The Ric 4001 ...

[Chris P.]

Welcome Bert. It's good to have more Dutch people here!

BTW: The Last Bass Outpost is 100% male...

[drbassman]

Flats on a Rickenbacker - I've still never tried that.

I have Pyramid flats on mine and they sound great! I really liked the sound of the original rounds, they are about the best stock rounds that come on any bass!

[Bert]

Welcome Bert. It's good to have more Dutch people here!

BTW: The Last Bass Outpost is 100% male...

Thanx Chris. 100 % male? Maybe this will change now. Chicks dig Ricks. 

[uwe]

Certain years have chunky necks. Which year is your son's Rick?

Whenever I see the valiant, yet futile fight of the twin truss rods of my 4003S/8 string against ever increasing neck bow, I wish they would have mad THAT neck fatter. I had both truss rods exchanged a few years ago and both of them are already again at nearly the end of their range. All you can ever do is tighten them, no matter what the climate they never pull the neck straight enough to necessitate loosening them.

I have yet to experience any advantage of the Ric twin truss rod system, be it old or new. It is in the best of cases as stable as a Gibson or Fender truss rod, but in most cases it is not. That you would need to adjust one truss rod different from the other I have never encountered. On five Rics I own neither the necks are warped enough or the fret job is uneven enough to necessitate individually different adjustment.

[Bert]

Whenever I see the valiant, yet futile fight of the twin truss rods of my 4003S/8 string against ever increasing neck bow, I wish they would have mad THAT neck fatter. I had both truss rods exchanged a few years ago and both of them are already again at nearly the end of their range. All you can ever do is tighten them, no matter what the climate they never pull the neck straight enough to necessitate loosening them.

What a Pitty. I suppose you have tried strings with less tension? I recently read of enforcing necks with extra pieces of some carbon whatever material. VoxHumana in the Netherlands do this. Maybe others too.

Buying an EXH POG made my GASses for an 8string almost go away by the way.

[Chris P.]

i read a very good review of a new small version of the EHX POG. Which one do you have, Bert?

[Bert]

i read a very good review of a new small version of the EHX POG. Which one do you have, Bert?

The Big one. Simply the best octaver I tried (octave down). Very nice for making an 8 or 12 string out of a 4 string (with the 1 octave up and 2 octave up/detune sliders). And with a little echo behind it I dont need a church organ anymore also. It's a different concept than my previous EBS octabass. The POG just generates an octave down/up/2up signal out of the incoming signal. Even if you slide your plectrum over the strings to make jetplane sounds it works. And it tracks very wel also.

[Chris P.]

Bert,

Sounds nice!
Could you take a look at the microPOG at the completely new EHX page for me and tell me what you think about it?

[Bert]

Sounds nice!
Could you take a look at the microPOG at the completely new EHX page for me and tell me what you think about it?

What i've read it tracks even better than the big POG (and the big pog is allready much, much, much better than for instance an EBS octabass). It would be perfect if you just need an octaver. But your options to emulate 8 or 12 strings (or even organs) are a lot less. Especially the detune sliders are necesary (I think) to give an 8/12 string like sound. In real live octave strings aren't 100 % in tune also.

[Chris P.]

Thanks Bert from Zaandam!

[Dave W]

Whenever I see the valiant, yet futile fight of the twin truss rods of my 4003S/8 string against ever increasing neck bow, I wish they would have mad THAT neck fatter. I had both truss rods exchanged a few years ago and both of them are already again at nearly the end of their range. All you can ever do is tighten them, no matter what the climate they never pull the neck straight enough to necessitate loosening them.

I have yet to experience any advantage of the Ric twin truss rod system, be it old or new. It is in the best of cases as stable as a Gibson or Fender truss rod, but in most cases it is not. That you would need to adjust one truss rod different from the other I have never encountered. On five Rics I own neither the necks are warped enough or the fret job is uneven enough to necessitate individually different adjustment.

The Rick truss rods used since about 1984 operate the same way as a traditional Gibson or Fender rod. Having two of them doesn't really make the neck stronger, it just allows you to counteract string pull separately on each side.

Sounds like your 4003S/8 has a neck that's just not stiff enough and is unstable to boot.

[uwe]

Yup, I see the day coming when I'll have the fretboard removed to carbon-reinforce the neck. I also think that my dilemma is the reason why they gave up on the eight string eventually. I'm wondering whether Hieronymous has the same issues with his eight string or whether his beast has found a more zen like tranquility in its neck stability (thanks, no doubt, to comforting words of its owner!). It would have needed a different neck construction to withstand the pull. I have TI Jazz Flats (= extremely low tension) and octave strings that are thinner than what Ric recommends or provides, but eight strings is eight strings ... I've tried other combinations before but find a combo of flatwound bass strings and roundwound octave strings providing the "unmessiest" sound.

Playing it tonight at the rehearsal - it sounds great with a new song we've written and are rehearsing where I play chords on the D and G  while letting the empty A string(s) drone in a syncopated fashion ...

Uwe

[ilan]

I have yet to experience any advantage of the Ric twin truss rod system, be it old or new. It is in the best of cases as stable as a Gibson or Fender truss rod, but in most cases it is not. That you would need to adjust one truss rod different from the other I have never encountered. On five Rics I own neither the necks are warped enough or the fret job is uneven enough to necessitate individually different adjustment.

I think that neck stability is more a matter of neck woods and construction, than it is the truss rods.

In difficult cases, John Hall suggested tightening the rods like you would tighten old-style folded rods, i.e., pull the headstock backwards with your hand and then use the rods to "lock" the neck into position.

Did you check the body-end part of the rods? Perhaps the acorn nuts are sinking into the wood?

I have many times in the past adjusted the rods slightly different, most of the times it was when the bass side had a slight curve and the treble side was straight.

Another advantage of the Ric truss rods, old and "new" (post '85), is that you can easily pull them out, fix what needs to be fixed, then insert them back inside the neck. This can be done on your kitchen table, no need for special tools. You can't do that with a Fender or a Gibson.



Here's another idea. When you pull the rods out you can see that they are curved. This was done in the factory. Don't attempt to straighten them. In some cases the rods "flip over" inside the channel and the curve is in the wrong direction. I did this with my Shadow: removed the rods, then inserted them back inside making sure the curve was in a back-bow. Until I did that, I had to use TI's because of the low tension. Now I use medium gauge DR's, the neck is dead straight - zero relief - and very stable.

[Dave W]

Interesting, I never knew that the channels were big enough that there's a possibility of the rods flipping the wrong way.

[ilan]

I mean only the "new" round type. They don't flip by themselves, this is helped by adjusting the rods even if you are doing it correctly. If you put a little mark at the end of the rod so that you can see if it's turning inside the channel when you are tightening the nut, you can see how easy it is to turn the rod itself. If it was straight this wouldn't matter, but some rods are curved at the factory, and the rod should be positioned so that the curve works against string pull.