All about the Rickenbacker 4003

ICBM · September 2017

The modern Rick rods are actually much more straightforward than the pre-1985 ones - you don't need to pre-bend the neck, you can tighten them normally. You're right that it's best to keep the tension in both reasonably similar - although Rickenbacker describe them as 'independent', they aren't really because the neck has to move as one piece.

Unlike most basses the recommended relief is zero, or as close to it as you can get without a backbow, so a relief of about .001" is ideal - just enough to tell that there is a gap! They do really seem to play best like this.

JezWynd · September 2017

Phew! Truss rod adjustment not required. When new strings were tuned up and bridge slightly raised on treble side, with the 1st and 17th frets depressed, there's just enough clearance at 9th fret to get a couple of sheets of paper between fret and string which translates to a very slight forward bow. I guess I could make it dead straight but it sounds good so I'll leave it for now. Even the intonation is spot on. Love the low profile frets on this, so easy to play. Gratuitous Ric porn -

strtdv · September 2017

As @ICBM says, you'll want basically no neck relief at all on a Ric, they play and intonate better that way.
They have their idiosyncrasies but when set up properly they play and sound fantastic

JezWynd · September 2017

strtdv said:

As @ICBM says, you'll want basically no neck relief at all on a Ric, they play and intonate better that way.
They have their idiosyncrasies but when set up properly they play and sound fantastic

Yes, you are right, it definitely should be straight but I'm having such a blast playing it atm that I'm loath to mess with it. I will address it shortly as the intonation has drifted on the E and A strings slightly (not to hear but the tuner tells me so).

Perhaps @ICBM can help me here - I have an imbalance in pu volumes. The bridge is louder than the neck. The neck pu is set quite low so the obvious thing would be to raise it but it doesn't allow it to be raised hardly at all. It feels as though the screws are tight up against the floor of the pu cavity (a guess as I haven't yet removed the pick guard). The only other option then seems to be lowering the bridge pu - this necessitates taking off the horseshoe. Is this the only way or should the neck pu be raisable? Perhaps the imbalance is a Ric thing? Although noticeable it still allows for 3 quite separate sounds - neck / bridge + neck / bridge.

ICBM · September 2017

The bridge pickup is meant to be louder, it's for overdriving the amp

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If you look under the pickguard you should find height springs for the neck pickup, or rubber sleeving depending on the age of it. You can cut these down if the pickup needs to go higher, but make absolutely sure the four screws on the corners of the pickup don't press any harder than just touching the guard, at the very most - or you will crack the guard.

You can lower the bridge pickup without lowering the cover if you take it apart and add a couple of spacers between the two, if you want to keep the cover on. I used some rubber grommets about 1/4" thick on mine, since I prefer greater string clearance to allow for my hamfisted thrashing

.

Bridgehouse · September 2017

ICBM said:

my hamfisted thrashing .

Hmmm. Maybe I should get one after all...

JezWynd · September 2017

Thanks @ICBM. If it's designed that way then I'll leave it alone. I'm embracing all things Rickenbacker atm. They're both fantastic pickups, very articulate and I love the hint of growl the bridge can give. I think the bridge pu sounds best through my little valve amp, the Phil Jones stays a bit too clean whereas the 6v6s dirty up nicely.

ICBM · September 2017

In a way it's a shame you got one without the stereo outputs, even though it's a very cool thing…

In stereo, you can run the neck pickup through a big clean amp, and the bridge through a lower-powered valve one. The best sound I ever got with mine was the neck through an Ampeg B2R and the bridge through a Hiwatt DR103 - it sounded like double-tracked bass, even though obviously the timing was identical!

You can still split the signal even with a mono output, but it doesn't quite sound the same.

JezWynd · September 2017

ICBM said:

In a way it's a shame you got one without the stereo outputs, even though it's a very cool thing…

In stereo, you can run the neck pickup through a big clean amp, and the bridge through a lower-powered valve one. The best sound I ever got with mine was the neck through an Ampeg B2R and the bridge through a Hiwatt DR103 - it sounded like double-tracked bass, even though obviously the timing was identical!

You can still split the signal even with a mono output, but it doesn't quite sound the same.

Yes, that thought occurred to me too, although I steered myself away from the stereo outs thinking they wouldn't get used. With the stereo version, do you need a special lead or do they split from the dual outputs?

ICBM · September 2017

JezWynd said:

Yes, that thought occurred to me too, although I steered myself away from the stereo outs thinking they wouldn't get used. With the stereo version, do you need a special lead or do they split from the dual outputs?

You need a special lead, or better a 'Rick-o-Sound' box, which is easier to fit with a ground lift for one of the outputs which is usually necessary. You can't use the dual output jacks at the same time, the way they're wired will mute the output because a mono plug in the stereo jack will short it to ground.

To be honest I almost never use them either, it's just too much of a faff to set up for live use. I actually use it more on guitar, the bridge pickup through dirt/modulation and the neck pickup clean through delay/reverb is amazing - even more like two guitars playing at once.

JezWynd · September 2017

ICBM said:

I actually use it more on guitar, the bridge pickup through dirt/modulation and the neck pickup clean through delay/reverb is amazing - even more like two guitars playing at once.

That sounds fascinating. I did try a 620 a while back; it was quite surprising. I'd always heard they have narrow necks. This one (it was a current new model), had quite a broad, flat fretboard - it almost felt like an acoustic - great for cowboy chords but anything else was a bit of a fight.

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All about the Rickenbacker 4003

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