NBD - Finally Pulled the Trigger on a Rickenbacker 4003 in Fireglo

[tbonesullivan]

Rickenbacker is definitely not a "typical" guitar company, and availability, wait times, special runs, and so forth have always been part of getting a Rick. Seems like many dealers often don't know when they will arrive, so when one actually has some in stock, it's best to go for it. Sweetwater was supposed to get some in sometime during late 2025 and then when I was checking my wishlist at the beginning of April, I noticed they were in stock, 5 of them. They don't list the price so you have to email them for it. I was at work so I sent in an email.

I checked again at 3pm and then there were 4 left, and right as I was about I was going to call in, I got a call back. My Sales engineer was on vacation that week but his coverage knew that they wouldn't last long (they were all gone within a week or so). I looked at the 4 left, picked one, and called my shot. It arrived about 10 days ago but I've been super busy and unfortunately didn't get a time to take an actual picture until last night.

One thing you're sure to notice is the new for 2025 redesigned "treble" pickup bezel, without the pickup cover. There is not even a slot for it, and also there is now a thumb rest. Some purists are up in arms, while others feel its "about time". The original 4001 basses had a pickup with a big "horse shoe" magnet, however that ended up being expensive and kinda not working well, so over 50 years ago in 1971, they changed to a standard single coil pickup with magnets underneath, and put a chromed plastic pickup cover that is cosmetic only on top of it. They also originally had a "toaster" pickup in the neck, but now both have "high gain" pickups, which have more winds now than they did in the good old days, so some people will replace the pickups with more "vintage correct" ones, or they will put in the current "toaster" single coil pickup. I even saw a recent dealer run that still had the covers, and came stock with the toaster, as well as a light blue finish and checkered binding.

Anyway, it takes a bit of getting used to, but the neck is definitely comfortable, and I would consider the "new" profile to be more of a "D" shape, as it has a bit of a flat area on the sides. it plays well, and definitely has a VERY distinctive sound. The original 4001 basses had a capacitor on the bridge / treble pickup that cut a lot of the bass. This was later removed, but the current 4003 have a push / pull cap on the tone for that pickup that can give you the vintage treble sound or a more bass heavy modern sound for the bridge pickup. As expected, there is definitely a bit of hum, and the pickups are not RWRP like a jazz bass, so even mixing them together you still get full hum. If you're looking to play like Lemmy a noise suppressor is highly recommended.

It's definitely going to take a while to explore all the tones in this bass, which I look forward too. Such a distinctive sound and look.

[Steve Haynie]

I regret selling my 4001 thirty plus years ago.  The truss rods looked like something was wrong, and no one knew how to repair it.  Truss rod adjustments on those older Rickenbacker basses was entirely different from any other bass or guitar.  

I like the center stripe in the wood.  They disappeared for a while.

[tbonesullivan]

25 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

I regret selling my 4001 thirty plus years ago.  The truss rods looked like something was wrong, and no one knew how to repair it.  Truss rod adjustments on those older Rickenbacker basses was entirely different from any other bass or guitar.  

I like the center stripe in the wood.  They disappeared for a while.

Yeah, they redesigned the neck, and now it's been redesigned again. The original 4001 basses had double truss rods, which they thought would really help fine tune the action, but didn't work out as intended.The 4003 moved the truss rod adjusting nuts to under the pickguard, and not under the truss rod cover. Since then it has been revised several times, moving back and forth. I also think there was a "hairpin" type of trussrod design.

I'm not really sure what the difference is between the current basses with the center stripe and the ones from a few years ago that did not have a center stripe. The old pictures of the 4003S without binding had no center stripe, but their most recent shipment had them.

Per the manual the current generation have dual action truss rods of a "modern" design like used in many other guitars and basses.

[RobB]

Nice bass! I liked the natural one w/maple fb that was for sale. 

An accurate straightedge is essential to setting up double-tr Rics. The hard part is balancing each rod to a good zero point. I use a fine-point Sharpie to mark the (tr) nuts to duplicate each adjustment so that the marks are in the same location. 

Interesting how Rickenbacker went with the Hipshot 4000-series bridge. The best upgrade you can get for any Ric bass. 

Edited April 22 by RobB

[cmatthes]

Nice!!  I loved playing Rickenbackers in the 80s/90s, and as many times as I thought I'd just pick one up again eventually, prices shot up and kept going, and I just didn't get around to it.  Would love eventually snag another like yours one day - looks great!

[JGale]

This looks like something a Wookie would wield in sacred battle. UuuUUUUUUUGGGHH!!!!

[tbonesullivan]

On 4/20/2025 at 5:09 PM, cmatthes said:

Nice!!  I loved playing Rickenbackers in the 80s/90s, and as many times as I thought I'd just pick one up again eventually, prices shot up and kept going, and I just didn't get around to it.  Would love eventually snag another like yours one day - looks great!

NICE! I will say... I paid a lot less for this than I thought I would. SW doesn't list the price for a reason.

[topekatj]

Beautiful! Is the chrome bulge beside the larger pickup on the bass side the thumb rest?

[seeker]

I still have my 79 4001, in Autumn Glo with black pguard/truss rod cover.  Had to get it from the factory which took all of 5 weeks back then, lol..  All my heroes played one (Squire, McCartney, Lemmy, Geddy) so there was no question for my first "real" bass.  Still my go to when I play bass. 

[Devnor]

Looks great. Congrats - I want one!

