SOLD‼ Rickenbacker 4001 Bass Fireglo, 1975

One of the iconic rock basses, the Rickenbacker 4001 bass was built as a two-pickup version of the 4000 bass, adding a neck pickup to the distinctive Cresting Wave body design by German luthier and designer Roger Rossmeisl.

Built from 1961 to somewhere between 1983 and 1985 when it was replaced by the 4003 bass, the Rickenbacker 4001 bass features a Maple body and through-body Maple neck, with a bound and finished Indian Rosewood fingerboard. Rickenbacker’s rosewoods tend to be quite light coloured, almost towards the colour tones of other species such as Pau Ferro.

For hardware, the Rickenbacker 4001 Bass carries Grover tuning gears, a proprietary Rickenbacker bridge (during the mid to late 1970s into the 1980s, often replaced with a Leo Quann Badass bridge or equivalent) and pickup set. The bridge pickup is a faux-horseshoe single coil model, intended to evoke the early Rickenbacker pickup design from the 1930’s. The bridge and neck pickups are single coil units. The bridge pickup has its cover – often removed if it’s in the way. Rickenbacker strap pins are somewhat interesting – these parts are also found on many banjos, holding the resonator in place!

For wiring, there are individual volume and tone controls and a pickup selector, but as with many Rickenbacker’s there is a dual-output jack plate for both Mono and Rick-O-Sound outputs. Rick-O-Sound puts each pickup on one channel of a ‘Stereo’ or Insert-type cable, allowing the use of separate amplifiers or channels. This plate also carries the serial number in two sections – a two-letter code at one end, four to five digits at the other.

This Rickenbacker 4001 bass example was built during April 1975 at the Rickenbacker shop in Santa Ana, California and carries a FireGlo finish. It is in overall quite good shape, with light wear for its age. Fret wear is also light to moderate, and the bass plays well and cleanly. The bridge pickup cover is long gone, but the bridge mute is in place though the foam is deteriorated.

These basses are unmistakable, visually and tonally. They deliver tones that don’t really come out of the ubiquitous P-Bass or J-Bass models.
A period rectangular black hard shell case is included.