Rick bass

Absolutely posted in the GENERAL discussion area - I had band practice tonight (my day job when I'm not writing software is playing keys), and my good friend showed up with a bonafide rick bass. I've known him for decades. We've played in bands for all that time. BEFORE I met him I played with a guy named Rick Russenburger that curiously had a Rick bass (go figure).

I have ALWAYS loved that sound - something about it a J or P doesn't even approach. My question to the luthiere group is *why* *what?* (he was wired in mono no Rickasound...)

Having previously owned a 4001 and 4003 Ric they certainly do have a very unique voice, best displayed in stereo but still works fine in mono too. Some J's & P/J setups can sound similar such as Geddy Lee now on J Bass compared to his Ric 4001 era plus Duff from GnR who I always thought played a Ric due to how he sounded on their early stuff but that was just a Fender with P/J setup.

To answer your question, original Ric pickups would mostly be the main difference as there is a big variance in tone from Bridge to Neck, with the bridge PU being much larger in size. As for P/J's the P is technically a Humbucker configuration whilst J is single coil hence why there seems to be more punch just on the split P's. Tend to feel that J Bass gets closest to a Ric with Geddy Lee being the best example as it displays that similar hollow plonky sound on both pickups where there are lots of highs & lows but minimal mids.

Another factor may be the body mass as Ric's are the heaviest things I have ever had hanging on a guitar strap except for the 5 string Pitbull Explorer EX5 as it is massive. The bodies are made from maple which is quite a solid bit of wood with a neck through construction where maple wings are glued either side to form the body.

For what it is worth, I rate the 4003 sound better than 4001 as it has a push/pull tone knob that gets the vintage 4001 sound but also sounding more beefier and modern on the normal setting. If money was not an issue I would still have them both but cannot justify that these days.

Cheers, Waz

Rics do have a unique sound about them, and for all the reasons Waz denoted. I have a '73 4001 that I played exclusively for about 20 years. It's a very bright and "ganky" sound, and I love it. Coupled with the new pedals available these days from Tech21, it's a breeze to get that Geddy Lee / Chris Squire tone.

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Originally Posted by wazkelly

As for P/J's the P is technically a Humbucker configuration whilst J is single coil hence why there seems to be more punch just on the split P's.

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Technically, the P is a humbucking design, not a 'humbucker' in the sense of two side-by-side coils that sense the same string movement and where their output is combined. One coil (like in a standard humbucker) is reverse-wound/reverse polarity to the other one, so noise picked up by both coils tends to cancel out when the two coil signals are combined in series.

Because the coils are physically further away from each other compared to a twin parallel coil humbucker, the nose cancellation isn't quite as good for a close noise source where the noise field strengths can be different at the two coils (inverse square law at work), but work just as well for more distant sources where field strength differences are minimal.

The P is 'punchier' because it has wider, flatter windings, so senses more of the string, whereas J pickup windings are narrower and taller (a bit like a P-90 vs a Strat pickup). The P pickups also generally tend to have a lot higher DC resistance (typically around 11k vs 8k for vintage spec units), though some of that is due to the double coils, so the necessity of extra wire to cope with two extra coil ends. Nevertheless, it's all part of the pickup system and contributes extra output.

Ricks also run with higher resistance pots, typically 500k vs the 250k of Fender. So that moves the resonant peak up more into the treble area and generally keeps things brighter. Something you could easily try with a Fender-style bass. Rick pickups are generally between a P and J bass in DC resistance, but have a bit lower output because they use thinner 43AWG or 44AWG wire, instead of the normal 42AWG for Fender pickups. So that means that for the same DCR, the Rick pups will have less turns of wire, which means less inductance (= more treble) and a slightly lower output. Both Rick 4001/3 and Fender P+J pickups use Alnico V rod magnets, so there's nothing otherwise different in their basic design.

That's a solid explanation, Simon.

Plus the build of the guitar will have some say in what it sounds like.