Rickenbacker... 5s?

[12stringbassist]

Those B and G strings are right on the edge of the neck from the look of it.

[EBS_freak]

24 minutes ago, 12stringbassist said:

Those B and G strings are right on the edge of the neck from the look of it.

There's a bass in this picture?

[ezbass]

Thread resurrection time with a demo of the Rick fiver...

 

[Paulhauser]

12 hours ago, ezbass said:

Thread resurrection time with a demo of the Rick fiver...

 

I respect them for putting all the effort into this video but there isn't much point in reviewing a 5 string Rickenbacker without playing the B string much at all. 
 

Edited September 29, 2019 by Paulhauser

[Happy Jack]

Good review, and I agree with most of what he says, but I was quite surprised by his description of the pull-up Tone knob function. He seems to think that this is to 'thin out' the bass tone and pick up more highs, which I suppose is one way of describing it, whereas John Hall actually named it to me as 'the vintage knob' and he was quite right - pulling it up instantly restored the classic vintage Ricky 'clank' which had been missing without it.

There are situations where the Ricky 'clank' works really well, but there are many more situations where (IMHO) it doesn't. I play mainly T-birds and Precisions, so that gives a flavour of how I like my bass to sound. The thing I liked so much about the new 5 is that it can sound like a vintage Rick AND it can sound far more mellow.

On the string spacing thing, though mainly a fingerstyle player myself I would certainly have to play more with a pick if I got the chance to own one of these - unlikely to be an issue any time soon, since Rickenbacker seem to be keeping supply ridiculously low, perhaps to add to the mystique of the bass.

The biggest problem with this review was his complete lack of a silly hat.

 

[4000]

The “vintage knob” (no, not JH😉) puts a capacitor inline on the back pickup, like on the old 4001s, hence the more “vintage” tone. For all intents and purposes it simply cuts the low end output on that pickup. 

[Musicman20]

That 5 string sounds fantastic.