@@alexarnz1 its not. the most annoying thing as outsiders to any hobby are the gearheads in the hobby-community. who cares about what knobs and strings an instrument has? noone but the one playing it.
ye but they r pricy . I used to have ricky 4001 1978 but sold it .I always regretted it , but years later I got hold of a 1981 4001S model with the dots , so nit so bad
They're actually a complete pain in the arse to setup and require constant adjustment to the truss rods to keep in top playing condition (especially live work.) I own a 4001 from 1976
The Hofner sounds absolutely KILLER on Get Back and every other recording on which Paul used it. Nylon strings, played with a pick and Paul's palm-muting makes a unique, thick, KICK-ASS sound.
@@FlipGuitarist80 "Paul McCartney uses Ernie ball 2223 Nickel Super Slinky Electric Guitar strings Gauge 09 -042 for guitar. On Bass he uses Hofner H1133 B Bass nickel flat-wound strings in gauge 045, 055, 075, 095. as well as Roto-sound strings including RS88 Black Nylon bass strings gauge of 065, 075, 100, 115."
I wish that Macca would play the Rickenbacker more often these days……I know he is more associated with the violin bass, but the Rick sounds fabulous, and was used on most of his post-Beatles recordings………
He rocked with the Ric Bass with Wings. Here it is in all its Magical Mystery Tour glory. He then had it stripped to natural finish. Plus I think he got the nut replaced to fit his strings being strung for left hander.
As always, there’s Ringo just waiting in the background. Waiting for a song to start up and he starts to play, doing his job which is lay down his perfect drumming job.
Gotta love John standing up and pulling his underwear out of his crack. Stuff like that humanizes these legends and icons. Can't wait to see the three installments.
The Rickenbacker 4001/s that Paul got was one of the very few Ricks of that model to be made left-handed. I think the issue pointed out was the nut of the bass was in a right-handed position while Paul is a leftie so the strings weren’t fitted properly due to the mismatch with string placement and nut width. This was again due to the fact that Rickenbacker likely didn’t make any leftie models of this bass before Paul came into play. As for this recording session, Paul was asked to change bass just to see if the Rick would give a better or more matching tone to the song than his Hofner as both had very distinct and different sounds (the Hofner sounding more rounded and thumpy while the Rick’s was slimmer and stronger attack imo)
@@Philrc Paul's Ricky here was his own little custom paint job. Later, McCartney had his Ricky stripped to the natural wood, tapered it down a bit, and fitted it with newer hi-gain pickups. This was his _Wings Over America_ bass.
@@Philrc And the 'electrics' are completely different between the Hofner and the Rickenbacker. And no, they don't come even close to sounding the same.
Well. This isn’t THE moment he changed to the Ric. He’s had it since the last legs of the us tour and the start of recording Rubber Soul and used it extensively in the following albums. This is only a momentary swap on request by the sound engineer for recording purposes.
He was jamming on it with the A string in the E string nut slot. He also told George Martin he doesn’t know what any of the tone knobs do, I found that unbelievable
I saw an interview with Tom Petty once and he talks about him and George Harrison discussing their Ricks and TP asks GH what the tone knobs do and GH swears he has no idea. Always found that comical.
@@jeffanderson8384 "There's one that gives you that bright, jangly sound and then there's another which kinda muffles everything, which I never used" is basically what GH said when asked about the tone knobs.
@@trendydelquendy Bruh it's a knob that adjusts frequencies of the sound a bass makes. That's pretty musical if you ask me. But "We're musicians, not electicians!" is a good line for a lot of other stuff fr.
An excellent bassist. Listen to the Sgt Pepper album and pay attention to the bass. He laid the bass tracks last and it is a real showcase for his playing.
Paul is complaining that the Rickenbacker is not properly configured for left-handed use. The strings are configured properly but the bridge and the nut are not, and the strings are sliding as a result.
@@MW-uk1kk Wait until the adverts finish next time and then watch and listen. McCartney (He's the guy with the beard) says "The only trouble is the strings slip off this because it's left-handed and the nut is for right-handed'
Yea, I picked that up. Had to hear it a couple times to see what he was referring to. The nut is not turned around for the lefty strings. Too many holier than thou wise asses on these sites.