[tbonesullivan]

On 4/21/2025 at 11:03 PM, topekatj said:

Beautiful! Is the chrome bulge beside the larger pickup on the bass side the thumb rest?

Yes, it's a recessed "pocket" type, pretty similar to one of the options that were available aftermarket, like the Treble Bezel "Cove", which I'm pretty sure was the inspiration for the change. After seeing so many people adding them to their Ricks, I guess the writing was on the wall.

[Steve Haynie]

I like the idea of a thumb rest built in the pickup surround, especially above the strings. 

What was Fender thinking when they put a rest below the strings?  Was someone supposed to hook their fingers under it and play with their thumb? 

[tbonesullivan]

1 hour ago, Steve Haynie said:

I like the idea of a thumb rest built in the pickup surround, especially above the strings. 

What was Fender thinking when they put a rest below the strings?  Was someone supposed to hook their fingers under it and play with their thumb? 

That is exactly what Leo was thinking. He assumed people would play the bass with their thumb, and would use the rest to support their hand. Took Fender almost 25 years to decide to move it to the bass side of the strings before dropping it all together.

So now we have Rickenbacker finally realizing that most people take off the piece of plastic, and often just leave the big ol hole around it.

Now, if only they would decide to do the RW RP thing on one of the pickups, but they have never done that. The Fender Precision bass with the split pickup and the jazz bass are both designed to be hum cancelling, while the Rickenbackers have nothing like that. Even the "toaster" pickup, which everyone assumes is a humbuck, is not. It's just a single coil of wire with two rail style poles.

[mrjamiam]

3 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

I like the idea of a thumb rest built in the pickup surround, especially above the strings. 

What was Fender thinking when they put a rest below the strings?  Was someone supposed to hook their fingers under it and play with their thumb? 

 

1 hour ago, tbonesullivan said:

That is exactly what Leo was thinking. He assumed people would play the bass with their thumb, and would use the rest to support their hand. Took Fender almost 25 years to decide to move it to the bass side of the strings before dropping it all together...

I was just last night watching an interview of Geddy Lee on the occasion of the publishing of his big beautiful bass book which came about as a result of his researching the history of the electric bass, and he said basically the same thing.  Called it a "tug bar" IIRC.

[Willie G. Moseley]

Looks familiiar. I went thru eight Ric basses when I was playing and collecting. The one shown in the publicity photo was a '88 in Fireglo (only new 4000 series bass  I ever bought). Dig he power ties (light tellow w/ small navy dots).

Of the other seven, one was a '79 4001 in Maplglo that I still wish I had. 

Lemmy didn't  like the new truss rod system on the new-in-the-'80s model 4003s that replaced the 4001s.

"I'll go to me grave swearin' the '1s' are better than the '3s'," said the ol' Oberbefehlshaber......

Jeezus, this was taken 37 years ago. I put a color iamge up from a '89 Valentine party elsewhere on this site. Same band, same instruments, same ties. I hated  the brittle/raw tone of Donnie's Steinbergerr; IMO it was incompatible with the Rick's signature sound. He should have stayed with a Les Paul or an ES-335

 

Edited April 24 by Willie G. Moseley

[tommy p]

On 4/19/2025 at 9:29 PM, Steve Haynie said:

I regret selling my 4001 thirty plus years ago.  The truss rods looked like something was wrong, and no one knew how to repair it.  Truss rod adjustments on those older Rickenbacker basses was entirely different from any other bass or guitar.  

I like the center stripe in the wood.  They disappeared for a while.

 

On 4/22/2025 at 8:04 AM, Devnor said:

Looks great. Congrats - I want one!

 

On 4/20/2025 at 5:09 PM, cmatthes said:

Nice!!  I loved playing Rickenbackers in the 80s/90s, and as many times as I thought I'd just pick one up again eventually, prices shot up and kept going, and I just didn't get around to it.  Would love eventually snag another like yours one day - looks great!

 

On 4/19/2025 at 9:29 PM, Steve Haynie said:

I regret selling my 4001 thirty plus years ago.  The truss rods looked like something was wrong, and no one knew how to repair it.  Truss rod adjustments on those older Rickenbacker basses was entirely different from any other bass or guitar.  

I like the center stripe in the wood.  They disappeared for a while.

 

My Jetglo '79 4001 is still for sale:  

 

[Brooks]

ICONIC!

[Willie G. Moseley]

Does there appear to be any way to rig up a handrest (even if it's another brand) over  the treble pickup? 

I'd removed it from the '88 4003 when the above publicity photo was taken but put it back on. 

And I'd  have to have one on any utitlity bass.  Note the P-Bass handrest on the Peavey Patriot (a loud and relatively comfortable gig bass--for me)

[tbonesullivan]

18 hours ago, Willie G. Moseley said:

Does there appear to be any way to rig up a handrest (even if it's another brand) over  the treble pickup? 

I'd removed it from the '88 4003 when the above publicity photo was taken but put it back on. 

And I'd  have to have one on any utitlity bass.  Note the P-Bass handrest on the Peavey Patriot (a loud and relatively comfortable gig bass--for me)

The only real way would be to get some aftermarket part that doesn't exist yet, or to replace the entire pickup assembly with one that has the cover as part of its design. I'm sure that someone will make something shortly.

[Disturber]

On 4/20/2025 at 1:00 AM, tbonesullivan said:

definitely not a "typical" guitar company, and availability, wait times, special runs, and so forth have always been part of getting a xxx. Seems like many dealers often don't know when they will arrive

 

Yeah, I know. I miss Hamer too. They were so weird.