If you’ve spent any time around bass players, you’ve probably heard someone proudly announce that their Rickenbacker is a stereo bass. It’s one of those statements that has been repeated so many times that most people just accept it as fact. The trouble is, it isn’t actually true.
On the side of many Rickenbacker basses you’ll find two output jacks. One is the standard mono output that works exactly as you’d expect. The other is labelled Rick-O-Sound, which is often described as a stereo output. That’s where the confusion begins. When most musicians think of stereo, they think of left and right channels. Sound coming from different places in the room. A guitar on the left, a keyboard on the right, that sort of thing. Rick-O-Sound doesn’t do that.
Instead, it separates the signals from the two pickups. The neck pickup comes out on one channel and the bridge pickup comes out on the other. You can then send each signal to a different amplifier. The neck, or what I call ‘bass’, pickup might go to a large clean amp producing a deep, warm foundation. The bridge, or what I call ‘treble’, pickup could go to a second amp loaded with distortion, chorus, overdrive or whatever other effects take your fancy. When those sounds are blended together, you get more overall tonal control.
It’s clever and a times it’s useful but it’s not stereo. The two signals still occupy the same position in the mix in the center. You’re not hearing one pickup from the left speaker and the other from the right. You’re simply processing the pickups independently before combining them.
A more accurate description would be dual-output or split-output rather than stereo. So why did it become known as stereo? Perhaps it was because the Rick-O- Sound output is a stereo jack. Whatever the reason, decades later some people are still calling it a stereo bass.
The funny thing is that Rick-O-Sound doesn’t have to be unique to Rickenbacker (well, it is by name but not by function). Any bass with two pickups can theoretically be wired to do something very similar. With the right ‘stereo’ jack socket and a little rewiring, you can split the pickups into separate outputs and send them wherever you like. You don’t need to spend a fortune on a Rickenbacker to experiment with the concept.
Of course, that doesn’t take away from what makes a Rickenbacker special. They have their own distinctive sound, look and personality. Plenty of classic recordings owe part of their character to that unmistakable Rickenbacker tone. But stereo? No. That’s one bass myth I’d happily see retired.
Let’s call Rick-O-Sound what it really is: a very clever way of separating your pickups, not a stereo system.
