Tokai Rockinbetter

Just updating my earlier review with some more things that have come to light about it in the last year.

After replacing the stock pickups (again) for Seymour Duncan Ricky pickups, I discovered a whole new problem, the strings once again were falling out of the pickups range and the E and G almost didn't sound at all (interestingly , they were ok on the bridge, but gone at the neck). Had to drop the stock pups back in, so don't spend ??160 on a pair of seymours unless you are prepared to pay even more for....

A proper Ricky bridge. Got to the root of the problem, ricky bridges are 2" string to string, these have got fender spacing, 2 1/4". This also neatly explains why i keep pushing the E string off the neck when i get over excited on it.
Solution to the problem, buy a rick bridge (not cheap, haven't done it yet, but will) put the stock pups back in (which sadly also have dropout at the edges) or throw in completely ugly and wrong looking soapbars (which I did for a while, but my mirror screamed at me for it). Alternatively sell it to another mug and get a real one.
Also, if you get rick pups for it, you'll need a genuine rick scratchplate too, as the pickup hole at the neck, is way too big.

Oh, and if you clean your strings with WD-40 like I do (can't beat it, cheap and brilliant) then your very cool Rockinbetter logo will disappear, as it is a very cheap sticker on top of the truss rod plate.
Solution, peel the sticker off, get a permanent marker pen, and write your own replacement (will require artistic abilities). Mine now says Rickenfaker instead, which I rather like.

It's a pain in the arse frankly, you need the skinny bridge to avoid string dropout, I think I've paid for nearly two thirds of a real Ric if you add parts, and if I charged for my own labour, it would probably be a whole one. I repeat, don't get one unless you are pretty handy with your tools, and know how to set up a guitar properly.

This is a really well built decent copy of the 4001 there are some some minor differences- , the fingerboard material is lighter & is visible below the level of the binding strip. the top surface of the fingerboard is closer to the top surface of the body. The neck joins the body exactly on 19th fret . This is a spot on assessment.

The Fender bridge pick up cover is a bit naff to say the least and I've removed it. That said it does look a bit bare with out it.... but that could be that because I like the pickup surrounds on the real Rickys. I might try and see if I can fit one on the Tokai.
I'd have to agree the electrics are poor- and I will be upgrading the pots at some stage.
The machine heads are perfectly good for the job and keep the bass in tune
It has a really good bridge on it, really solid and easy to adjust. I may change it for Rickenbacker bridge at some point to get it looking a bit closer to the real thing...

The pick ups are a bit crap so I'll be replacing them with Kent Armstrong toasters. Having said that though they are ok what I mean is you don't get that Rickenbacker growl. I have a 32 year old Hondo II Rickenfaker and I think it's pick ups are much closer to the real thing.

The action was easy to adjust and to get it set up nice and low the way I like it. The finish & overall construction is excellent it is a neck-thru and it's been well built..

I've said this bass feels really solid and you can tell this is going to last and take some punishment over the years!

I'm not really worried about it as I can do most repairs myself

All in all a really decent bass well worth the money as it is, with a few mods you can get even closer to the real thing and still at a third of the price of a real Rickenbacker!

this is as good a knock-off of a 4001 as I've seen since the ibanez versions back in the 70s. that said, john hall & his team have made sure there aren't too many... there are some minor differences- on my 1974 4001, the fingerboard material is lighter & is visible below the level of the binding strip. the top surface of the fingerboard is closer to the top surface of the body. neck joins body exactly on 19th fret (upper side)- on my 4001, it's halfway between 19th & 20th. this spoils that famous swooping line slightly, but now I'm nit-picking. from more than two feet away, it would fool most people.

then of course, there's the bridge pickup surround... I never liked this feature of the real thing (so shoot me, purists- I still have three rick basses anyway), & the solution on this tokai is marred only by the awkward & unnecessary fender j-bass cover. removing this improves things dramatically.
the phoney toasters aren't great, but they're more than adequate & they look the part- the overall effect (with the fender ironmongery out the way) is of one of the later 4001/3 variants (laredo &c) but with a regular 400x control plate. mine's the fireglo version, & they have that pretty close- only the fingerboard colour is wrong.
the electrics are poor- I will upgrade the pots & find better knobs.

