Rickenbacker 4003 vs. Peavey T-40: CUPID'S DEAD

Hi everybody.

This time I've wanted to offer you fellow bass players the chance of comparing two instruments that many feel very similar in character, despite the big price difference: The Rickenbacker 4003 and the Peavey T-40.

For this task I've chosen the great rock tune "Cupid's Dead", originally recorded by the band Extreme. I had to remove the second verse for the video not to exceed the 10-minute limit. I don't want to give an opinion about which bass sounds "better" to my ears (Just to avoid preconceptions), so I'll only talk about how these instruments were recorded:

As usual, the sound was captured from the instruments' direct signal to my PC's sound card passing through my Kustom KBA30 practice amp. Since the amp's EQ affects the output signal, I took advantage of that to (Try to) compensate for a slight difference in the way I set my basses' tone and volume controls.

The T-40 has both pickups at full volume, neck pickup's tone at 10 (for single coil mode) and bridge pickup's tone at 7 (for humbucker mode). The Ric has both neck and bridge pickups' tone fully open, as well as the bridge pickup's volume. The neck pickup's volume is slightly rolled off. The standard/vintage tone selector is set to standard.

So, rolling off the neck pickup volume a bit puts the Ric at disadvantage in the bass frequencies area, but I made that difference because:

- The T-40 sounds too "honky" to my ears when the neck pickup's volume isn't at maximum.
- The Ric doesn't cut that well in the mix (To me) with both pickups full volume. Besides, I don't feel it that honky with unbalanced volumes.

So, to compensate for that, I set my amp's "Low" knob to around 7 for recording the Ric. Everything else was around 5 (Flat), including the "Low" knob for recording the T-40.

Both basses have old roundwound steel strings: Rotosound Swing 66 for the Ric and LaBella Hard Rockin' Steels for the Peavey (I think. The T-40 arrived with those strings with black silk wraps and I haven't changed them. Look like HRS to me).

And that's it. Hope you find this shootout interesting. My apologies for the strange effect in the video throughout my performance with the 4003. It seems that the camera had a problem, but of course I didn't notice it while recording. As always, my playing isn't flawless, but anyway hope it helps all of you interested in playing this super cool tune. I really like the bass tone on the original recording, but I hardly use a pick. Thanks for watching! :)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Rickenbacker
• 4003
• Peavey
• T-40
• Bass
• Shootout
• Playalong
• Rock
• Extreme
• Cupid's
• Dead
• Nuno
• Bettencourt
• Pat
• Badger
• Alvabass

[chrisslipknt444]

what strings you have on that t-40 dude?

[Alvabass]

@chrisslipknt444: I'm not sure since those are the strings that came with the bass when I received it, but based on the black silk end and string texture, I think those are La Bella Hard Rockin' Steels. Thank you for your comment!

[tetsusixx]

hey nice cover. may i iknow how do the muted slaps around 30secs into the song? its really neat

[Alvabass]

@tetsusixx: Thank you for your comment! I think you are talking about the fast "machine gun" triplets? That's a combination of popping with my middle finger, hitting the neck with my left hand and slapping with my thumb.

[beatleboy903he]

i gotta say i like the rick better than the T-40

[OneDimeDaddy]

I own a Peavey T-40.....love the sound plus you can use it to chop down trees if you want....built like a tank and almost as heavy!

[olflatop]

Just got me a T40 today. Monster! Love it! Regarding your vid, I think the Peavey sounds better, but the Ric looks cooler, but I can't see frequency so I don't care what it looks like. Plus I've always dug the underdog. ;) This is a cool song. Didn't know Extreme rocked like that. Reminds me a bit of Living Color. Cool stuff. Great playing too.

[jimihendrixfan2008]

You're kidding I hope? Ricks are fucking sexy...

[Valkodu]

@bassistdc Rickenbackers look so nice.

[SgtZaqq]

@bassistdc I like them ;)

[bassistdc]

Rickenbackers sure are ugly.

[balsaboy55]

my first bass guitar was a peavy T-40 wish I still had it.....traded it off for a stienbrger xp-2 when I was in the army

[balsaboy55]

your too badass to be on youtube

[MegaJohn79]

awesome cover dude!!!

[stonedparyah]

Not really a fair test as you're using different strings. But the Peavey DOES sound better. And they have much nicer necks too! I dont play Peavey exclusively for nothin!:)

[faithnoman]

It's hard to tell what the Ric sounds like, as the mic is farting out completely on the low-end, and distorting the sound(not in a good way). I can't believe more people haven't picked up on this..

That being said, the T-40 has always been a good bass, too.