ReWind p+j pickups to get Rickenbacker Bass tone

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I love Rickenbacker Geddy Chris tones but can not afford the pickups and bass. I have p+j stagg bass and want to rewind its pickups to match the Rickenbacker. Please help me ,

umut
istanbul

[J M Fahey]

I´m certain the knowledgeable guys will chime in , but in any case and just as starters you can capture a good chunk of that sound which I also love even with your current Bass by:

1) use **fresh** strings.

2) use a bright punchy Bass amplifier (and set its controls that way)

3) play it LOUD, just at the crunching threshold and part of the time going beyond it.

4) use bright punchy speakers.
Not sure about what he has inside his cabinets but I guess he mixes standard Bass speakers with a couple Guitar ones.

Similar sounding Chris Squire and Glenn Hughes typically used Marshall Bass amplifiers which are not *really* Bass amplifiers and speakers, 70´s ones were almost same schematic as a Marshall Guitar amplifier, with all that implies, and used 4 x 12" Celestion "55 Hz" speakers ... which were "guitarish" enough to be used by Jimi Hendrix and a ton others, go figure, absolutely different from modern Bass speakers which have dull sounding thick cones, long very heavy voice coils, soft edge and suspension to allow, combined with way heavier cone, very low resonant frequency ... and **DULL** sound.

Chris Squire went so far as to use the split output found on many Ricks, feeding the bassier one to Fender Bass amplifiers and the treblier one to Dual Showman on USA Yes tours in the 60´s.

Of course all that can be improved by a specially wound pickup, which makes you *start* with the proper signal, but in my view, regular Jazz Bass is the most versatile Bass type, and can mimic many others if needed.

I think you are trying to get this:

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Juan , I bought stagg p j bass heavily used for 40 dollars , I have no space or money for a marshall or an amp. I have palm size chinese amp for bass and bass wiring is off and no sound yet. I want to wind the j bass and p bass pickup closest to rickenbacker , if possible. I will play in to headphone. I know Tom Sawyer is a strange song with j bass. I prefer deep sustain of rick but alas !

[big_teee]

Juan , I bought stagg p j bass heavily used for 40 dollars , I have no space or money for a marshall or an amp. I have palm size chinese amp for bass and bass wiring is off and no sound yet. I want to wind the j bass and p bass pickup closest to rickenbacker , if possible. I will play in to headphone. I know Tom Sawyer is a strange song with j bass. I prefer deep sustain of rick but alas !

If you want to go to the trouble to rewind?
The Rick is brighter, so underwind the split P pickup and overwind the bridge pickup.
Making a brighter neck pickup and a fuller bridge pickup.
GL,
T

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Terry, How much ? what are the ohm readings ? Can I wind with my hands ?

[big_teee]

Terry, How much ? what are the ohm readings ? Can I wind with my hands ?

A regular P-bass coil is wound to around 10,000 turns per bobbin.
You could try taking some of the wire off the P coils, but you could also damagae a coil, and be out of business.
Do you have soldering gear, and do you have winding wire?
Is this a task you're equipped for, and is a lot of trouble for head phones?
T

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I think I can order a winding from electric motor winders near to me. What is the ohm reading and winding count for rickenbacker n+b ?

[big_teee]

Rewinding a working pickup is not always sound advice, if it's your only pickup.
Better judgement could be to make a new pickup, or buy a new pickup to try.
Then compare the new with the old.
If others have any suggestions, please jump in.

[LtKojak]

Mustafa, I know is not what you wanna hear, but you simply won't get Rick tone with that bass, no matter what or how hard you try, as a p'up can not change the laws of physics.

Having said that, the only thing you could do is to try wiring the neck p'up in parallel and apply heavy amounts of EQ'ing.

Good luck with your project.

[soundmasterg]

Getting the Ric tone depends on what era of Ric tone you are shooting for and if it was flats or rounds. Paul McCartney used flats and Vox and Fender amps and DI when he was using Rics with the Beatles. His bass had the horseshoe pickup in the bridge and the toaster in the neck. His equipment and tone are similar to that of Chris Squire who also had a similar Ric 4001S and used lots of Fender amps, but also quite different from Geddy Lee's Rics. Geddy used Ampeg and Sunn amps and the later Ric 4001 setup with the hi gain pickups in neck and bridge. McCartney also largely used a pick, as did Chris Squire, while Geddy Lee used his fingers. Many modern Ric players are using 4003 Ric basses which have hotter pickups and a neck pickup in a different location.

The point of all of this is that there are many ways to get the Ric tone as there are many Ric tones, but none of them involve a PJ bass or its pickups. The woods used on the basses are different, and the pickups are completely different designs, put in different places on the basses, etc. The common thread on the Ric pickups with the exception of the horseshoe pickup is 44 gauge wire. The Fender pickups are most often made with 42 gauge wire. The older Ric 4001 pickups were often around 7.5k to 9.5k, while the 4003 is going to have hotter pickups more like 12k-14k. They also sound more compressed and have less high end.

Geddy Lee got a similar tone to his Rics on a couple occasions with his Jazz bass, and with a Precision bass on Working Man, but they are both missing the upper mid aggressiveness that the Ric has. A lot of that is due to the pickup design, and the design of the bass and the woods used, etc. Just save your money and get a Ric bass, or build your own (as long as you never plan to sell it) and buy used Ric pickups to equip the bass. Or you can mod your current bass and put Ric pickups in it and get closer than you would by modding your current pickups, but that also will make your current bass worth nothing and make it ugly with holes everywhere that aren't being used.

Greg

[David King]

Take 2000 turns off the P pickups (i.e. 8000 total). You can try connecting them in series first as suggested above but I doubt it will make much difference. A set of P pickups is cheap to replace.

[rjb]

Take 2000 turns off the P pickup (i.e. 8000 total). You can try connecting them in series first as suggested above but I doubt it will make much difference.

Correction: Standard wiring for P pickups coils is in series; the suggestion was to try them in parallel. This makes quite a difference because the inductance of the pair is reduced by about 1/4 and the resonant frequency of the loaded circuit approximately doubles. It used to be common practice to install DiMarzio Model P pickups with a series/parallel switch.

Wiring the coils in parallel won't turn a PBass into a Ric, but it will make it sound a lot brighter. Advantages over unwinding the coils: Fast, easy, reversible, minimal chance of trashing the original pickup. Disadvantages: Output may be "too" bright or weak.

[David Schwab]

Wire the P pickup in parallel. The J already sounds enough like a Rick.

[SirPrimalform]

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but pickup placement is an often neglected factor. Fender bass pickup positioning is very different from Ric bass pickup positioning. The p-bass position or the jazz "neck" position is really more of a middle position.

Ric 4001/3s have their neck pickup in the actual neck position (around where the 24th fret would be) and their bridge pickup not actually that close to the bridge (it's where the 36th fret would be IIRC). The point I'm trying to make is that rewinding the pickups can only do so much if they're still going to be in the Fender positions.