The Last Bass Outpost

So - do I assume correctly that the bassman amps you're referring to are the 50 watt blackface Bassmans?
........
I have always found those old Bassman amps to be very loud for a 50W rating.

Alan has 2 70 watt'ers of which he uses only one at the time. And those 70 watt'ers are loud also. ;-)

The notch in the middle "rib" over the mute compartment in vintage and reissue Rics. The v63 and C64 had correct nothced tailpieces.

Like this:

I'm not native english speaking. Is this the same as what is meant by tooth-gap bridge?

Ok, I'll give english a try.

Last Friday we went to see Gunslinger. The new band of (former Hawkwind) Alan Davey. Alan and I exchanged some myspace messages about Rickenbacker's more than a year ago. We are Facebook friends, but he has hundreds of them. We never spoke each other in real life.

It was a great show and I really enjoyed it. I like his sound very much and the music too.
The pub where they played told them to stop. "We'll do one more and than we have to stop". After the song he turned his amp off (real off, not standby) so I knew it really ended. He turned around (I was about second row before the stage) and immidiately pushed his bass into my hands. "Feel how low the actions is". (It was, and the neck was comparable to my own '86, which means thin and small) We went on talking about Rickenbacker's and Fender bassman's (I own a '63, he has 2 '71's) for some time. His 4003S was special made for him out of very old wood he told. He also had a luthier make him 2 extra frets. I knew this and found it fun to see it in real. I told his Bassman sounded better than mine. He told it took him long before he achieved this sound. The preamp valves used where a big factor (Chandler?).
I was very curious about his amp settings so I walked on stage and saw volume:10, treble:6, bass:0 .Having a bassman myself I know you have to be carefull with the bass knob once you go into power amp distortion territory. I also know it still sounds bassy and has lots of balls still. But I did feel for a moment if it was really on 0 and not on 10.
When we had left I thought I had totally forgotten to congratulate him for his birthday. He was even telling me he got a bottle of rum for his birthday which he liked very much as he (told) he is an enomous rum lover.

Bert made a neat sound comparison of the 4005 against other Rics here:

   http://www.rickresource.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=385701

These samples are Chris his 4005 by the way. And if I remember correctly he has the electronics messed up. I like dialing in about 80 procent bridge with 100 procent neck pickup. With Chris his 4005 (electronics) You can only swith pickups on and off so this gives a little more nasal sound than I like. (If I remember correctly. )

The 4005 just looks good and one of a kind, but there is nothing very special about its sound. It lacks mid punch for rock, both E and G tend to be a little on the weak side and it is nowhere near the classic sound of a Ric 4001/4003.

As far as memory serves me right I never noticed the E and G drop with Chris's 4005 (in the almost half a year it spent at my house). I also never noticed it with my own 4005. My 4005 is a very welcome addition to my other Ricks. Definitely the same family soundwise. Enough difference to make it worthwile. And great to look at.

This comes to (my) mind:

Thanks! My all-time favorite Ric color.  

And since that makes 2 of us I can just as well post more pictures of my other AZG.