Tell me about Rick-o-sound: gimmick or useful?

[Woodinblack]

The ibanez ric copy I had in the 80s had stereo

[Bassassin]

1 hour ago, meterman said:

I often wondered if the 1970s Ric copies went as far as featuring this?

 

Hond-O-Sound?

 

Shaft-O-Sound?

 

Ib-O-Sound?

 

Someone must have copied it, surely? I want to hear it now!

 

Most of them did. This is pretty typical:

 

This is less so:

 

And this is, well - Brazilian.

[prowla]

10 hours ago, meterman said:

I often wondered if the 1970s Ric copies went as far as featuring this?

 

Hond-O-Sound?

 

Shaft-O-Sound?

 

Ib-O-Sound?

 

Someone must have copied it, surely? I want to hear it now!

"Stereo-Sound".

 

 

Edited December 8 by prowla

[prowla]

15 hours ago, Skybone said:

Another reason to fuel my GAS for a HX Stomp...  

I haven't got my board wired up for stereo, yet...

[NancyJohnson]

2 minutes ago, prowla said:

I haven't got my board wired up for stereo, yet...

 

It always fascinates me that people feel the need for a board like this!  

 

I'd never used stomps of any sort until I got a BDDI about 15+ years ago and that was a revelation.  I've gone through a few (cough) upgrades (cough), but now I'm back to a BDDI and I have a GED2112-DI box.  I'll just use swap these around every few weeks.  Both do everything I could possibly desire.

[prowla]

17 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

It always fascinates me that people feel the need for a board like this!  

 

I'd never used stomps of any sort until I got a BDDI about 15+ years ago and that was a revelation.  I've gone through a few (cough) upgrades (cough), but now I'm back to a BDDI and I have a GED2112-DI box.  I'll just use swap these around every few weeks.  Both do everything I could possibly desire.

Well...

• The EBS does what the BDDI does, but better (I do have two BDDIs); it's also got a tuner.
• The SS-11 does a couple of distortions, differently.
• The HX-Stomp offers phasers, flangers, echo, and suchlike in one box. The little switch next to it is just up/down to step through the sounds rather than having the bigger model.
• The C4 Synth is fun, could flip to an 80's synth sound, do a Moog, whatever. Using the C4 with just its one switch doesn't really do much, so the MC-6 is to select sounds.
• The YYZ is because I wanted one!
• The switcher at the front switches each pedal individually in and out, rather than doing a dance over their on/off switches. It also allows changing pedal sounds with them out of circuit.

In fairness, I do need to spend a bit more time with the HX and C4 to really get a definitive set of sounds.

 

OTOH, if all I want is an always-on straight bass sound then I don't need a board or pedals at all.

[tauzero]

On 06/12/2024 at 21:48, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I've been looking into what I'd need to buy to try it out, and these two items look like they'll do the job:

 

Old Blood Noise Endeavors Split Meld HK (£22)

Jack 6.3 mm TRS (stereo/balanced) male to jack 6.3 mm TRS (stereo/balanced) male cable (£8.30)

 

Then I'd use a couple of standard mono guitar cables to feed the neck pickup into my usual Ashdown ABM600 rig, and the bridge pickup into my Fender mustang GTX 100 guitar combo with a suitably gnarly tone.

 

It would be rather cheaper just to use https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194117870254, plug one end into the Rick and the other two ends into the amps.

[fretmeister]

I've done this with a Yamaha Attitude that has 2 outputs automatically and with a Status that I heavily modified to have 2 separate pickup systems.

 

Different outputs on the bass going to different amps.

 

My original rig for this was a Hartke HA3500 head with a Marshall VBC412 cab for the highs / FX, and an Ashdown MAG400H and another Marshall VBC412 cab for the lows. The highs had a wah, drive, phaser, filter, compressor. The lows had an octave and a compressor.

 

With the Yamaha I used the neck pickup woofer to the the lows and the P to the highs. The status was JPJ and the P went to the lows and the J pair to the highs. The lows were EQ'd to be much like a neck pickup sound on an EB0, thick and plummy. The highs had boosted mids and a lot of low end cut so there was less competition for sonic space with the low amp.

 

I later changed the rig to a rack set up. I had an Ampeg SVP-BSP preamp for the highs / drive that was also able to mix clean and dirty, and then a Line 6 Bass Pod XT for the lows, but that could also do a clean sound with whatever else. So effectively I had 4 different tones, blended in pairs.

 

That lot went into a Yamaha P5000S power amp and into a pair of Hartke 2x12 cabs.

 

I loved both versions of it. Being able to control the mix from the bass was brilliant. 

 

These days I tend to use just one rig with pedals that have clean blends but they really are not the same thing as getting a multiamp rig set up right.

The secret is note decay. All the blended sounds must have the same note decay otherwise it sounds like different sounds rather than 1 complex one. Compression is the key - making the cleans decay as slow as the driven sounds. That needs a lot of fiddling to get right.

 

It was completely awesome. If I had roadies I'd be all over it again.

[visog]

On 08/12/2024 at 09:33, prowla said:

Well...

