The Last Bass Outpost

Still a great looking bass. You would have thought they would have stuck with the design and made it work better?

At RIC they used to call them "tuna boats". I don't think current management likes the design. Apparently when they were still made, not many people liked them, and years after production stopped, some NOS 4005's were gathering dust in music stores.

I wonder if the problem could be pickup placement. The treble pickup is very close to the bridge.

The first time I saw a Ric bass "in person" was in high school, in a jazz concert, in 1977. I think this was the first and only jazz player I've seen with a Ric bass. I was mesmerized, I thought it was the best looking bass I had ever seen. It was a pre-73 Azureglo, with checkerboard binding, toaster, full-width crushed pearl inlays...

Then I discovered Roger Glover and Chris Squire. The bass sound in Pictures of Home... I think I listened to Machine Head and Yes' Fragile hundreds of times, until I wore out the vinyls.

My first Ric was a 1973 Jetglo 4001. Foolishly I sold it, but later I got a chance to buy a Shadow for $750... and I was in love again. The sound, the looks, these basses play and sound like no other. Soon after I got the Shadow, I bought a white '73 4001. The shadow is my "clank" Ric, with fresh DR Lo Riders, and the white '73 is my "thump" Ric, either with TI Jazz Flats or dead TI Jazz Rounds.

Some famous modified Rics:

McCartney's 4001S, stripped and sanded down (against the grain) to bare wood, then the "cresting wave" in the horns rounded out, and a zero fret added.

Chris Squire's '64 1999RM - according to Squire the body was shaved thinner before it was refinished in cream white. Some pics, however, suggest that the bass is not thinner than a standard Ric bass. It was also wired in stereo.

Roger Glover's '72 Jetglo 4001, was all original for the Machine Head recording sessions, then the neck toaster was replaced with two slanted Fender J pickups.

Renaissance's Jon Camp's modified Ric 4001 "Great White".

Cliff Burton's 4001 with the Gibson mudbucker and Fender J pickups.

Mike Rutherford's double neck Ric... a bass and a 12-string cut and glued together.

If you put them on your 4001 and tune to pitch, the bass would fold in half.

The Gretsch? It's a '64 Model 6070. Long scale, single pickup. Huge body, and the fattest neck you can imagine. I saw it on TV in 1993, had to have it, took me two hours to find the guy who played it on TV (thru mutual friends), only to learn that he already sold it to another guy who sold it to a third person. Nagged the owner for a year, until he broke down and agreed to trade it for another bass. He wanted a MIJ Squier J in Oly White so I went out and bought one for him.

I have it strung with Rotosound Tru Bass black nylon strings, they make it sound like the epitome of 60's bass tone.

It's a poor man's 4005WB

No, just comparing the pic in the Harmony website with pics of 60's H-22's.

(And watch out for that Gibson bug...)

As you can see I've already been bitten by that bug with my 6-string guitars... I did have a nice '68 EB2C but it didn't work for what I was playing so I sold it. It was, however, the best looking bass I have ever owned.

The cutaway is different. The horn is shorter than on real vintage H-22's.