The Cheats Guide to getting a Rickenbacker Bass Sound on a Budget. Tips, Tricks ( Heated Debate).

Bridgehouse

ICBM said:

Funkfingers said:

Twiddles thumbs, waiting for ICBM to write a five page treatise, explaining why no amount of modern electronics is an acceptable substitute for RIC's archaic gubbins.

Because switch 17 is all you need. It has two settings -

On - Rickenbacker
Off - other

I'm glad you clarified your settings there - as clearly you've wired it up incorrectly.

Unless of course Switch 33 reassigns everything to "just sound like a bloody P bass, cos let's face it, that's what everyone expects anyway"

ICBM

Bridgehouse said:

Switch 33 reassigns everything to "just sound like a bloody P bass, cos let's face it, that's what everyone expects anyway"

If it did, I'm almost certain that no-one would notice other than the bass player...

Funkfingers

THINKS: The Alembic bass, used in Bridgehouse's knob gag photo, has each of its pickups fastened with just two of the four possible height adjustment screws. I associate this practice with one person - John Entwistle.

Bridgehouse

ICBM said:

Bridgehouse said:

Switch 33 reassigns everything to "just sound like a bloody P bass, cos let's face it, that's what everyone expects anyway"

If it did, I'm almost certain that no-one would notice other than the bass player...

TBH I'm not sure I'd notice if I was playing it...

Bridgehouse

Funkfingers said:

THINKS: The Alembic bass, used in Bridgehouse's knob gag photo, has each of its pickups fastened with just two of the four possible height adjustment screws. I associate this practice with one person - John Entwistle.

See it's that sort of attention to detail and level of cool headed observation that really makes me worry about you.

Funkfingers

Even as I type, somebody will be turning the words "Bridgehouse knob gag photo" into his forum signature. Well, he would if he ever visited the Bass sub-forum.

Bridgehouse

Funkfingers said:

Even as I type, somebody will be turning the words "Bridgehouse knob gag photo" into his forum signature. Well, he would if he ever visited the Bass sub-forum.

I like to think of the select and elite clientele of this little obscure corner of the internet as being a bit like the exclusive beatnik communities in the 1950's in a small coffee shop somewhere in downtown NYC. 

We come to sup our brew, discuss our favoured instruments, and make as many knob gag photo references as possible.

Funkfingers

Bridgehouse said:
exclusive beatnik communities in the 1950's in a small coffee shop somewhere in downtown NYC. We come to sup our brew, discuss our favoured instruments.

Burn, hipster trash! :-p

Bridgehouse

Funkfingers said:

Bridgehouse said:
exclusive beatnik communities in the 1950's in a small coffee shop somewhere in downtown NYC. We come to sup our brew, discuss our favoured instruments.

Burn, hipster trash! :-p

A recent forum Bass get together proved successful when the one forum member who actually showed up fell off the floor:

Funkfingers

vale

Bridgehouse said:

Funkfingers said:

Bridgehouse said:
exclusive beatnik communities in the 1950's in a small coffee shop somewhere in downtown NYC. We come to sup our brew, discuss our favoured instruments.

Burn, hipster trash! :-p

A recent forum Bass get together proved successful when the one forum member who actually showed up fell off the floor:

it's black, it's shortscale & she's wearing sunglasses indoors. that's my kind of beat!

anyway, to momentarily revist the thread's theme (for old time's sake)...

how about an artifical scenario;

you are recording an album with your band in a single week (two tracks a day, ten tracks for the five day recording week). you intend to use your rickenbacker for all tracks.

on wednesday evening the van with all your gear in gets stolen. you feel angry yet defiant, the show must go on...

you still have two days to record & you want to preserve the bass for those last four tracks as close to & consistent with the tone you used for the previous six, so the album doesn't sound patchy or a game of two halves.

you can scrounge a sub£300 bass of your choice (name it) from a friend (squier epi gretsch etc).
you also have a budget bass amp-cab sim. @Bridgehouse suggested the behringer bdi for starters, other not expensive suggestions welcome.

so that leaves basic (inexpensive & easy to find) stompboxes & eq-ing. anything you would reach for there? say 3 max?

maybe a ringmod on minimal (or even a flanger set to clangy minimum & a mostly dry mix)  to add hint of a metallic sheen into the tone.
as for eq, an inline 6 channel stompbox eq to scoop the mids & boost the bass a shade.
& maybe set a compressor for an early decay.

we've done wood (a lot), we've done ampsim & drive (a bit), but stompboxes under-represented. do they figure in this scenario?

pintspiller

Behringer GDI on clean

ICBM

I would pick my friend's Mexican standard series P-Bass, which is probably sub-£300 second hand. It's the best modern P I've played. Unfortunately he briefly had another one which was a total dog... so just getting one from a shop would be pot luck.

