Product: Basslines Rickenbacker Replacement
Price Paid: installed by previous owner used
Submitted
09/10/2001
at
11:43pm
by
Maxx
Email: cybermaxx at qwest<dot>net
Features
:
Pickup features: Humbucking, passive
Impedence or other specs: N/A
Instrument
:
Model of guitar or bass: 1980 Rickenbacker 4001 delux
Position: neck
Pickup being replaced: stock single coil neck pickup
Other pickups on guitar: Stock Rickenbacker bridge (single coil-button top-highgain)
Artists using this pickup: who cares?
You musical style(s): experimental
Reason for pickup change: The original owner felt the stock neck pickup was too
thin sounding.
Sound
:
No Opinion
Perceived output level: significantly more powerful than stock pickup yet maintains the general tone quality and characteristics of the Rickenbacker pickup.
Tone: Sounds very much like one of Rickenbacker's HB1 humbucking pickups. Duncan has preserved yet expanded the Rickenbacker 4001 highs in a humbucking version. The lows and mids are clear and defined. It is also expertly balanced, and reponsive to tone contols, eq. and other manipulations.
Sonic evaluation: I no longer use amps as I restrict my playing to studio recording. I use direct studio console feeds and unconventional electronic processing. The Duncan HB neck pickup records beautifully and works well with the single coil stock bridge pickup producing more versitile and unique tones than the 4001's two stock single coil pickups.
For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: I play my own style of music which I will simply call experimental. Therfore nearly any pickup is usefull to me. This pickup is suitable for the neck position it was designed for.
Overall Rating
:
10
Comments: I would replace this pickup if it were damaged, unless I found a more suitable brand or type. I've been playing bass and guitar since 1965 and used various models of basses so the 4001 is my latest venture. I own a handmade solid body guitar which I've used exclusively since 1978. There are only two or three replacement pickups for the 4001 bass, I've heard them and prefer the Duncan pickup as to me, it is the only one that maintains the 4001 pickup sound yet brings out more of guitar body's subtle harmonics, under and overtones missed by the stock neck pickup. Since I often modify my guitars, I cannot say how long I will keep this pickup. I'm always experimenting with different sounds.
