And yes, Ilan, we tried your helpful recipe of "turning the truss rods around", I even made printouts of your instructive pics and the good instructions and gave them to my luthier. But the neck had such a natural curve (or perhaps an acquired one by then) that the Ric truss rods where at their limit pulling it straight once the bass was strung.
Anyway, it's all good now. It's still not really a versatile instrument and frankly I do not think that the history of rock needed to be rewritten had 8-string basses never been invented (last time I innocently stated that at the Dudepit several years ago, the King's X fans were all over me!
), but I like that the Ric 4003S/8 is passive whereas more modern 8-strings all tend to be active. It never fails to impress at rehearsals or gigs, but I generally grow tired of its sounds (and how it inhibits my playing) after two or three songs. You can be this huge baritone rhythm guitar with it and chord a little, but its almost impossible to play rhythmically intricate patterns with it that groove and are fluid-sounding. Whenever I play it, I either sound like Tom Petty (the rhythm guitar effect) or Gene Simmons with it (that slightly heavy-handed, stalking feel it then gives my playing). Frankly, I never heard the Cheap Trick guy play anything impressive on his 8- and 12-strings either, all his good runs (and he has a few) are executed on 4-stringers.
