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Not a fan entirely ...

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ilan:

--- Quote from: Alanko on August 26, 2017, 02:13:28 PM ---He claimed he didn't get enough low end out of them, but that is entirely his own fault for using Marshall amps and cabinets.  :mrgreen:

--- End quote ---
He had no clue about the cap issue. Actually I think I was the first one to tell him about that. When I asked him why did he modify the Ric, his answer was "because I didn't want to sound like f***ing Chris Squire".

wellREDman:
when I saw Rick vs Fender vid  this was what i was expecting

uwe:

--- Quote from: ilan on August 29, 2017, 04:52:39 PM ---He had no clue about the cap issue. Actually I think I was the first one to tell him about that. When I asked him why did he modify the Ric, his answer was "because I didn't want to sound like f***ing Chris Squire".

--- End quote ---

He didn't know about the cap issue, true, but a lot of people didn't do that in the 70ies. I only learned it here myself. Bass ooomph wasn't so much the issue, as he was using Martin cabs from a certain point onwards. What Roger didn't like was that the Ric didn't give him a clean sound, he wanted an undistorted, non-overdriven bass sound like he believed to hear on American recordings at the time. That Machine Head and Made in Japan overdriven sound that people find to die for today, that wasn't tidy enough for him.

Fender experiments had not satisfied him either. The P Bass on In Rock was too inaudible to him (he was right) as it lacked detectable mids, the Fender Mustang used on Fireball lacked ooomph in a live setting. You only heard Roger well on DP records once he used the Ric, but that sound was too overt for him too. When he returned to active playing with Rainbow in 1979 he used a TBird (which was a lot more inconspicious in the Rainbow sound than the Ric in DP had ever been, but that is what Roger wanted) until he broke its headstock off on stage. He's on record for saying that had he known how a TBird sounds while playing with Purple, it would have been his choice over the Ric.

That said, I will forever identify him with a Ric, look- and soundwise. Whenever he drags out the Ric today for Smoke On The Water in favor of the Vigier, it draws a tear to my eye. That Ric sounds nasty and dirty, but just right. A commanding sound.

ilan:

--- Quote from: uwe on August 31, 2017, 10:32:15 AM ---He's on record for saying that had he known how a TBird sounds while playing with Purple, it would have been his choice over the Ric.

--- End quote ---
I can believe that. It's really strange to think that in those days a player of his stature has never tried a T-Bird, when today almost any bass player has had the chance to play almost anything, let alone own tons of different basses.

uwe:
There weren't a lot of 60ies TBirds built in the first place, fewer survived regular gigging and even fewer ever made it to English shores. And Overend Watts of Mott the Hoople had something like eight of them (and held on to them), so that must have been half the Brit TB Rev population alone!  :mrgreen:

Even later pronounced TBird players such as Martin Turner (the TBird came only post-Argus which still features his Ric, his first "proper bass") and Pete Way (when Schenker joined UFO in 1973, Pete Way was still busy playing a Fender P) only stumbled across their TBirds relatively late. In my felt recollection, you saw more of them in the mid-seventies than you did in the early seventies. The Bicentennials released in late 76/77 gave the sixties models a push in popularity too.

The Merseybeats with John Gustafson flaunted Fire- and Thunderbirds as part of their image in the 60ies but that didn't start a TBird (or Firebird) invasion in the UK ...

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