He did a quick sanding job in 1969 because he'd fallen out with the psych paintjob. It still had fireglo under the pickguard etc until 1975 when Rickenbacker fully refurbished it and finished sanding it back. They also applied a light varnish, which Paul had never bothered with... that's like 6 years of grime getting in there lol. They also did some work on the pickups I think, as they'd gone weak
It's interest how the finish on the Rick changed from it's first appearence in this scene, to the filming of the performance version of "Two Of Us," where the stripped to the bare wood Rick is seen in the background by George & the drum kit.
Like a lot of famous bassists, a lot of Paul's sound came from his hands (and how he dialed in the amps, and how it was miked and mixed, etc.), not the instrument. I've seen knowledgeable musicians call the Hofner a "crap" instrument, but Paul made it sound a lot better than it was. Apparently part of it was you had to really dial back the gain on the bass itself or else it would go really wonky. I don't own one, but I can imagine if it had sub-par pickups and electronics that would make sense. The Rickenbacker, on the other hand, had a sound that leapt out at you at any volume. I know engineers generally dislike it because it can be really noisy. But the sound Paul usually got tended to mitigate all of those drawbacks.
haha 😄 just yesterday i watched a video with lee sklar where he said the hofner bass is a "crappy instrument" but paul is of the few who can make it sound great 🙂
I think it's funny that glyn johns and george martin, two of the most celebrated producers of all time, both asked him to change the bass at different points in the film
So Rickenbacker gave him a Bass without making the nut properly? Yeah, I know it's a right handed neck because they didn't have the template for a left handed one, but come on. Also, it's an easy fix (replacing the nut) that any competent tech should be able to do.
That's the thing that makes the Beatles achievements even more spectacular: they truly were in the infancy of studio technology, guitar technology, etc. Their de facto "guitar tech" was Mal Evans, who Lord bless him, wasn't a musician or a luthier. They taught him how to change strings but anything beyond that he couldn't do. And although Paul knew what was wrong with the Rick he couldn't do a nut job himself. What I noticed was that the Rickenbacker is still in it's psychedelic paint job here on this day but then on Jan 31st when they recorded the songs they couldn't do on the rooftop the previous day, the Rick is next to Paul on a stand with it's paint stripped as it would look for the next 4 decades plus. This documentary is a treasure trove of new tidbits of information.
@@LesPaul2006 There were absolutely guitar techs back then, and at the very least competent luthiers who even having not worked on a guitar previously could've cut a nut well and good the first time- It's the 60's not the 1700's, what was lacking was the facility to find these people. Like learning a B7 chord, you just had to know a guy.
@@FlaxeMusic I found it curious why Paul, when it became apparent that his bass's nut was flipped, called George Martin as if he was the guy who was responsible for fixing that. He didn't even tell him to take it to the tech or anything. So that's where I draw my conclusion. Maybe they existed, but the Beatles didn't know.
@ Not sure honestly! I haven't given that album as much time as my favourites (Revolver and Abbey Road). If anything I'd expect it to be more hi-fi considering the gear used, but I imagine it was a decision made in the mixing process? Perhaps also a less live sounding room with more close mics, unlike albums like Revolver where so much was ambient mics picking up the room/multiple voices.
2 года назад
@@joeboonmusic4004 @Joe Boon Music I think it has to do with the fact that they had to improvise a studio with borrowed equipment after Magic Alex turned out not so magic. That might be why they returned to Abbey Road asap after Let it Be sessions. You can clearly hear it on the high end, every Let it be song (and all audio on Get Back series) aren't really clear shiny audio, though they did a good job cleaning it for release, the album still retains a lower quality when compared to every other album recorded at Abbey Road. High end sounds similar to some Stones / Zep album (funnily enough, recorded with a mobie studio as well)
@ Interesting! I actually wasn't aware of that! It's crazy to me how wonderful their older records still sound. There are a few records that have been made recently that have that same beautiful audio with the added detail of modern recordings, but not many... Tape certainly helps!
