Overview: The 481
What if Rickenbacker, but not Rickenbacker?
In our overview of the Rickenbacker 480 (click to learn more), the 481’s older brother, we describe that model as “a hastily built, parts-bin-special Hail Mary of a guitar that actually kind of did what Rickenbacker hoped it would.” I 100% stand by that characterization.
The 481 built on the 480’s better-than-expected success, but was a more thoughtful and deliberate take on the basic idea of “what if 4001, but guitar?” So let’s take a brief moment to remind ourselves of what the 480 got right—and wrong—to help us better understand the 481.
In 1972, Rickenbacker’s guitar sales were dismal, but 4001 (click to learn more) demand was beginning to boom. Hoping to capitalize on the latter to help with the former, Rickenbacker slapped a guitar neck onto a 4001 body to create the 480.
In a bid to keep costs down, all of the 480’s parts—apart from the new bolt-on neck—came straight from the Rickenbacker storeroom. Which caused a pretty significant geometry problem.
In order to both mimic the look of the 4001 with its pickguard-mounted pickup and accommodate the tall stock Rickenbacker 6-saddle bridge, the bolt-on neck had to be set at an angle that proved to be less than ideal.
The strings just barely cleared the polepieces of the top-mounted bridge pickup and could even buzz against them when playing high up the neck. Meanwhile, the pickguard-mounted neck pickup couldn’t be raised close enough to the strings, leaving it far too quiet in the mix.
On top of the geometry problems—and despite them—because it used the new transitional Higain pickups, it still sounded like a Rickenbacker. Which was, in itself, a problem.
The primary reason Rickenbacker guitars had fallen out of favor by the early 1970s was the very same clean, chimey sound we love them for today. Rock music had gotten heavier and dirtier. Rickenbackers hadn’t. The new Higains were intended to be a step in that direction—thus the name—but they were a baby step at best.
That said, the 480 quickly became the highest-volume guitar in the Rickenbacker lineup. So they were clearly on the right track. The question then shifted from “what if 4001, but guitar?” to “what if 4001 guitar, but different?” The answer came in 1974 with the 481.
There were two clear problems with the 480: the geometry and the pickups. The 481 tackled both head-on.
We’ll start with the pickups, because they helped solve both problems. First, the 481’s “Super Humbucker” pickups were an all-new design—and Rickenbacker’s first proper humbucker. While not aggressively overwound like some of today’s designs—typically measuring between 7 and 8k ohms—they nonetheless gave the guitar a much wider sonic range.
You’ll notice I hedged a bit about this being Rickenbacker’s first humbucker. 1954’s Combo 800 (click to learn more) featured a two-coil horseshoe pickup that is arguably the very first humbucking pickup ever made—but Rickenbacker never bothered to patent it or even lean into the idea, leaving them out of the Gibson/Gretsch “who was first” debate.
You’ll note in the photo above the gap between the coils, a somewhat unusual feature for a humbucker. I haven’t been able to find any explanation for this design decision, but it does make the pickup noticeably larger than most other humbuckers, as the picture below highlights.
You’ll also notice the Phillips-head screw polepieces. Are they important? Do they make any difference? No. They’re just an unusual and distinctive feature.
The pickups had originally been designed for the 1973 System 490, a John Hall prototype based on a Forrest White (click to learn more) design that featured the nifty party trick of preloaded, interchangeable pickguards with different pickup combinations. Sadly, the System 490 never made it past the prototype stage, but the pickups were already there, just looking for a home.
To further expand the 481’s sonic palette, the addition of a mini-toggle switch to the standard Rickenbacker wiring harness allowed the bridge pickup to be put out of phase, producing a quacky, cutting lead tone.
The new pickups—and the way they were mounted—also helped solve the 480’s geometry problems. While the neck angle did not appreciably change, the new pickups were taller than the Higains they replaced. That allowed the neck pickup to remain mounted below the pickguard while still sitting much closer to the strings.
The bridge pickup also moved from being top-mounted to pickguard-mounted, allowing it to sit farther from the strings and eliminating the buzzing issues found on the 480. Both pickups could then be set at roughly the same distance from the strings, resulting in a much more balanced mix.
And “set” is the correct word, because if you look closely at the photo above, you’ll notice that what appear to be height-adjustment screws have no slots. After 1975, pickup height was set at the factory and could not be easily adjusted.
