geofio

welcome to bass chat joel.

hi mojo , i can understand the let down that must have been, i did the same myself , i took a chance and purchased a new 2011 fireglo on line, and it was the same experience as yours, if you have had rics that sound like rics should , anything else after that is not acceptable. luckily i sold the fireglo on to someone who wanted that particular sound that that bass made , certainly was not the traditional piano wire sound i was used to, it was more like a dead thud!!!! the secret is get a used one in mint condition with the piano wire sound, they are out there i have found 2 of them just recently both jetglo one was a 1999 and the other a 2006. good luck. george

4000, you are 100% correct, that is my main concern, if a ric virgin goes into a store and picks up one of these basses and thinks that is the norm for rickenbacker. if i were the store i would send the whole lot back!!! but i think they are counting on peoples ignorance, and the thoughts off its a rickenbacker it must be good.

thats true hiram, every drummer wants to play that track lol

the best way to play it is just to relax with it and not over think it. one of my fav bass lines. i played it way back in the 80,s when i played in a rush tribute band.

your right spongebob i dare not bring this subject up over there for sure lol, which is bad as you should be able to discuss bad rics as well as good rics but you know what its like over there. glad you are a happy ric man stag, as i am, when you find the right one for sure, if you do get a good one, hang on to it.

very interesting thanks spongebob.

lol

i played the rics through top of the line ampeg amp and 8x10 ampeg cabinet, a classic combination for the ric. i have tried adjusting individual poles on the pickups , it does not make any difference to the sound of the E string apart from making it a bit louder, the point is the E does not sound right !!! as i said there will be good ones out there thankfully, i am just concerned as a ric user, and i am more concerned for guys who are about to buy one and maybe who have never played a ric and think that the sound the new ones make is a normal rickenbacker sound, the whole experience is disappointing when you like a certain brand of bass.

there are good rickenbackers out there , it just seems that the better ones are around the1999- 2005/2006 era in modern times, thats im my own experience of course , i have set up around 60 4003 basses for various people, the newer basses tend to have a different sound from what most people would recognise as a rickenbacker tone eg geddy lee/bruce foxton/graeme murray etc, growly piano like tone!!! the new ones just do not sound like my expectation of what a good 4003 should sound like, from 2009 on the bass just sounds mediocre in my opinion. i could pick up any £200 squire bass off the shelf and have a better playing/sounding bass . dont get me wrong i love the sound of rickenbacker basses and i hope this sound/playing problem is limited to me and my experience, the new ones have just horrid E strings, and for a bass costing around £1799 rrp , that thing should be singing out the box, not a bass players nightmare. the ones that i tried would need major set up and even then i dont know if i could get them to sound good, i had a 2011 fireglo and i sat it beside my 1999 jetglo and to look at the basses they were almost the same, i tried to figure out why the jetglo sounded like a true rickenbacker and the fireglo did not . the biggest difference i could feel was in the bass was the neck, it just did not feel of the same construction as the 1999 bass, the 1999 4003 had a sturdier feeling neck also the 1999 was made of a much denser piece of wood. i set up both basses up the same , pickup height etc, action and the rest, i just could not get that bass the fireglo to sound anything like the 1999 jetglo. so something has changed at rickenbacker be it construction or materials. at the end of it all you would have a bass that sounded ok , but i dont want ok!!! i want a rickenbacker sound when i buy a new one. your thoughts please guys??

hi cloudburst, it was me who bought the midnight blue, it was borderline there was nothing better in the shop at the time i moved it on a while ago, and i only lost £25. i havent been in the other shop as they dont get the 4003 too often , i have seen that pitting before on them it is very common, just think how that will look in a few years!!!