Paul didnt use his hofner bass after beatles split because sad remembrances until 1989. Elvis Costello ask for the hofner to use again and he was convinced to do in his Flowers in the dirt album and world tour. Till this day.
@@hashimmahamerul8857 there were two hofner basses. You can watch them in Revolution promo video that was stolen while Get back/Let it be sessions were in progress. So he startet to use the second one after that as you can see it tn the rooftop performance. Thy are slighty differents in color, pickups positions and a diferent attaching of the strap,the first one to the neck and to the body the 2nd and remainig hofner bass. Paul used a Rick for studio recordings from 66 but in the get back project they were to play live and came back to the hofner as an beatle remarkable identity. For this last reason, after they broke up, Paul hide away his hofner and plays Rickembacker ones on live performances. You cant watch the hofner except for the promo videoclip Comin up, in which Paul appears disguised as an early beatle and plays drums, trumpet with other disguises etc. But in 1988/89 Paul worked in his new album and Elvis Costello, who was involved in that project asked Paul to use again the Hofner because he had to forgive and forget bad vibes about the beatles. And he did. The hofner was on the road again. It was hidden for 19 years...
I was attending to that World Tour and everybody was given a book with stories like this. Take a look on the internet with keys like Elvis Costello hofner bass and Paul Mccartney...
Influenced me getting my lefty Rickenbacker (see pic)....was being made in the Rickenbacker faciity in August 1975...the same time Paul's was also there getting worked on just before his 1975-76 tour. : )
The Rickenbacker 4001 is made from three main pieces of wood. The neck (which goes all the way through the body), and the two body halves. The body halves, or wings as they are sometimes called, are glued to the neck section. At this point in history, Ric only made right-handed basses. I could be wrong, but I think the bass McCartney was given was the first lefty.. They used a right handed neck and flipped the body pieces before routing for pickups, etc. The headstock is backwards, the truss rod cover is upside down. I'm shocked they didn't think to reverse the nut and the bridge. It's an easy fix, but Rics are high-dollar. You'd think they would do better for a Beatle.
You do realize he had this bass since 1964 and started using it since rubber soul of 1965? The bass was probably given to a local music shop in London instead of being shipped back to America for repair. The nut must've been mistakenly been put on instead of a left handed one. (P.s. the truss rod cover is not flipped)
I find it hard to believe that a left-handed bass would have left the factory with a right-handed nut, even for Rickenbacker. It had to have had a proper left-handed nut unless it got replaced or fell off and was put back on the wrong way round at some point (or the tapewound strings were too big for the slots)
That Rickie is sick! It reminds me of that album cover, of them, covered in blood, holding all those baby-doll parts. The Beatles weren't known as a Metal band, but that was METAL AF! I LOVE The Beatles!
This documentary is amazing! And it’s even more mind blowing hearing it with Spatial Audio/Dolby Atmos via iPhone or Apple TV. It makes it sound like you are IN the room with them. Amazing experience.
Paul is funny that way but it's really a kinda common musician thing. I have a hofner and a j bass, and I went from being like "ugh the hofner" to "hmmm, the j bass isn't the hofner" to "ugh, that dang hofner". Sometimes you just need to switch up to feel better 😂
They probably didn't think of it or really care that much about what happened to their instruments. I'm sure they cared, but not like now where Paul still plays that Hoffner with the set list from Shea Stadium taped to the neck which is now so priceless it's insured by Sotheby's for unobtanium money. Paul has a roadie responsible for it at his shows yet you will still see Paul wave it around like a used Fender made in Mexico you buy for your kid's first guitar, used from Guitar Center for $200. Sometimes you'll see that guy on stage grab it real fast before Paul drops it. It's pretty funny sometimes.
@@jimmycrackcorn2516 Used ones, yes. Maybe I need to clarify the low-end junk Squire line. My point was being facetious about how the guys thought of their instruments then in 1969 as opposed to how they're valued by the entire world now. But I'm sure you understood.
