Moderators isaac42 Posted January 24, 2017 Moderators Share Posted January 24, 2017 I have a Rickenbacker 4004Cii (2005, transparent green). I had intended to sell it when I bought my 4003W, but one of my bands fell in love with its looks and the guys insisted I use it as my main bass with that band. Problem was that the bridge pickup was thin and had low output. Eventually I figured out that one of the humbucking coils (the North coil, for anyone who cares about such things) was open. So I bypassed that coil and ran just the South coil on that pickup. To balance things out, I wired the neck pickup so that it was running only the North coil. That way, the two pickups work as a humbucking pair, same way as in a Jazz bass. I also replaced the volume pot with a 500K push-pull pot, wired so that the neck pickup can also be run in parallel humbucking mode. Turns out, that didn't really add anything. With the 500K pot, single coil and parallel humbucking sounded the same. Besides, I rarely use the neck pickup alone. What might be preferable, I figured, was to have the functional humbucker in the bridge position, able to be run single coil or series humbucking. So that's what I did last night. I desoldered the two pickups and switched them out. Working in the tiny control cavity was tricky, and there wasn't enough wire to pull things out very far. I enlisted the aid of my daughter for a couple of connections. Sometimes you need a third or even a fourth hand, and there was no way that my vise would be useful in this case. Anyway, got it all done. Each single coil is about 7.5K ohms, and the series HB is about 15K. Tested it with my tiny practice amp, and it works as intended. Noticeable jump in volume when I switch the bridge pickup from single coil to HB mode. I'll take it to band practice tonight to give it a more serious test. If all goes as expected, I'll use it this weekend. Here's the bass: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators isaac42 Posted January 24, 2017 Author Moderators Share Posted January 24, 2017 Oops. Band practice canceled for tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hooligan Posted March 19, 2017 Members Share Posted March 19, 2017 Nice looking piece of gear; definitely worth the effort to rebuild it! Glad to hear the sound evened out for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators isaac42 Posted March 20, 2017 Author Moderators Share Posted March 20, 2017 It works pretty well for one of my bands. I tried it with another band on St Patrick's Day, but found the sound not aggressive enough for that band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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