• The EBS does what the BDDI does, but better (I do have two BDDIs); it's also got a tuner.
• The SS-11 does a couple of distortions, differently.
• The HX-Stomp offers phasers, flangers, echo, and suchlike in one box. The little switch next to it is just up/down to step through the sounds rather than having the bigger model.
• The C4 Synth is fun, could flip to an 80's synth sound, do a Moog, whatever. Using the C4 with just its one switch doesn't really do much, so the MC-6 is to select sounds.
• The YYZ is because I wanted one!
• The switcher at the front switches each pedal individually in and out, rather than doing a dance over their on/off switches. It also allows changing pedal sounds with them out of circuit.

In fairness, I do need to spend a bit more time with the HX and C4 to really get a definitive set of sounds.

 

OTOH, if all I want is an always-on straight bass sound then I don't need a board or pedals at all.

 

Adding to your list, the Phil Jones Dual Compressor splits a signal by frequency, with dual independent compression and effects loops: https://www.pjbworld.com/cms/x2c/

 

Also you can do this on the cheap with the new Boss GX 10, again splitting your signal by frequency then applying different amps and effects before recombining.

[oakforest5961]

Not a Rickenbacker, but the Yamaha Attitude is exactly the same idea, though it has the convenience of a jack socket for each pickup so normal cables can be used. Billy Sheehan always plays with two amps live; he talks of his amp set-up towards the end of this video:

If you can afford a Ric, then you can afford the splitter box and stereo cable. Basically you have to at least try a dual amp set-up, even just at home, or you will always be wondering what it would be like…

[fretmeister]

3 hours ago, oakforest5961 said:

Not a Rickenbacker, but the Yamaha Attitude is exactly the same idea, though it has the convenience of a jack socket for each pickup so normal cables can be used. Billy Sheehan always plays with two amps live; he talks of his amp set-up towards the end of this video:

If you can afford a Ric, then you can afford the splitter box and stereo cable. Basically you have to at least try a dual amp set-up, even just at home, or you will always be wondering what it would be like…

 

 

That's his very old rig from 13 years ago.

 

He now uses a Helix for the drives / fx. The Helix will take to entirely different signals and can process them separately.

Billy even lent his favourite Pearse Preamp to Line6 so they could model it and include it in the Helix for the rest of us too.

 

He runs the helix into amp heads - often those Hartke ones, but sometimes whatever the local backline company has available, and into a bunch of Hartke 1x15 Hydrive cabs.

 

Of course the cabs are really for onstage monitoring. The Helix can supply straight to Front of House at the same time as feeding the amps. It can even send different versions of the signal. So no cab sim to the amps and real cabs, but add cab sims on the feeds to FOH.

[mazdah]

Using Ric-o-Sound with another clean bass amp is a worthless idea. However using it with dirty guitar amp (AND CAB) for bridge and bass amp for neck pickup gave me THE BEST dirt sound I've ever heard.

 

And I have 17 dirt boxes on shelf  

[PinkMohawk]

4 hours ago, mazdah said:

Using Ric-o-Sound with another clean bass amp is a worthless idea. However using it with dirty guitar amp (AND CAB) for bridge and bass amp for neck pickup gave me THE BEST dirt sound I've ever heard.

 

And I have 17 dirt boxes on shelf  

This is the way. Two separate amps, not pushing clean and dirty out of the same speakers just makes it sound so much better. 

[mazdah]

Also what's even more important for me - I get MUCH better results with tube guitar amp and guitar cabinet for bridge pickup than using a bass amp and cab with dirt pedal. 

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I don't have a tube amp but my Fender mustang GTX 100 does a great job of emulating several, my favourite being a mesa boogie, so I'll be trying that.

[PinkMohawk]

9 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I don't have a tube amp but my Fender mustang GTX 100 does a great job of emulating several, my favourite being a mesa boogie, so I'll be trying that.

I had great results with both tube and solid state, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. I did run whichever guitar head I had into an 8x10 though, but still, the general point stands. Get that signal super nasty and grindy, like unusable if it wasn't for the clean side, and it'll be huge. 

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I got hold of a TRS to 2x mono cable for recording and recorded my 4003 using Rick-o-sound onto two tracks of Logic. I got a sound I liked but I’ll probably change the bass sound when/if I record some vocals on the track.

Edited 1 hour ago by Jean-Luc Pickguard

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

On 07/12/2024 at 00:22, joel406 said:

Nobody tries it.

I received my OBNE split meld and a stereo guitar cable from Thomann today and have I just tried Rick-o-sound on my 4003 with the neck pickup going into my Roland Microcube bass RX set as an SVT and the bridge pickup (with the tone knob pulled out to roll of some of the low end) going into my Fender mustang GTX100 set with a gnarly Billy Gibbons tone (The first setting I tried).

 

It was probably the best distortion tone I've managed to get on bass ever, and I've tried a lot of different pedals over the years.

 

I tried something similar during the week using a stereo 1/4" jack to 2 × mono 1/4" jack cable recording the 4003 onto two separate tracks in Logic using both inputs of my focusrite scarlett 2i2. Once the bass was recorded, I applied amp/cab/fx emulations to the tracks, keeping the track mono for the neck pickup but using stereo fx for the bridge pickup.

 

My first attempt sounded like this (my instrumental cover of 'The beat goes on'):