prowla

I wonder if they've got a Taurus on the way as well, as Getty was bigging them up too.

Great musician is Gerry...

And that's a fact!

That was quite prescient of you.

It's quite remarkable that they're still a favourite, given that essentially the same instrument has been in production since 1959; they have, however, have had gradual upgrades over the years. Me, I don't have a particular issue with the bridge/tailpiece unit (set it up once and forget it) and I quite like the dual rods. To your points: I've just reverted a V2 bridge I put onto one of my 2010 basses: a. yes, it's too far from the end of the body and b. the action wouldn't go low enough. ((RIC did produce the 4004 with a Schaller 3D bridge.)) The mute is presumably intnded to be always on or always off, rather than switchable. I think that they may have thought about options but not come up with something they want to go with. I've got a synth pickup that fits in there for when/if I get another project one. I agree regarding the noise; they are single-coil pickups. ((RIC did produce the 4004 with humbuckers.)) I guess the hardcase is for protection; standard gigbags work. I don't like the thumbrests which sit on the pickguard. However, if you take off the Treble pickup cover you can get bezels to fit there with thumbrests/indentations. RIC do (or did) sell the Rick-O-Sound splitter box, but it's stupidly expensive. You can split for a pedalboard using a GigRig CincoCinco (or make a Hack-O-Sound) and plug in an EBS Flat splitter cable. Regarding enhancements, I like to put a Hipshot drop-D eXtender on mine, but a. they don't fit all Rics and b. the RIc model is discontinued.

I have to say in that test, I didn't identify my own vintage Rickenbacker (though actually I rarely played it through an amp and I think the horseshoe magnet may need re-magnetising), but I thought the other Ric might be it; I could say that there are some considerations which the test didn't cover and so I'd be wary of taking the results standalone: The riff @cetera was playing was restricted to the first 7 frets; a characteristic of a Ric is how its sound changes as you go up the neck (because of the Bass/neck pickup). The amp settings were the same, so a more powerful or active bass might have a more impressive sound. I don't know if the tone settings were flat, but that might not be what the various owners/afficionados might choose and so migh mask the "tells" of the various instruments. I do agree and often say the instrument is the bass + the amp(s) + the speakers + the rest of the signal chain (+ the venue). But the thing is though that you can optimise the signal chain to accentuate the features of the instrument; the most obvious example of that is splitting the pickups to different channels (Rick-O-Sound, Billy Sheehan, etc.), so that you can tune each idependently. So, I don't agree that any bass will do. Some other considerations: You can't ignore who is playing the instrument: Geddy Lee said that he bought a Ric thinking he'd sound like Chris Squire and found out he didn't. You can tune in to a particular instrument, for example Chris Squire said the Ric folks made a copy of his RM1999, but it sounded nothing like it. Geddy Lee used a Ric and a Jazz on Moving Pictures; the distorted sound on the lower 7 frets is remarkably similar, but if I play songs on a Ric and a Jazz I can catch the nuances. I have two 2010 Ric 4003 basses and they sound different. I was in a music store and heard a glorious double bass sound from the next room; I went there to check it out and was totally surprised to see it was someone playing a Ric through a Markbass amp (which is what i have). I once put a Seymour Duncan pickup on a Ric and could not get the Ric sound; I've had different pickups on Precisions and they do not sound the same. I went to a guitar show on the weekend and played one bass there which had been custom built with a MM pickup (with series/parallel/single-coil) and a Precision one, plus active/passive; I would say that each option sounded distinctly different and certainly not just more or less the same. As to Pink Floyd, I'd say the bass has a pretty nondescript sound.

My Status collection (the Frankenstein is now complete). I would like a headless 5-string at some point...

Is Mr Grumpy in the house today? 🙂

So, how can I sound like Geddy then? 🙂

There is good cause for the bridge (& strings) being earthed. However, strap buttons are standalone and so don't need it. A downside of the bridge (and strings) being earthed is that if anything live touches you whilst playing, you're the route to Gnd. That happened to me on stage once - the singer's mic was live, he put his arm around me, there was a bang, and the venue's lights went out! (I spent the next band practice checking & rewiring all of the extension leads: some had loose connections and there was even one with a plug at each end which plugged live into a socket on another piece of kit.) I suppose if the bridge hadn't been earthed then nothing would've happened.

Was it the guy with the Shafty Ric copy fo sale too?

Yep - that vintage pedal which didn't sound the greatest back in the day is now a treasured collector's piece.

Cor - I haven't logged in to eBay for a while. Weird choice of pictures.

I would like a Rail - nearly picked one up at an event a few years back, but I hesitated and when I went back it was gone. Re. Earthing: as noted, the jack is on the moving bit; I'd guess that the knurled locking screw at the top of the pickup assembly transfers the connection down the rail and to the bridge? (I'd assume that both rails are grounded.)

"Offline!"

As an aside, I watched Mortimer & Whitehouse; they were discussing some random topic and Bob Mortimer came up with the comment "water isn't sentient".

Googling "Starfire by EKS" suggests that EKS is a guitar company based in Nagoya, Japan. https://www.guitar-list.com/brands/eks-technology However, I see instruments MIJ and MIC, so it's entirely possible they offshored production. Prices seem to be <£100 (eg. https://richtonemusic.co.uk/eks-starfire-performer-j-style-bass-black-2nd-hand/?srsltid=AfmBOopeMAmOgr7sfGvDeYgYiXp4nJvRh2jH9eNtrvzpY05OgnP2AvtA).

It says (C) Nagoya, as opposed to made in Nagoya.

It's just I've never wanted an Ibanez. Nor a Sire (or any other Fender-a-like).

Keep the cases in case...

But you have to enjoy it too, or it's just a job.

Copycat!

My answer is neither - you can get a used Ric for £1500.