Pedal - Behringer Super Fuzz. The clean boost mode is useful as an EQ as well, if you're not having to switch it on and off on the fly.

That's it. I could sound like myself - for this band at least - with just those.

Funkfingers

.

FatPete

No?

Funkfingers

FatPete said:

No

Is the correct answer.

The round robin multi-sampled 4003 sounds certainly resemble the source instrument well enough to satisfy a keyboard player - take that remark as you consider fit! - but there is insufficient control over articulation to satisfy a bass guitarist.

I have Spectrasonics Trillian. Sometimes, its stringed bass "instruments" sit in a band mix just fine. Too often, they give themselves away. Hopefully, the average listener can not tell the difference. Perhaps, I should be less picky?

I find that, if I devise a four bar phrase then, cut and paste it in my DAW, the result will be self-evidently a cut 'n' pasted repeat but it will still have some humanity in the timing and articulation (or lack of it) in the individual notes, squeaks and scrapes. The cut 'n' paste is more acceptable than individually sampled notes.

Keyboards do not gliss like a bass guitar.

Bridgehouse

Depends on your sound engineer. I’ve been in situations where regardless of the bass or the pedal (well, within reason!) the bass sound ends up pretty much sounding like “generic bass” after their processing and engineering “efforts”

Having said that, a decent P bass (probably single coil 51 style) with my Ampeg SCR-DI pedal will give me a consistent enough sound to be mixed to sound like the earlier recordings. Having the same strings on both will help as well

Funkfingers

So far, in this thread, the on-topic portions have concentrated on the tonal characteristics of a Rickenbacker 4001/4003 bass guitar. Nothing much has been said about the amplitude envelope.

Earlier this morning, I tried faking a RIC sound on other instruments.

• I found that a DiMarzio mudbucker in an alder/maple bass guitar provided some of the "Come Together/I'm Not In Love" neck pickup low end.
• On a fully active P type bass, rolling off all of the bass band and boosting the treble a fair bit made a fair stab at the wiry clank.
• Perhaps, by double tracking the two, a passable compromise could be reached? 

Changing to a 4001 dispelled any hope of faking the sound by other means. The transient attack of a plectrum or fingernail, followed by the way that the notes swell and decay are characteristic and, dare I say it, unique.


FWIIW, the closest sounding of my hoard was the Fender AVRI '75 Jazz Bass. Maple neck and fingerboard, ash body, bone stock apart from a BadAss II bridge. In my opinion, having the bridge pickup in the CBS mid-Seventies "wrong" position is a critical element of the sound. 

ICBM

Bridgehouse said:

Depends on your sound engineer. I’ve been in situations where regardless of the bass or the pedal (well, within reason!) the bass sound ends up pretty much sounding like “generic bass” after their processing and engineering “efforts”

Same here, including recordings of gigs I've played, usually when the soundman has insisted (despite being argued with) on DI'ing the input to the amp not the amp's line out. The muddy thud (©Phil_aka_Pip ) on the recording - and sadly, presumably what the audience heard - was nothing like the huge punchy tone I had standing in front of my amp.

Bridgehouse said:

Having said that, a decent P bass (probably single coil 51 style)

At the risk of splitting a very fine hair, I actually think the '57-style is closer. The pickup is humbucking - sort of, it's really two single coils for each pair of strings - but more importantly is slightly closer to the bridge, nearer where the Rick's pickup is. I do actually think that makes quite a difference... try a Gibson Grabber with the sliding pickup and see how much .

Bridgehouse

@ICBM I’m sure it makes a big difference - but in my experience listening to 51 vs 57 styles and playing both - the legendary smooth piano like tone of the 57 style is definitely less clanky and punchy than the single coil 51 style - which I think actually has a bit more usable midrange too - I wonder if that’s because it’s a single coil and not two singles overlapping...