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BGRA: Rickenbacker '77 4001
| Manufacturer |
Rickenbacker |
Model |
'77 4001 |
| Reviewer |
John |
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| Experience |
3 |
Item owned |
1-2 years |
| Review Date |
2006-12-31 |
Price paid |
$1096 |
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Bass type | 4 string fretted |
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Neck join | Neck Through |
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Neck construction | maple |
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Fingerboard | maple |
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Body | neck thru |
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Finish | yellow |
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Pickups | RIC factory |
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Hardware | Ric-o-sound |
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Electronics | active |
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This bass is amazing. Not perfect, amazing. It is incredible with it's two input jacks each offering different tone. It has some flaws. First of all everything on mine is original. I don't want to change it so I haven't added straplocks. The strap posts are kind of small and the strap occasionally will fall off. The tone is great. It goes from a bright clean high sound to a mellow smooth medium on the ric-o-sound input. The other one is a bit lower sound, but not really. I play in a band that plays from a range of pop-rock to hard rock. The Ric really holds up on the lighter more Beatles type stuff, but as soon as I try to play Nirvana it just isn't that great because of the treble overwhelms the bass. Even with bass knob on full and the treble on 0 there is still more treble sound. Great neck, it has enabled me to play hard guitar parts like "message in a bottle" and "snow". I am talking the guitar parts I can play not the bass, that is how good the neck is. The action is extremely low and that helps with speed too. DR strings are all I use because I don't want to ruin the original frets. Sometimes finger-playing can get tricky on the bridge pickup because there is kind of a hole between the pickup and the body with wires sticking out. I don't want to sever the wires with my fingers so it makes it a little harder, but not too bad. The one I have has original paint on it. The paint is chipped in some places and you can see wood, other places there are cracks in the paint, and in the back of the neck it has turned from yellow to white from thumbs sliding up and down the neck quickly. I personally like the look. It makes the bass look vintage which it is. I have had to get some of it repaired which took months to do. The treble and bass tone pots wouldn't work so in stead of putting a new one in and ruining the vintage all origanal bass I had it repaired. Even though it looks beat up this bass is still an incredible bass and a valuable asset to my playing.
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| construction |
 | (98%) |
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| playability |
| (95%) |
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| appearance |
| (100%) |
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| sound |
| (90%) |
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| value |
| (100%) |
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| service |
| (85%) |
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| overall |
| (98%) |
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