 is th best player I have in my current collection, and sonically, I can get it to sound like any of the other basses in my collection, including the 4003.
However, I can't get the 4003 to cover all the same basses that the 64 can. Not sure if this will change when these new strings get broken in or not, but I found these same differences between my previous 72 4001 and my original genuine 1964 Jazz Bass.
One thing that really impressed me about this American Vintage 64 J Bass is that in addition to Fender nailing every little detail of the reproduction, this particular bass actually plays and sounds better than my original did.
That is saying something too because that original 64 was one of the nicest Jazz Basses I've ever played or owned. I would have never hoped for something like this because the chances of being severely disappointed is huge, but damned if I didn't get lucky!
Heaven forbid if I ever find myself once again starting down the barrel of financial ruin, which is the only reason I don't still have all my vintage collection, the 64 will be the last to go, no doubt about that!
Hey guys! some nice jetglo rick pron in here, thought I might possibly add to it?
I got this line on a 2011 jetglo deal but I thought I would run it past you guys in the know about this kind of stuff, this rick has paint coming off it on certain sections on the body. I will start by saying i play in a heavy stoner band, and I am not concerned about visual wear n tear on my instruments (but I dont bash them either) and my current Rick was a gift to me so it holds a strong place in my heart and I want another Ric option for times where taking my MID out might not be the best call. My main concern is whether down the line it would continue to the point where I will need to get a refinish on this bass? which I am not opposed to either just want to know if that is something I will be getting myself into at some point.
And here is a full scale shot of the bass just for the sake of it
cheers
Seems that (according to some previous discussion on this thread) Ric had issues with some JetGlo's during 2011. If you get a deal on it see if Ric will refinish it. Contact GG7 for details. If not, wait until it needs it and have some fun!
Hey guys,
I am the proud owner of a 2012 4003FG (same one that got me membership status last year). Aside from a couple of high frets that I got leveled, it's been virtually problem free. However, yesterday I noticed that my modern/vintage push/pull tone pot isn't working correctly. In modern mode, it works fine (which I use 99% of the time anyway). When I pull it out for "vintage" mode the sound is barely audible and thin/transistor radio sounding. Bass p'up is fine, so it's when I solo the treble p'up in vintage mode, or have both p'ups selected.
Before I open her up and poke around, any ideas what may be causing this? Bad connection? Bad pot? ...Yes, it's plugged in mono I also have a guy who does great service, but I figured I try to get the room's opinion first.
Thanks, all!
I am the proud owner of a 2012 4003FG (same one that got me membership status last year). Aside from a couple of high frets that I got leveled, it's been virtually problem free. However, yesterday I noticed that my modern/vintage push/pull tone pot isn't working correctly. In modern mode, it works fine (which I use 99% of the time anyway). When I pull it out for "vintage" mode the sound is barely audible and thin/transistor radio sounding. Bass p'up is fine, so it's when I solo the treble p'up in vintage mode, or have both p'ups selected.
Before I open her up and poke around, any ideas what may be causing this? Bad connection? Bad pot? ...Yes, it's plugged in mono
I also have a guy who does great service, but I figured I try to get the room's opinion first.Thanks, all!
Let's see: One, two, three, four . . . . damn; lost count. One, two, three four, five, six . . . nuts. Try again. One, two . . . .
Having.....chest.....pai...........ns.......
Hey guys,
I am the proud owner of a 2012 4003FG (same one that got me membership status last year). Aside from a couple of high frets that I got leveled, it's been virtually problem free. However, yesterday I noticed that my modern/vintage push/pull tone pot isn't working correctly. In modern mode, it works fine (which I use 99% of the time anyway). When I pull it out for "vintage" mode the sound is barely audible and thin/transistor radio sounding. Bass p'up is fine, so it's when I solo the treble p'up in vintage mode, or have both p'ups selected.
Before I open her up and poke around, any ideas what may be causing this? Bad connection? Bad pot? ...Yes, it's plugged in mono
Thanks, all!
I'm not saying it's your problem, but I had the same type of issue and it was a bad bridge pickup. Do you have a multimeter? If so, test the pickup and see what it comes out at...
Otherwise I would check the connections of the bridge pickup to everything in the control cavity.
That's just the vintage mode doing what it does... it thins out the treble pickup a lot and is really not meant to operate solo at that point, you need both pickups on to hear the intended sound. Anyway, I find it's worse if you plug into a crappy preamp or amp. With a good preamp in the front of your signal it shouldn't be all that bad. What were you using?
He says it's "barely audible". That ain't right. When I solo mine in vintage mode it's still plenty loud, just with no bottom.
You see this pattern in many places. Look at Chris Squire and Geddy Lee! While Chris continues to use his 64 4001 at the exclusion of all others, he does have a late 60s Jazz Bass that he has used on some famous Yes songs that everyone naturally assumed was his Rickenbacker!
Then you have Geddy Lee, who started with a 4001, because his bass playing idol "Chris Squire" played one! Then after all those years and his own string of iconic 4001 based lines, he falls in love with an old 70s Jazz Bass he finds at a pawn shop while on tour! He loves that Jazz so much that he basically breaks up with his 4001 and shacks up with that "other woman" from that point forward! LOL!
Now you have Fender releasing a whole line of replicas of that pawn shop J Bass he found, which helped a whole new generation of bass players discover the magic of "The J Bass!"
The first Rush album was a P bass. No idea what he literally started playing though.
To contradict what was said above, I find J basses to have much more bottom than Rics. Geddy switched to the J because he wanted more bottom than his Ric was giving him.
To contradict what was said above, I find J basses to have much more bottom than Rics. Geddy switched to the J because he wanted more bottom than his Ric was giving him.
Update... I had the -10db pad engaged on my Tone Hammer 350 (not a crappy amp!) and that's when I noticed the issues. Keep in mind, with the pad engaged, the other tones were fine with the pad. I disengaged the pad and the treble pup was back to normal "relative" volume and tone to the other pups/modes. Weird.
What does this mean? Does the "vintage-engaged" treble pup not have enough output to drive the front end of the amp or something?
This will never affect me in a real-life gigging situation since I was only using the pad not to wake my roommate during an early AM practice sesh. I also mainly play in modern mode, but I just want to know the ins and outs of how my Rick/amp work.
Thanks!
The volume drop is mpedance related. Most likely the -10dB pad dramatically reduces the input impedance of the amp.
Depends on the Ric.
I've actually found that pretty much every Jazz Bass I've tried has lacked my Rickenbacker's lows, and the Jazz Bass's highs seem... higher. There aren't more highs, per se, they're just at a higher frequency or something.
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