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What Is Rick-O-Sound? Demystifying Rickenbacker’s Unique Output Jack

mercredi 21 juillet 2021, 14:00 , par Sweetwater inSync
Rick-O-Sound? When you mention that term to most people, they will
look at you funny. Even Rickenbacker owners frequently don’t understand what it
is or how to hook it up.

To quote from the Rickenbacker manual, “Deluxe [Rickenbacker] models come with the exclusive Rick-O-Sound jack for effects and multi-channel capabilities.” In addition to the standard mono output jack typical for bass or electric guitars, the Rick-O-Sound jack is a stereo output, exclusive to Rickenbacker, that allows you to take the outputs from each pickup on a single jack and feed that to two different amps. For mono, you just connect to the Standard output jack, and both pickups are combined to the same output.

Bass (Neck) and Treble (Bridge) Pickups Separated

By plugging a stereo guitar cable into the Rick-O-Sound jack (where one pickup is routed to the tip of the 1/4-inch TRS connector and the other pickup is routed to the ring of the connector with a shared ground on the sleeve), you can connect each pickup to a different amp and come up with a fascinating stereo sound that you can’t achieve by any other process. Or you can also process each pickup separately through different effects. (See Chris Squire’s explanation below.)

NOTE: Many people think that the Rick’s output jacks work like those on a keyboard: If you want mono, then you plug into the Standard output; if you want the second channel, then you plug an additional cable into the ROS output. That’s not how it works. Referring back to the Rick manual: “It is important to understand that only one of the two jacks on the guitar can be used at a time as some rather complex switching is done by the jack contacts. If you wish to use a mono or standard cable, plug it into the standard jack only.”

Why Two Outputs?

That’s the question that many people ask, and, if you’ve never heard Rick-O-Sound (ROS), then you may not understand why. But let’s change that right now.

Rickenbacker 4003 Stereo Bass Guitar

Here is a sound clip that demonstrates what the mono output from a Rickenbacker 4003 Stereo Bass Guitar sounds like; and then it will change to ROS, and you’ll immediately notice the stereo effect. This example switches back and forth between mono and stereo so you can compare the sound. Listen to it on headphones or a stereo playback system since a phone or a mono playback system will not allow you to hear the effect.




NOTE: This stereo output is completely unlike any stereo pedal effect you will hear because it’s not a mono signal processed into two channels. Each pickup puts out a drastically different sound because of their positions on the body and along the length of the strings. As Don Carr noted when hearing the playback of these clips, “It’s stereo like you’ve never heard stereo before — it’s the actual guitar in stereo, not just the processing.”

In order to hear how different they are, here are the tracks separated. First, you’ll hear the output from the bridge pickup and then the sound from the neck pickup.







Rickenbacker Stereo Electric Guitar

This sound clip begins with the mono output from a Rickenbacker 370 electric guitar and then changes to ROS. On a stereo playback system, you’ll hear that the difference is anything but subtle.




Here’s how different the sounds from the bridge (top waveform) and neck (bottom waveform) pickups are. You can clearly see the drastic difference between the two pickup outputs from the same performance.

So you can hear how different they are, here are the tracks separated. First, you’ll hear the output from the bridge pickup and then the sound from the neck pickup.







Don
Carr commented:

The guitar thing is the craziest to me. For the guitar, it’s two amps — Blues Junior on the neck pickup (with a Neumann U 47 FET) and AC15 (with a Shure SM57) on the bridge pickup — hard panned left/right. For the mono sample, I used an Orange active A/B/Y box to send to both amps. The only difference is the outputs on the guitar — Standard versus Rick-O-Sound. The way the stereo field opens up and the mids clean up with the ROS pickup split was a real surprise for me. For the bass samples, we went direct and used the Instrument input on a Daking Mic Pre IIT. All pickups on the guitar and bass were active and turned all the way up.

Who Uses Rick-O-Sound?

Chris Squire of Yes

On why he split the pickups on his Rick 4001

“The reason why I did that was not because I wanted to play in stereo, it was because I wanted to route certain effects, not through both pickups. So that, when I use the bass pickup, for instance, I only use the Fuzztone on the bass pickup — it wouldn’t sound good with the treble pickup.”



On getting his first Rickenbacker

“I think the first three Rickenbacker basses were imported around 1964. Pete Quaife, the bassist for The Kinks, bought one. Then John Entwistle from The Who bought one. As for the third one, I asked the manager of the store if I could get an employee discount. He said I could, and so I picked up that one. [laughs] I went on to live with that guitar and perfect my style, really.”

You got your first Rickenbacker before Paul McCartney?

“I think so, yeah. If this was ’64, then yes, that would be true. I don’t think Paul went with his Rickenbacker until a little later.”

Geddy Lee of Rush

On his gear in an interview about their 1975 album Caress of Steel

Did you still have your Sunn amp?

Yes. And I decided to go stereo onstage, so I bought an extra bass setup: two Ampeg V-4B bottoms and an SVT head. For my low end, I would run the bass pickup through the Ampegs, and the treble went to the Sunn. I would always keep everything full up on my basses — I still do — and just crank up the treble on the amps. I have my low end directly fed into the PA, while the speakers for my high end are miked.

What basses did you use on that album?

I was just going back and forth with my Fender and my Rick, trying them with different combinations of direct feeding and miking the amp. That’s when I discovered that the best way for me to record my bass was to approach it as if I were playing onstage: Use the direct bass from the low-end pickup, and mic the amp for the high-end pickup. I’ve just been refining that ever since.

Other notable Rickenbacker bass owners, including John Entwistle of the Who, Rick James, Sir Paul McCartney, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, and more, are listed here.

If you want to join these ranks and get that classic Rickenbacker
sound for yourself, then call your Sales Engineer and order your Rick today.
But be prepared to wait. Ricks are not easy to acquire, but they are, oh, so
worth the wait.

Find your stereo Rickenbacker by clicking on this link. Or call your Sweetwater Sales Engineer and chat about which Rick is right for you.

Explore Rickenbacker

Below are links to the TRS cables that you’ll need to hook up your bass in Rick-O-Sound. Just take each output from the Y cable and hook up each to a different amp or processing chain.

Relish Stereo Y Jack Guitar CableLearn More

Roland RCC-10-TR28V2 Black SeriesLearn More

Pro Co IPBQ2Q-10Learn More

Pro Co IPBQ2Q-20Learn More

Thanks to Max Fuston, the owner of this brand new Rickenbacker 4003 Jetglo, for letting us photograph his new bass before he even got it. And inspiring this article. Here’s to a lifetime of music making.

The post What Is Rick-O-Sound? Demystifying Rickenbacker’s Unique Output Jack appeared first on inSync.
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/rickenbacker-what-is-rick-o-sound/
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