Simon C

My response is based on the assumption you aren’t going to be able to try them. Following on from the post I have quoted, re “vintage” and “modern” circuits: My 2022 Ric has the push pull knob for the vintage circuit. I almost always play on “modern” rather than “vintage” as to my ear that’s how it sounds best. So I’d go for the 4003.

Last night's Jam Night was the last in McCafferty's Epsom. It will move to The Queen Adelaide in Ewell. That will mean Public Transport or a 15 minute drive for me so less convenient than the "Get driven there, walk home after a couple of beers and a few rum and cokes" that has been my normal mode of transport. It seems like a big change for me, though I guess not so much for those of you driving several hours to gigs. The venue change is due to the pub trying to cut the fee of the host band (Prime Numbers). I heard a £30 reduction mentioned. If that really is the case then the pub are nuts. I'm not sure I've seen many pubs full on a Thursday night, even when I used to frequent them on a regular basis. Maybe it was someone in head office trying to cut costs across all the pubs rather than letting the local manager manage - that's just a guess though. However much it was they were trying to reduce the fee by, I would have thought revenue would exceed band and extra staff costs in a full pub. The night was pretty good after a slowish start. There were a couple of new bands came. One was made up of employees from GuitarGuitar, another (Canada Hill) had a singer who's voice was just different enough along with good enough material (which I think they said was original) that they may be worth looking out for. My band "In Progress" weren't playing as the drummer (Jake) and Guitarist (James) have gone to Nice for a boys' holiday. I managed to grab a slot with a couple of members of Prime Numbers. A regular attending drummer also didn't have anyone to play with so joined us. We'd sorted the 3 songs out the night before. So I'd had a chance to remind myself of the bass line to Crazy Little Thing Called Love and to listen and jam along to "Keep your hands to yourself" by "The Georgia Satellites" - it's a good song to rock out to. I managed to slip "Teenage Kicks" into the set list. As "In Progress" weren't playing I was less concerned about whacking our singer (5'2" Vicky) on the back of the head, so my Ric got an outing - 2 in 5 days for it, the other being in church last Sunday. Here's me doing 2 of the things bassists (or at least this bassist) shouldn't do in the same song 😀 Teenage Kicks with Prime Numbers.mp4

You could play any 4 songs you wanted at ourJam Night Daryl. Ask for one of the later slots and the beer, rum and cokes, and various colours of gin would make sure you were well received 😉. I think the furthest anyone has ever travelled to our Jam night was about 200 miles (Leeds in the North of England to Epsom in the South). I'm fairly sure we haven't had a band come from North America. Although my mate from Idaho did once come along as a punter. 😀

A bit of an unusual service for me this evening. The worship leader asked if I’d play bass in the 1st set and piano in the second one (the keys player left for the Youth Stream after the 1st set). I used to do that fairly regularly but haven’t much in the last 4 years or so. The WL also asked if I’d sing in both sets. I’m fairly sure I haven’t played both instruments in the same service and sung before. As it turned out I didn’t sing in the second set as I didn’t have enough time in the rehearsal to get sound levels sorted for the 2nd set. In the second set I couldn’t hear my voice, so left all the vocals to the WL who did a good job. We’ll get it right next time. We got some good feed back afterwards, including from some fellow musicians, so overall we were happy. i gave my Ric a runout. It’s just had the nut re-cut and a set-up, so I decided to check it out in a live situation. It worked pretty well. I think my G&L L2000 will probably remain my main worship band bass, but I enjoyed playing the Ric tonight.

You may well be right about the QC. I do wonder if it worked in my favour though. Whoever it was that put it into Guitar Guitar could have had any number of reasons for deciding to part with it. One those may have been “This hurts when I play it”, and maybe they thought all Rics are like that and just decided Rics weren’t for them.

So my Ric is back. The tech recut the nut and set the bass up. The action is set at 1.5mm at the 12th fret (that’s about 4/64”). There is room to go lower or higher on the saddles. Before doing anything to it he contacted Rickenbacker. They weren’t interested in any potential warranty issues - I expected this as I’m not the original purchaser. They did however provide him with a set of measurements. His view is that the nut was causing the problems. I asked about the neck showing signs of twisting as there was more relief under the E string than the others prior to him doing any work on it. He said that with a single truss rod this can happen due to the difference in tension on each string, however on my bass as set up it isn’t going to affect the playability. I’ve played it a couple of times for 20 mins or so. The action now feels consistent across the neck and I have no pain playing the low F. I’ll keep an eye on the neck but I’m happy with the bass following the work he did on it. Hopefully you won’t hear about any more concerns with it.

Green Day: Holiday. My daughter bought me a Green Day(my current favourite band) song book for Christmas that I hadn’t really looked at due to having to learn 4 or 5 songs a month for Jam Night and bass lesson monthly competitions. As we aren’t playing at Jam Night for the next couple of months, I thought I’d have a look at the book. I saw someone earlier in the thread had said Holiday was quick to learn, so I thought I’d give it a go. I left the book out on the piano so that she can see I’m using it😊.

I agree Dave, there is something special about playing in a 3 piece when you get it together. I find drums, bass and guitar (with a couple of us singing) the easiest line-up to keep tight - I guess because it’s easier to hear 3 band members and lock in together than it is to hear 4 or 5.

I took my 4003W to the tech today. He says the nut can be cut lower. He said the stiffness when tightening the nut is normal and even tightened it a bit more than I'd previously had it. He was concerned enough about the neck to say he'll take a few measurements and seek advice from Rickenbacker. To be continued....