Early in January shooting at Twickenham Paul is seen using his older Hofner (pickups close together…no strap pin on the body or “through the neck” strap attachment). This bass had been completely re-done for the occasion - I call it the “Cavern Hofner,” presumably a ‘61. This bass was tragically stolen during the Get Back / Let It Be sessions, so he pulled out his “Ed Sullivan” ‘63 Hofner - which he promptly decorated with the Bassman sticker that came with his new Fender bass amp. This is his most famous Hofner bass - the pickups separated at the neck/bridge positions. When it kept going out of tune he was urged to bring his Rickenbacker which, as you can see, was still painted psychedelic ala’ Mystery Tour. Miraculously, this same Rickenbacker appears on a stand during the very last day of shooting behind Paul during “Two of Us” - the day after the Rooftop Concert. Miraculous because it’s suddenly stripped of the psych paint job….down to the bare wood. Given the hectic recording/shooting schedule they were dealing with at the time, it’s amazing Paul had this job done so quickly, as the bass appears in its psychedelic form only a few days before.
The Rickenbacker it's still in its 1967 colour. A few days later, the bass came back in its natural finish colour (the last scene of the third episode, during the performance of 'Two Of Us') ;)
It was a long running thing with them. I remember reading something about Keith Richards saying to George "we've got to get you guys some real amps" and George bemoaned that they were under contract with Vox. They were always circling a square somehow (gear-wise). Check out Andy Babiuk's Beatles Gear, great book.
Notable uses of the Ric bass: Rubber soul Revolver Rain/Paperback Pepper/MMT Hey bulldog White Album Abbey Road He has been using it flawlessly for a while and yet its not properly set up for left hand playing
He did except for two tracks ― 'Let It Be' and 'I Me Mine'. This was probably one of the last days of the 1969 _Let It Be_ sessions. Because Paul McCartney played the Höfner 500/1 Violin on most of the tracks he played bass guitar on. If I'm not mistaken, he didn't switch back to the Rickenbacker 4001S until the 31st January 1969 which was the day that 'Let It Be' was recorded.
You can see why Paul bought a Hofner bass, at that time no one made left-handed basses, the Hofner filled that void that Paul felt, when he bought the Hofner in Germany he immediately fell in love with it.
@@hyacinthlynch843 It could have happened in many ways, but the good thing is that the Rickenbacker musical instruments were always characterized by using excellent quality woods, the neck and body were in one piece, there were no assemblies as in the Strat or Tele, in addition to everything. The only thing that could have happened in case that bass dropped is that some internal cable of the control and tone or the selector switch was torn off, I think nothing more .....
It's also not properly configured for a left-handed player. The strings are in the right order, but the bridge and the nut need to be reconfigured. He's complaining about it going out of tune because of that.
The Hofner had issues too; he retired it after Abbey Road later that year in part due to intonation problems. When got the Hofner fretboard recut of at the end of the 80's, he started using it heavily again.
My vision can't really tell but when Paul used the Rickenbacker during the Sgt. Pepper days and after he used taperwound strings. It looks like that's what is on the guitar now. I put some on my bass(Rotosound). They don't really sit well in the slot of the nut, I can tell you that much and of course behave vastly different compared with regular steel strings. They're pretty flubby. Now Paul did do some modifications to that guitar and I wonder if he tinkered with the nut slot or like I said they don't sit all the way down in the nut because they're thicker and that's what he's talking about when he says they'll slip off. Funny on Sgt. Pepper he was trying to get the American bass sound. I'm not sure if he meant Motown(Jameson carpal tunnel arthritic two fingered high action p-bass with bad intonation and old strings) or Carol Kaye's bass sound which I think she was using taperwound. In any case they were mic'ing bass cabinets(wrong, they should have paid the studios a visit. I know the motown stuff was directly into the mixer, kinda like John wanted to do with his voice. :D
This may sound weird, but I load a Hofner Bass sample set into a vst virtual recreation of an Emu sampler. While I get it's not the actual bass, Just for simple picking, it sounds really fantastic.. And I try to imagine it being Paul's bass lol. It sounds really good in tracks in a mix I've found.
