John Hall?

[Bassassin]

I love the look & willingness to modernise of the 4004 - but that stuck in the 60s pickup positioning makes no sense to me.

4004 with 4002 pickup positioning? Or why not a 4002 reissue? Wonder why that's never happened.

[prowla]

16 minutes ago, Bassassin said:

I love the look & willingness to modernise of the 4004 - but that stuck in the 60s pickup positioning makes no sense to me.

4004 with 4002 pickup positioning? Or why not a 4002 reissue? Wonder why that's never happened.

Well, it's the sound..., which spans decades.

[prowla]

29 minutes ago, 4000 said:

I bought a lovely one, but ironically the body contouring aggravated nerve issues in my arm - which the bound ones don't - so I had to sell it. 

That is ironic, isn't it? 😕

[4000]

1 hour ago, Bassassin said:

I love the look & willingness to modernise of the 4004 - but that stuck in the 60s pickup positioning makes no sense to me.

4004 with 4002 pickup positioning? Or why not a 4002 reissue? Wonder why that's never happened.

The 4002 spacing doesn’t work for me, but I don’t generally like bridge pickups that are too close to the bridge. “Burp” does nothing for me.

Edited May 12, 2019 by 4000

[4000]

1 hour ago, prowla said:

Well, it's the sound..., which spans decades.

This.

[NikNik]

10 hours ago, Bassassin said:

I love the look & willingness to modernise of the 4004 - but that stuck in the 60s pickup positioning makes no sense to me.

4004 with 4002 pickup positioning? Or why not a 4002 reissue? Wonder why that's never happened.

Hall seemed to take great delight in stating that there would never be a 4002 run again. I can't remember what the excuse was. Yet for years a pallet of 4002 wings sat idle out at Santa Ana. Mysteriously,  they turned up on ebay ten years back, some married to necks. I very much doubt those were fakes. Their existence was explained as the work of an ex-employee, IIRC.

[Bassassin]

15 hours ago, prowla said:

Well, it's the sound..., which spans decades.

Genuinely curious about this. I do come from the perspective of not being a Rick owner & not being able to A/B a 4001/4003 with a 4004 - but do they sound broadly the same then? I've spent enough time around Rick players & fans to know that the alchemy claimed as the constituents of the classic Rick tones is a combination of the various idiosyncracies of the instrument - the single-coil hi-gains, the way they're mounted, the .0047 capacitor, even the much debated & much maligned hollow tailpiece.

The 4004 has humbuckers directy mounted to the timber and a high-mass Schaller bridge - I don't know if it has the bass cut cap but I'd assume it doesn't. You'd think it would have a lot of inherent tonal difference purely based on the nuts & bolts of its components & build.

Strange story about the 4002 @NikNik, I never saw these on Ebay! Wonder if there will be a 4002 reissue after all, if JH's really gone...

[NikNik]

4002 wings

How hard could it be? And in that thread in 2006 Hall says he has 4002 pups locked away in a drawer.

They were on USA ebay. Pretty sure the wings were sold by the 'Jersey Butcher. Perhaps they were full bodies, but it's all lost in the mists of time.

One set of wings popped up on an auction site a few years ago.

Edited May 13, 2019 by NikNik

[BigRedX]

For me the whole point of a Rickenbacker bass (or any other bass for that matter) is that it offers something different to Fender P or J and their copies.

It seems to me that most of those who try a Rickenbacker and don't get on with it really want something that plays, feels and sounds like the Fender but with the 4001/4003 body shape holographically laid over the top.

Edited May 13, 2019 by BigRedX

[Stub Mandrel]

4 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

For me the whole point of a Rickenbacker bass (or any other bass for that matter) is that it offers something different to Fender P or J and their copies.

It seems to me that most of those who try a Rickenbacker and don't get on with it really want something that plays, feels and sounds like the Fender but with the 4001/4003 body shape holographically laws over the top.

That rings true.

Rickenbacker is like many other old brands that live off their mystique/cachet and survive by selling small quantities to high standards to a small specialist clientele willing to pay the high prices associated with the product.

There are often cheaper (often vastly cheaper) alternatives that do the job as well or even better  but don't come with the 'pride of ownership' fitted.

This is true for cars, tools, all sorts of things.

[Woodinblack]

51 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

It seems to me that most of those who try a Rickenbacker and don't get on with it really want something that plays, feels and sounds like the Fender but with the 4001/4003 body shape holographically laid over the top.

I didn't really get on with it (I won't say i hate them, love the shape, just sort of gets in the way of how I play), but I sure as hell don't want something that feels plays or sounds like a fender!

[prowla]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

That rings true.

Rickenbacker is like many other old brands that live off their mystique/cachet and survive by selling small quantities to high standards to a small specialist clientele willing to pay the high prices associated with the product.

There are often cheaper (often vastly cheaper) alternatives that do the job as well or even better  but don't come with the 'pride of ownership' fitted.

This is true for cars, tools, all sorts of things.

So, what vastly cheaper instrument does the job as well or better than a Ric bass?

[Muzz]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

That rings true.

Rickenbacker is like many other old brands that live off their mystique/cachet and survive by selling small quantities to high standards to a small specialist clientele willing to pay the high prices associated with the product.

There are often cheaper (often vastly cheaper) alternatives that do the job as well or even better  but don't come with the 'pride of ownership' fitted.

