Rickenbacker 4003 Bass Guitar

A Ric 4001 is the bass that helped me find my musical voice. I upgraded to a 4003 a couple years later, in 2008. It's an amazing sounding instrument for melodies and bright sustain. I've come to find it a little clanky with round-wound strings, so I've set it up with flatwounds. As a result, it's not great with aggressive rock sounds, but is really great for warmer tones.

One thing worth noting is that I've had a few problems with the neck pickup over the years. I got it rewound, but it's always been a pain.

My first good quality bass, such great tone.

My 2010 midnight blue Rick is my end all be all of basses. I've played many other ricks (4001s and 4003s) and find that what ever is up with this year and build happens to be perfect for my needs. It feels quite similar to a vintage 4001 with a thin neck, but longer fret board. Every new Rick I've played post 2010 has a fatter necks and doesn't feel quite as good in comparison.

It's a Rickenbacker. Bought it new in 2002.

I love it.

Rickenbacker basses realy cool, but i have alembic pickups and hipshot bridge. I want all original, but in siberia original parts to difficult to find :( But this bass is still cool, rock machine, machine gun!

These are great far better than the old 70s 4001 I had, mainly because the frets are bigger, the old 4001s would have not very big frets which would be destroyed by hard playing. Rick bridges are always iffy and this is no different but get it intonated and its fine

I love this bass. I added a soapbar bass pickup behind the horseshoe pickup. mine is in Fierlego burst. great bass and Hannah used it on our cover of "Ace Of Spades" and our prog rock 8 minute song "Axe Of God". great bass and would recommend if you can afford it.

Not for the faint of heart or those looking for versatility. It is the best at what it does. Which is sounding like a Rick. Good value

I bought it brand new and it’s blown anything i’ve ever held out of the water. Neck is chunky but very d-shaped, fits very nicely in my small hands. Very comfortable contours, doesn’t weigh too much, not too think or thin. Very balanced, very sexy guitar.

Man, this is such a beautiful bass! Mine is a 1996 Fireglo model and I could just stare at it forever. The neck is amazing, super smooth, perfect radius (for me), and the tuners are super-sensitive (not always a good thing, I actually broke I string because of it, but usually it's pretty useful). The tonal variations between the two pickups isn't too noticeable, but still adds a nice subtle timbre difference to fit to whatever style you're trying to play. The pickup cover is pretty stupid, I removed it almost immediately. Just gets in the way, although when you take it off, there are a couple of sharp parts exposed that one should be wary of when playing, especially without a pick. The bridge is my main problem. I say this because it has these built-in mutes, which seems great, but you have to lower your strings to the point where there is excessive fret buzz, rendering them a bit useless. Whenever I want to mute the strings, I either have to have fret buzz or only half-mute them. I would definitely recommend putting on some roundwounds and letting this thing just rip. It sounds so amazing! But, the high gain pickups often cause a lot of noise with the gain knob anywhere above 1.