Sounds like his Ric was set up poorly. Mine plays like butter. Back when I bought it, I knew nothing of setting up a bass. Had I known, I would've never bought a Ric. That tailpiece is junk. So is the dual truss rod. I can imagine combining that with mixed left-right parts would be a nightmare. He had it sorted by the time they did the Wings Over America tour. Makes me wonder how much that "free" bass cost him in the end.
Yeah Ricks are cool and sound unique but they are an absolute pain to keep in playing condition and frankly they are heavy as fuck and not so nice to play, i spend hours every day in the studio as a pro musician and i can tell you i always end up reaching for my shortscale hollow body epiphone rivoli instead of my rickenbacker for tracking bass parts unless i really need that sound, i'm 99% sure this is also the reason why macca favors the Hofner, when you spend all your time in reharsal or in the studio short and light basses start making a lot of sense.
It was interesting to see the rickenbacker in its custom paint here and then see it with the present day stripped version later on in the show, this must’ve been around the time he stripped it
The amount of u67 mics in this doc is something. All of the gear is great but the mics….. Not sure what they cost back in the day but the street value of that mic locker today is wild! What a treat to get to see this.
This scene is weird, because he had used that very bass with the right-handed nut for years, virtually for every recording between Rubber Soul in late 1965 and early White Album sessions in 1968, for some of the best bass lines in rock history, and here he says he's "not that keen on it". That said, the Hofner was the bass for the Get Back project and he knew it, so my guess is he just gives an excuse not to use the Rick.
Why in the world would Paul have a right-handed nut on that bass? It was obviously a left-handed instrument. He had been using it for the 2 or 3 years prior to this session, can't believe he wouldn't have sent it out to get fixed.
Rock and Roll created such an aura and the purism around it has prevented technology intruding into guitar making. For example, a Fender guitar or bass is made based on what came out in the 40s/50s! But dare they do anything different and a whole market of instrument purist would cry to heavens high and Fender would lose their business.
Well, except for all those tiny & powerful Class D Amplifiers and there are some tone & effects pedals (but they're rare.) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oEnb31Zisu8.html
@@rman52 They changed a lot in their first 100 years of existence, so did the amplifiers, electric guitars and bass guitars but not so much for those brands that existed before or during the beatles times, the purists just talk shit whenever fender or gibson try something new in their top range instruments, they have to make their innovative stuff under a different brand name or make cheap crap. It's funny how a lot of people would insist on original fender specs from the 50's and then change parts, it's like a ship of Theseus
How could Paul McCartney put down the bass guitar that complemented his success as a member of The Beatles in front of the camera? Don't get me wrong. The Rickenbacker 4001S looks and sounds great. But at the end of the day, there's only one bass guitar that I want to see Paul with. And that's the Höfner 500/1 Violin! 😭
There's two scenes where you get to see Paul's Rickenbacker. This scene and the final scene when the credits start rolling and at that point, the Rickenbacker is stripped away of all its paint.
Paul has been using the Ric on previous albums so im interested as to why the nut issue was not fixed at all before this? When he said he did not know what the knobs did I was shocked, I dont believe that haha
I've heard stories of them being surprisingly musically inexperienced. Apparently, this deficiency is true of their ability to interface with their instruments. There's all types of musicians out there. Some are more self taught than others.
Paul played the Rick in the studio on nearly everything from either Rubber Soul or Revolver on with the Rick it was in the sessions for Get Back that he switched to the Hofner because they were going for a throwback album.
Wow! Rickenbacker 4001 Paint of "Magical Mystery Tour" I'm so grad and I can see Paul's played with MMT Ric in the movie "Get Back", because I couldn't saw the Ric's front paint in "White Album" sessions And I wondered, too, it used the song that's got to tie-up for Opening Theme in TV Drama in my country -"The Last Songs(世紀末の詩)"
The George Harrison rosewood telecaster was created as a prototype by Roger Rossmeisel in 1967. In early 1969, after LIB recording sessions, George gave away his this to Delaney Bramlett of Delaney & Bonnie. Delaney kept the instrument until he sold it at auction in 2003, two years after George's death. It fetched a staggering $434,750, bought by an intermediary for George's widow, Olivia Harrison. This is mine limits ed., absolutely stunning ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YXJa5q-5YnM.html