This is true for cars, tools, all sorts of things.

This, except for the 'to high standards'. At least in my experience, having bought (and returned) a brand new 4003... I'm sure there are good ones out there, but they aren't all good.

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, prowla said:

So, what vastly cheaper instrument does the job as well or better than a Ric bass?

I have my opinions but I won't go there as it's highly subjective and what one person might think sounds just like one might be noting like it to another!

[prowla]

18 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I have my opinions but I won't go there as it's highly subjective and what one person might think sounds just like one might be noting like it to another!

Ok - opinions are good. 

[skankdelvar]

55 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I have my opinions but I won't go there as it's highly subjective and what one person might think sounds just like one might be noting like it to another!

I suppose it depends what 'doing the job as well or better' entails. It's unlikely that anything that isn't a Ric will do the job of being a Ric as well a Ric would do it.

In terms of looking like a Ric there are fakers out there that could do the job of looking like a Ric as well as a Ric but not better than a Ric

In terms of sounding like a Ric one could perform a spectral analysis of a Rick's output and tweak one's tone with a graphic EQ to resemble that of a Ric, or retrofit a Variax unit. This might get one very close to the sound of a Ric and - depending on one's rig, modeller or plug-ins - might sound like a Ric.

So, yes, there are alternatives that might adequately simulate a Ric's appearance and sound without necessarily doing a better job. But they couldn't reproduce a Ric's inherency of being a Ric.

Too much information. Going now.

Edited May 13, 2019 by skankdelvar

[NikNik]

3 hours ago, prowla said:

So, what vastly cheaper instrument does the job as well or better than a Ric bass?

Any copy by Greco. Fact!

Edited May 13, 2019 by NikNik

[prowla]

1 hour ago, NikNik said:

Any copy by Greco. Fact!

Nope.

[Stub Mandrel]

OK. More than  one person has commented that my 'entirely unlike a Ric in every possible way' Hohner B2 can sound curiously like one, despite having humbuckers (or perhaps because of them) - quite aggressive on the bridge pickup with clear harmonics and good clarity if playing chords.

[prowla]

1 minute ago, Stub Mandrel said:

OK. More than  one person has commented that my 'entirely unlike a Ric in every possible way' Hohner B2 can sound curiously like one, despite having humbuckers (or perhaps because of them) - quite aggressive on the bridge pickup with clear harmonics and good clarity if playing chords.

Funnily enough, I have a Steinberger Spirit which I intend to put Ric pickups on!

[NikNik]

1 hour ago, prowla said:

Nope.

In my experience,  yes. By a long chalk. Dwell in this: at one point I owned 8 4000 series basses; now I have none. Yet I have three Greco Ricks. Had them for several years. Does that not tell you something?

In fact, don't bother replying. I've read your posts across various fora and you clearly are a champion of the RIC brand. Just please don't doubt they're the be-all and end-all of basses, for they aren't. Far from it!

Edited May 13, 2019 by NikNik

[stingrayPete1977]

No one has managed to get the paint to bleed into the binding quite like Ric can. 

[prowla]

50 minutes ago, NikNik said:

In my experience,  yes. By a long chalk. Dwell in this: at one point I owned 8 4000 series basses; now I have none. Yet I have three Greco Ricks. Had them for several years. Does that not tell you something?

In fact, don't bother replying. I've read your posts across various fora and you clearly are a champion of the RIC brand. Just please don't doubt they're the be-all and end-all of basses, for they aren't. Far from it!

When you start personalising things is when I disconnect.

[Captain Bassman]

I’ve been curious about Rics for ages but never taken the plunge, mainly because my pick playing is pretty sh*te by gig standards.

Anyway this thread got me interested again so at the weekend I popped into Guitar Guitar to have a nosey. They have 5 brand new 4003s in the Epsom store - a walnut with binding, a mapleglow with binding, 2 matte blacks - one with and one without binding - and a lefty fireglow. All 5 look absolutely stunning.

I didn’t plug any in but noodled briefly on all 4 rightys acoustically but I was mainly interested in the build quality. All appeared really well built and finished (the matte black is particularly stunning) but on closer inspection...

Of the 3 basses with binding, the walnut and matte black had clear ‘steps’ in the level between the plastic binding and the wood edge where they hadn’t been sanded completely smooth. This was mainly apparent on the top edge but also around the lower horn. The best of the bunch binding-wise was the mapleglow which was nigh-on perfect.

In terms of general finish all 4 looked very good except for the fingerboard of the mapleglow which had some dust specks evident in gloss lacquer. The worst was the walnut where the finish around the edge of the top horn wasn’t actually finished. There were still what looked like sanding marks in the wood.

Given that the basses range in price from £1,899 (matte black no binding) to £2,499 (matte black with binding) after GG discounts I would expect QC on instruments at this price point to be top notch but it’s apparent that flaws are getting through. The ‘small company’ excuse can’t really be used in justification when you have much smaller one man band luthiers turning out near flawlessly finished instruments.

I would still love one but iconic looks and sound cannot make up for such poor QC on basses commanding 2 grand and over. I guess as others have said, you have to keep shopping until you find that good ‘in. My opinion only, of course.

[Bassassin]

@NikNik - in fairness to Prowla, he does own several MIJ and MIK Fakers  as well as his Ricks so his opinion is pretty objective. Despite him being a proper Rickenbacker fanboy!