Rickenbacker Bass Pickup

[David Schwab]

At least Grahm Maby played a P bass!

Yeah, but it was an Ibanez!

I was just listing to that album this morning. Great bass player.

So why don't you make P basses?

[David King]

Who says I don't? You always get what you order from me. I've done a few P-J combos over the years but never a straight P. I know what you're getting at though, I had a 1973 P and I hated it. Perhaps if I've had a Sunn Coluseum rig or an Ampeg SVT I would have been happy with it. It sounded so bad direct into the head phones, I can't tell you.

[David Schwab]

I like P basses. If I had to choose between a P and a J I'd take a P. Actually I have to take a P. OK I'm back.

I had a '74 P bass. It was an awful bass. it sounded good, but had a neck like a roller coaster. That was before I had refretted an instrument, so I took it to a local repair shop and it came back worse than it went in! So I learned on that neck. It was still crap after that, and eventually became this 8-string bass!

Here it is in 1981.

[David King]

Ouch , what did you do to the horns? I can see you photo-shopped your crotch too.

[David Schwab]

Ouch, what did you do to the horns?

Here is it with a new bridge, pickguard, paint job and neck. Same body.


Now let's compare that with the MM Big Al. Hmmmmmm....

I can see you photo-shopped your crotch too.

I have on shiny leather pants. No Photoshopping!

[mkat]

Now let's compare that with the MM Big Al. Hmmmmmm....

I played a Big Al a few months back and was really surprised, I like it. I have to tell you that when I saw it, it reminded me of your bass. Phil Mailloux (forum member) and I did the rounds of a couple of bass stores that day. I must have played just over 30 basses (eg. Sadowsky, LEJ, Ritter, Alembic, Ken Smith, Mallia, Benavente, Roscoe and more) .

[soundmasterg]

Ouch , what did you do to the horns? I can see you photo-shopped your crotch too.

HAHA...thats funny....

Guess he saw Greg Oden's online pics and felt inadequate......

Greg

[David Schwab]

[cam atkinson]

i had read many years ago that geddy lee actually used a cut down old fender p bass for most of his recordings. i read that in a music magazine about 10-12 years ago. in the mid 70's i used a ricky 4000, single pickup bass. i was told it was used by toronto bass player prakash john and it had a single jazz bass pickup instead of the original ricky pickup. you had to really crank the amp (traynor custom special) up to get a desent sound.....for what it worth!

[soundmasterg]

i had read many years ago that geddy lee actually used a cut down old fender p bass for most of his recordings. i read that in a music magazine about 10-12 years ago. in the mid 70's i used a ricky 4000, single pickup bass. i was told it was used by toronto bass player prakash john and it had a single jazz bass pickup instead of the original ricky pickup. you had to really crank the amp (traynor custom special) up to get a desent sound.....for what it worth!

Geddy has given MANY interviews over the years talking about his use of Rickenbacker basses, why he doesn't use them now, Sunn and Ampeg bass amps that he used, etc. Further a lot of people have seen him live using Rickenbacker basses, and he used one on encores on this past tour. You can believe that stuff about a cut down P bass if you want, but I don't believe it. If you've played a RIC bass with stock pickups and roundwound strings into an overdriven tube Sunn amp, you can get the Freewill tone for yourself right there, and you'll know thats what he used for that and many other songs.

Greg

[David Schwab]

The string spacing wouldn't match on a Jazz pickup. Go find old photos of Deep Purple when Roger Glover had two Jazz pickups at the neck and a custom humbucker at the bridge. You can see how they had to be angled to match up.



Also if you've seen Geddy using the Rick live, you saw him constantly trying to turn the volume knobs UP! He clearly wanted more output then he was getting, which was typical of Ricks.

Here's a photo of Geddy with his Rick. You can clearly see the stock bridge pickup. Click on the photo again for full size.

[12Bass]

Hmmm.... low output is not an issue with my 1982 4001.

[David Schwab]

I don't know what Geddy has, but the 80's pickups are hotter than the 70's pickups.

Isn't your bass a 4003? They discontinued the 4001 in 1980/81.

[mkat]

Far out, I didn't know Roger Glover had jbass pickups in his 4001. Talk about tight spacing. I sold mine in the late 80's and don't how the string spacing felt, was very comfortable with the pbass spacing. Cripes, what are they thinking making a 4 into a 5.

[David Schwab]

Far out, I didn't know Roger Glover had jbass pickups in his 4001.

I believe that was done by John Birch, who also made the bridge pickup.

When I saw them back in the 70's he was using that bass.