We’ve a front door on our house. And we have lights on the house at Christmas. I’ve never tried a PA on the house but we do have a bandstand at the back of the house (for some reason Mrs C thinks it’s called a gazebo). 😊

I just sat down and played that one on the piano. It feels like a hit to me. 😜

Our monthly outing at Jam Night. The guitarist (Warren) was depping for us. I didn’t think we were as tight as we are with our regular guitarist - the singer (Vicky) was on a high after the set though. She even managed to give me a “singer’s stare” towards the end of the instrumental. A bit of Dusty for you. Alternatively a Sam Fox cover (I managed to get a “usually uncovered” gag in for that one 😀).

Does the lead guitarist need a different deodorant?

P.S. A guitarist friend of mine played in a band where the bassist had a Ric. 18 months or so ago, I said to the guitarist friend “Rickenbackers look weird and sound rubbish.” Somehow I now own one (well not that much of mystery - I walked into Guitar Guitar with a credit card and bought it). I think it looks great and sounds great. Maybe this thread is about 18 months too late for me to fully participate.😀

Somebody got G&L headstock and Rickenbackers in fairly early on in the thread (the same person if memory serves correctly - you should come round to mine for a cup of tea and an ogle at my bass wall). Headless basses followed shortly after. I had to read through to this page (page 5 before) “lined fretless” appeared. So I now have a full house of “hated”, “disliked” or “just looks weird” basses. 😀. Bingo And for extra bingo wings effect “dots in the same position on a fretless as they are on fretted” has also made an appearance. But that’s on the same bass as my lined fretless.

The drummer at the back in the centre. Then for the rest, I like to start with stage presence and work from there. Those who have it need to be seen by the audience and those who don’t can be hidden. That trumps concerns over where the hi hat is or wacking the singer with the headstock (though due to wacking concerns I do play a short scale headless on small stages).

I’m usually learning some new stuff, either for Jam Night or for the online lessons I take - they also run a monthly competition. Our guitarist isn’t available for this month’s Jam Night so I decided we’d do ones we already knew that are easy for a dep guitarist to pick up. So it’s just the on line lessons this month. “Minnie the Moocher” by Cab Calloway is the one I’m learning - the version from “The Blues Brothers”. It’s a cool slow blues. I even watched the film for the 1st time 😎.

Thanks for sharing the videos. I enjoyed that - my type of music and you played well.

"I don't like Mondays" by the "Boomtown Rats": “The silicon chips in cider head” rather than the actual lyric “…….inside her head” I've no idea what a cider head is. Maybe it's something a scarecrow on a scrumpy farm has. Worzel Gummidge had different types of head, maybe he had a Cider Head

Based on the ones I know, that looks like a fun set list. We do "I only wanna be with you" - banging tune.

Agree. It is sensible advice.

Yes it is one of the single truss rod ones. The business card check has it falling through the E string and not through the A,D and G strings. I loosened the truss road a quarter turn (mainly as I was getting concerned about how difficult it was when I put a quarter turn of tightening in the neck) then it falls through the E and A strings, D just about holds it, G easily holds it. I didn't leave the neck to settle after making this loosening adjustment. I bought it 2nd hand so I suspect it will be the 2 year shop warranty rather than the Ric one that applies. The action check was interesting. I can't see well enough to read my gauge properly, but I think the photos tell the story of fret 1 on the string unfretted being much higher than over fret 2 with fret 1 fretted. Thanks for the advice. I'll give the tech at the shop I bought it from a ring. There's no substitute for him seeing it and coming up with sensible plan of action. Once the bridge was bottomed out and it was still a little painful to play low on the E string, I'd a fair idea that was where it was going but thought I'd make use of the collective knowledge here 1st. Update: the Tech isn't available until 22nd April - so I'll take it to him then. I'll assume the outcome is of interest to those on this thread and update when I know more.

The G&L looks great (well the Jackson does too, but I'm a G&L fanboy). FWIW if the main thing stopping you is learning the songs, I think you'll find 2 months is actually quite a long time (depending on how many songs you need to learn and how much other stuff you have on). 18 months or so ago I depped for a gig (not a pro one) with about 3 weeks notice. The set list was 15 or 16 songs. I'd played several of them on keys (IIRC), but I don't remember having played any of them on bass. 5 or 6 were originals that I'd never heard before. I knew them all by the gig - but did have to cram. I probably made up my own lines rather than trying to be true to originals other than for ones with instantly recognisable bass lines (e.g. Come Together). I did a video diary on Instagram of how I prepped for the gig. I have been meaning to put it together as a complete YouTube post as there isn't much resource available on how to prep at short notice for depping. If you want to see the diary message me and I'll try to make it available (un-edited at this point). I'm not trying to persuade you to do it, just sharing my (singular) experience in case you do decide to do it. Edit: having looked at the extremely popular post I did, (a grand total of zero replies- I'm guessing I didn't "win the day" with it 😊) I may have had less than 3 weeks (3 weeks is my recollection though) https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/471508-tips-for-deps-aka-subs-in-american/#comment-4851807

Here are a couple of photos of the bridge/saddles. I don't see a grub screw to adjust. Am I missing something, or maybe it's something different about the new bridge design?

Thanks. Maybe re the truss rod. I adjusted it a week or so ago (tightened it) as the action felt high to the point that it was somewhat painful to play. I think it was probably due to the seasons changing (all my basses had the same issue). It's better now, but there may be further to go. It did feel very tight to adjust though, so I'm a little concerned about going much further without a guitar tech seeing it. Alternatively if I can find a max torque setting from Rickenbacker I could see if my torque wrench will fit in there.