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As mentioned, I have a pair of nice 90s Vester Rickenbacker 360 clones (fireglo and jetglo) of which I prefer the black one.
They both have toaster pickups that sound decent.



About a year ago I impulsively bought a single old Rick higain pickup (I prefer the look of these) for cheap. Now I wanna put it into the guitar.
Got the rubbers that go under the pups today (€20 FML!!!)

So now the question is, which one in the neck, which one in the bridge?

Suggestions, pros and cons?

Thanks!

Take this recommendation with a grain of salt, because I can't guarantee the clones pickups mirror the design of actual Rick pickups.

I'd do toaster neck, hi gain bridge. A proper toaster is an alnico-poled, low gain pickup closer to a Fender singlecoil somewhat analogous to a Fender single coil. The hi-gain pickup is a screw polepiece, rod magnet pickup with more mids, higher output and less immediate string attack, somewhat analogous to a P90.

Bill Lawrence noted many years ago that the average player prefers their neck pickup to have rod magnets and their bridge pickup to have bar magnets. After this many decades of P90s and PAFs in bridge positions of Fender guitars, it really seems he's right.

Between their construction, output and tone, you'll likely prefer the hi-gain in the bridge if the toasters are anything resembling vintage spec.

Here's a video relevant to OSG and your question - a Cyclone with hi-gain in the neck and a toaster in the bridge. You can hear how overwhelming the output and bass of the neck is vs the bridge, which maybe some people would be into, but the other way around balances a lot better.

Whoa thanks man!!!

Ok I plan on getting this done today stay tuned

Awesome, looking forward to the results. Rics and Ric clones are really cool guitars, and you don't see mixed pickups as often as you'd think.

Love those two..

The mod is completely reversible so, yeah!! Try both, see what you like best.

I can only agree with my predecessors. You will most likely enjoy it in the bridge position.
I have owned about 3-4 Ricks until now. The current one that I have (a 91' 360 in Mapleglo) has been the best so far.

Had to rewind the pickups and had them adjusted to a little different outputs.
The neck became a pretty warm sounding pickup, perfect for all the strumming in the world.
The bridge seems even brighter than the "good ones" on my old 330. It's got a lot of output now, and breaks up wonderful.
And whenever you need something in between of the two, you can just blend them together in the middle position!

EDIT: Found a way to post the picture, this is me with my Rick (also notice my bandmates insane Vox Ultrasonic!):

DONE!



...and I'm VERY pleased!!!

Thanks for your input guys! ❤

I also changed the foam on the neck pup because it was stiff and crumbly and wasn't going up any more. I needed to raise it so it could compete with the volume of the higain pickup (and I'd already spent the +€20 on the 2 pieces of foam anyway...)

Now, I'll think I'll also change the bridge to a "Nashville"/tuneomatic one.

Fugazi, here I come!!!