doesn't sound exactly like my 1974 4001, but then neither does my 1993 4003/5, & my 1978 4001FL is different again. I didn't buy it to make me sound like chris squire, I bought it as a backup. it's closer now that I have swapped it's original (& rather good) bridge/tailpiece for a rickenbacker original, which I has stashed as a precaution against the dreaded ricky tail-lift problem. use light strings on older ricks!
makes me think (again) about where the one of a bass really comes from. I think the fingerboard material has a great deal more to do with it than people realise. this is a quality bass, though. the pickups aren't excellent, but they work. I have, incidentally, changed the neck p/u on my 1974 bass twice because of failures. rick p/ups may be great, but they aren't so reliable...

action was easy to adjust, both before & after the bridge change, to what I wanted, though the over-tight truss rod (note- singular) took some shifting & seems to be an odd size allen... 4.5mm? it wasn't bad as supplied but I like 'em low. the finish & overall construction took me by surprise- it really is a neck-through & it's been done properly. just the cheapo pots & knobs to replace. the scratchplate is some sort of bendy nylon material instead of ricky perspex/lucite, but you honestly can't tell unless you breath on it.

this thing'll be fine. I had to whack it with a hammer & chisel to get the ricky tailpiece onto it, & nothing flew off or rattled. some aspects of it (the price, for one!) mean I'm more likely to gig this than the 1974 relic next to it.

tokai will likely run & hide if anyone contacts them about this. anyway, there's really nothing on it that one would only be able to get tokai to provide spares for. I know luthiers much closer than china...

I have over 30 basses, amassed during 30 years of playing bass & keys. I use an orange OR120 & various effects, & my basses include rickys, ibanez musicians, fenders J & P, an old G&L & several peavey midibases (sic). if this got broken or stolen, I'd probably mourn the rick tailpiece the most, but just go & buy another if JH hasn't shut tokai down by then.

Rickenbacker 4001 copy, 3-ply maple thru-neck, maple body. Single coil toaster type pickups. Bought new in 2008. Now made in china or korea I think, not the classic Jap tokais from my youth.

SHould sound utterly brilliant, but thin weedy pickups let it down a lot. Running it through an ashdown electric blue 150. Crank the gain and you can get a lemmy growl out of it. Very rock, you can do your deep purple thing well as well. Plus using the mid and neck settings you can get some nice mellow thuds out of it.

Here's the problem, I've spent the last month setting it up, action was all to crap, the truss rod was way too tight. The neck is really thin, so if you're not careful you can push the E string off. I re-did the frets, and pushed up the action, let the truss rop off a bit, and there's still a buzz I can't get rid of.
Also, the screws on the scratchplate and jackplate, were done too quick with a drill, so they spun on their own, I had to take them all out and plug the holes with matchsticks and glue to keep the jackplate from falling out.
The real let down though is the pickups, they're unbuckers, crappy s/c hiding in a toaster casing. And the bridge one, hidden beneath a crappy looking cover to hide it's non-ricky mounting, is too thin to pick up the low E properly. Have just ordered some kent armstrong soapbars to rectify this though. Should work well.
Don't get one unless you're a bit handy.

Other than all the crappy assembly and setup, it's solid as hell, and stays in tune. Totally reliable, and great.

not tried yet. I don't think they acknowledge that they make these in case of the rickenbacker lawsuits.

It beats the hell out of my old Sunn Mustang, and once I've finished upgrading it it should be fine. It's a thru-neck ricky-a-like for a third of the price, you can't complain too much. I've been playing since 1988, and had a lot of crap gear, and the odd bit of good gear. This is certainly not the worst thing I ever bought. But be wary if you've heard the tokai hype and are expecting something great.