Some recent live Ric 4001S footage

[leftybass]

[Dave W]

Thanks. Good stuff as usual.

The audio and video are much better than most YouTube live clips.

[ilan]

Yeah, good stuff Ronn!

[leftybass]

Yeah, I dont know who shot it but they did a decent job for (apparently)being hand-held.

[Highlander]

  nuff said...

[Chris P.]

Yeah, great!

[Hornisse]

Great stuff Ronn.  It appears that you are shrinking as well!  Fill me in on your secret!

[leftybass]

Great stuff Ronn.  It appears that you are shrinking as well!  Fill me in on your secret!

Thanks!
I started Weight Watchers when I turned 50 in June '08. Weighed 286, currently at 212.

[Highlander]

Serious respect, Sir...!

[Daniel_J]

Great stuff indeed!

Say, I've been seen pictures of your psychedelic Ric popping up on the net for years now. I don't know how many others might have done that to their Rics, but for sure your is probably as famous as Paul's Ric by now. I mean, if one would search the web looking for a picture of Paul's bass to try to recreate that paintjob, I'm pretty sure a picture of your bass would be the best source for that.
BTW, how did you do that paintjob?

And also, back to the topic, could you tell about your usual rig when playing the Ric live (like in this performance)?

[leftybass]

Thanks, yep, I guess I painted my 4001S at least 10 years ago. My paintjob's a little different from his, the swirly bit up by the horn is different, and I used teal instead of silver/grey just 'cause I like it better. Doing it slightly different fits into our band's "format" of playing Beatles tunes but not pretending to be them, not mentioning The Beatles at shows, not calling each other "Paul" or "Ringo", and no wigs! 
Our rythym guitarist's Ric 320 is Fireglo instead of Jetglo for instance, "right" but not "exact". Just our way of doing things.
I first had to get up the nerve to paint a Rickenbacker, I was a Ric bass fan before I even knew how to play, so I had great love and respect for this bass. It was originally Mapleglo, so the first thing I had to do was paint it Fireglo, then do the "MMT" paintjob on top of that. This was before the DVD era(at least for me) so I paused the "Hello Goodbye" video on the Beatles Anthology VHS, and also checked out the "MMT" LP which has a couple decent shots of the bass.
And just did it. The finish has held up pretty well over the years, it has worn thru in the lower cutaway and where my left arm contacts the body.

My "rig"? Not much to speak of really, just a simple set-up that nails the needed tones. Bass goes into an Electronix Submarine bass preamp, which is a very simple device to deal with. We have a pretty tight show with little down-time between songs(except for guitar changes or announcements, etc.) so there's not a lot of time to make tweaks on an amplifier. The Submarine is just a volume and a tone knob. For our first set(Beatles '62-'66) I play a Hofner and the tone is pretty much set, without any changes. For the second set('67-'70) I play the Ric and a Fender Jazz, and this is where the Submarine comes in handy. There's several varied bass tones on the tunes from this era and just a slight turn on the Submarine's tone knob and pickup settings on the bass do the trick.
The Submarine goes into an Ampeg RocketBass 100 bass combo. 100 watts into a single 15". The 4-band EQ is set flat for the 1st set, treble is turned up for the 2nd set. For "bass-heavy" tunes like "Come Together", "Paperback Writer", and "Rain" I turn on the bass boost switch.
Line out from the Ampeg goes into a DI box into the board.
Here's a shot of the Ampeg.

[Daniel_J]

Thanks for the info!

I guess a Ric doesn't need much to sound like... er... a Ric! Never heard of the submarine before though, but it sure seems to be great, being simple like that.

I asked about the paintjob because I was wondering if you had any special pictures or material that you used to based your work from, because you did such a great job.

[godofthunder]

sounds great Ronn ! You really nail Paul's tone and style!