You can do it pretty easily through an Ampeg SVT or similar amp with two channels and two inputs.
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The Rickenbacker question
- Thread starter realwolfen
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- rickenbacker
Man I really wanna try that thing sometime! Do the coil taps select opposite coils so that you retain hum-bucking in the middle position?
I'm not having any of this. I met Chris Squire twice in the 1990's, and he said that he did not use a Ric in any recording of Union or Talk. In his later years, he only played it on stage for songs that he RECORDED on a 4001 in the 1970's. Do you want the exact dates? I was a young Strat player, and then a Jazz bass player, and I listened to the man.
I owned a 4001...not comfortable or practical. I have mixed feeling about the 4003, but I agree that with Geddy, it doesn't matter too much. Right now, he uses a Tech 21 Sansamp to get his tone, but his playing cannot be replicated with any Fender or Ric setup. Why try?
I owned a 4001...not comfortable or practical. I have mixed feeling about the 4003, but I agree that with Geddy, it doesn't matter too much. Right now, he uses a Tech 21 Sansamp to get his tone, but his playing cannot be replicated with any Fender or Ric setup. Why try?
Er,uh,i don’t believe so.The big pickup selector switch just does what any of them do on a 4001/3. The individual volume controls pull up to split the coil on the pickup they’re connected to,so they do that independently of each other. I usually split the coil on the neck pickup,and keep the bridge pickup in hb mode. When the pickup selector is in the middle position,it melds those sounds.
Right- I just meant that in each pickup there are two coils which are arranged in an RWRP arrangement to each other (like a Jazz bass with both pickups on full), which creates the "humbucking" effect. Similarly if you were to solo a single coil on each of the two pickups, you could solo the same coil on both pickups which would be hum-adding (since the same coils won't put the noise signal out of phase with each-other as they do in a humbucker), or you could solo the opposite coil on each pickup which would be hum-bucking! In other words, if your bass is selecting either the outer set of coils of the 4 coils (bridge-most and neck-most) or the inner set of coils then they should be humbucking when in the center position.
My Martin Keith basses both do this, but they use a pan pot and a switch which is attached to the tone control. When the tone control is switched down the humbucking pickups work like standard Citron pickups, each pickup using both coils and the pan pot pans between the two pickups. With the tone control switched up, the pan pot blends between the two outer coils of each pickup at one end of its rotation, while at the other end of its rotation the two inner coils work together. When the pan pot is in its center detent you gets all four coils just as you do when the pan pot works as usual, gong between the two humbucking Citron pickups. This is a cool way of adding some great tonal possibilities to these two great basses of Martin's (mine, actually 
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I saw Yes 9 times over the years, from the 70’s Relayer tour all the way up to Union, in halls ranging from arenas to tents. On stage, he played the 4001 Ric 95% of the time, and believe me, I was watching, often with binoculars from the nosebleed seats! I’m a gear geek, so I was always curious about what he was using. He used the triple neck on one song, I think it’s from Topographic, and the Mouradian on one or two tunes. I don’t remember him playing a Jazz on more than one or two tunes either, in any of those gigs. It may well be true that he he used other basses on recordings, but the Ric is unmistakable both live and recorded, and his main axe live for 40+ years. Sad to see Yes devolve into a cover band now that he’s gone.
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Well,i’d have to defer to Dane on the technical aspects of his wiring harnesses. I do know that the positions of the pickups can give some J bass-like sounds,particularly the solo’d bridge pickup,but not the classic scooped j sound of both pickups full up.
That burpy back pickup J tone is one of the sounds the custom Laredo excels at. And my cii and laredo with the “dropped” pickups start to get in that tonal
Part of the J-bass “thing” is definitely the pickups themselves- the tall, long, thin coil that focuses on and picks up a relatively small lateral sensing area of the string. I’ve never been able to recreate it well with other basses either (fortunately it’s not really a tone I tend to like much!). My old G&L basses were dual humbuckers that I modified to try to add a “Jazz” option that also fell short due to the short + squat nature of the coils (and also single pole per string like a Ric Hi-Gain). I feel like the Ric pickups themselves aren’t quite as special to what sets Rics apart (excepting from the single pole per string arrangement of Hi-Gains).
The burpy bridge tone is one J tone I’ve also had success with as long as the pickup is far enough back! Even an old J body I have with Thunderbird pickups in the 60s J position can do that really well and those pups are about as far from Jazz pickups as you could get. It doesn’t do other J tones well at all though! I think that tone is mostly about pickup location (Even a BC Rich Mockingbird with dual Ps that I almost bought could do it pretty convincingly)
Since the middle J tone involves a lot of frequency phase cancellation, the focused nature of the pickup design helps limit it to a relatively small harmonic area. I think a wider coil pickup which has much more harmonic information going on will cause much a much wider frequency cancellation when doubled with another pickup so you lose a lot of that high-end harmonic info
You mean like Amazing Grace, Roundabout, and Heart of the Sunrise? Yeah.....all recorded with a Ric and played live with one, as I noted and as he told me in person. Now then, which songs from the Union or Talk albums did he play live on a Ric? Cheers, mate. I was there.
Did you strip the frets off that one on the right? Is that a J-neck on the left? Actually, those are pretty sick. Laredo, you say? Right. I must look into that.
Looks like the Ric to me:
Also, here's a Invalid Link Removed to a 2014 interview with Chris where he said:
"PB: What kind of bass will you be playing on tour?
CS: I always take my 1964 Rickenbacker bass with me. I use that quite a bit and it’s still my favourite guitar. I grew up with it but I have a bunch of others that I play frequently on different songs."
Thanks. The bass on the left is a Rick cheyenne i,with a stock neck. The red one in the middle is a very modded Laredo. And the one on the right is a Cheyenne ii,and yes, it has been defretted.
He used the RM on “the calling” live,too....and in concert, he usually plays the same bass he used on the album recordings....
If they muck around on higher frets, they almost need to change brands. Here is the neck joint of a 4004:
Keep in mind there are only 20 frets on the other side...
In comparison, here is the neck joint of a 24 fret guitar that I own:
This guitar cost 3-3/4 less than the 4004 I owned...
Keep in mind there are only 20 frets on the other side...
In comparison, here is the neck joint of a 24 fret guitar that I own:
This guitar cost 3-3/4 less than the 4004 I owned...
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Having seen the body-separation issues some folks have had with 4003s that have the older 1/2" pickup location (especially with anything besides light gauge strings) I can understand the reasoning for the extra wood there especially on a 4004 with the pickup right up on the neck heel- the truss rods end right there, so the only support against bowing is the wood underneath the pickup cavity and a bit of support from the glued body wings. It seems the compromise of strengthening a stubbornly traditional design that wasn't particularly well engineered to begin with (or at least not engineered to take into account the kinds of high-tension strings common today). My old Carvin was an all-maple neck-through bass with a much more svelte neck-body joint like your second picture but the neck pickup was in the J neck position, which is closer to the bridge pickup on a Ric than the more extreme Ric neck pickup positioning. It still developed some minor stress cracks where the neck met the body once I started using heavier strings. Regardless, from a design-perspective, the total tension on a bass neck isn't fairly comparable to a 6-string guitar due to the longer scale (it is of course common to put a guitar neck pickup right up against the neck without structural issues).
I guess I'm lucky with big hands, but I play up in the high registers of my Ric often without issue! Its also still less wood (and more elegant) than a traditional bolt-on neck joint like a Fender
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