It could be, of course, but doing so required removing the entire pickguard and adjusting small nuts on the ends of the headless “adjustment screws”.
The pickups weren’t the only difference between the 480 and the 481. The 481 got the “Deluxe” (click to learn more) treatment, with a bound top, triangle inlays (click to learn more), and Grover Rotomatic tuners (click to learn more). It did not, however, gain the Rick-O-Sound (click to learn more) stereo wiring found on most Deluxe Rickenbacker models.
Ironically, one of the features the 480 and 481 adopted to appeal to the “modern” player is now one of their more divisive. Rickenbacker fretboards maintained what we’d now consider a decidedly vintage 7.25” radius until the mid 1980s. The 480 and 481 instead featured a completely flat fretboard while maintaining Rickenbacker’s relatively narrow neck width, a combination many players find cramped and ill-suited to string bending.
And yes, we have to talk about the slanted frets.
Rickenbacker first began experimenting with slanted frets (click to learn more) in late 1969, and the option officially appeared on the 1971 price list.
In theory, the option was available on “most Spanish guitars.” In practice, it seems to have only been available on the 360.
What even was the point of slanted frets anyway? Contemporary factory literature claimed that “this slight slant of the frets across the finger board eliminates the long chord reaches, reduces stretch length, and matches precisely the natural angle of the fretting fingers.” If you look at how your index finger falls as you barre a chord, you can kind of see the point.
So, does it actually work? The consensus today seems to be that it neither helps nor hurts—you really can’t tell the difference when playing. It can, however, be somewhat disorienting if you look closely at your fingers, but look away and you stop noticing.
That said, it didn’t exactly catch on. And while the “Slanted Frets” option remained on the price list through 1984, the factory appears to have stopped producing slanted-fret 360s by 1972.
So naturally, when the 481 launched in 1974, it came standard with slanted frets.
The 481 could be custom-ordered with “standard”, non-slanted frets, but using Register entries as a guide, it appears that box was ticked less than 10% of the time.
It can be surprisingly difficult to tell from photos whether a guitar has slanted or standard frets—the camera angle can dramatically affect your perception. For example, does this guitar have slanted frets?
Viewed from another angle, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
If all else fails, a photo of the end of the fingerboard can settle the question: slanted fret guitars have the patent number stamped on the binding.
Changes over the 481’s life were minor, with the pickup covers being the most obvious. 1974 models featured a textured black plastic cover with only one set of polepieces visible. These early guitars also retained the aforementioned pickup height-adjustment screws
In 1975 the covers changed to chrome-plated plastic, with both sets of polepieces visible. While the height-adjustment screws remained early in the model year, the adjustment feature itself disappeared by year’s end.
The final evolution came in 1976, when “Rickenbacker” was debossed into the center of the chromed plastic covers. This is how the pickups would appear for the remainder of the model’s run.
The other change of note came in early 1976 and was part of a line-wide evolution rather than something specific to the 481. The model had launched in 1974 with a back-painted Plexiglas truss rod cover (click to learn more) that, unlike high-volume models such as the 480, did not carry the model number.
In early 1976, the 481 transitioned to the raised-letter, injection-molded truss rod cover that had become the company standard. By then, however, the 481’s production volume had earned it a model number stamped on the cover.
Which brings us neatly to the model’s reception and sales. It was…fine? By 1976 it had surpassed the 480 as the top-selling Rickenbacker 6-string model. But while the 480 and 481 had helped the company regain some market share, guitar sales remained only a fraction of what they had been in the 1960s. Luckily for Rickenbacker, 4001 demand showed no sign of slowing.
1977 was the peak for the 481, and production fell off a cliff afterwards. It remained on the price list through 1984, but only a handful were produced after 1979, with the last example I have found dating to 1982.
I won’t say the 481 failed—it more or less did what it was supposed to do. It offered the market a Rickenbacker that didn’t sound like a Rickenbacker and helped the company sell some guitars at a time when it needed to. But in the long run, it didn’t leave much of a lasting mark on the lineup.
Except I think it taught Rickenbacker a valuable lesson—or at least tried to, even if the company failed to take heed. By the mid-1970s the market had already decided what a Rickenbacker “was”, and it wasn’t especially interested in having that definition challenged. Neither the 481 nor any subsequent attempt has really shifted the needle. The lesson was simple: the market ultimately has a larger say in what a Rickenbacker “is” than the company that makes them.
Want to learn about another model that tried to change what a Rickenbacker could be? You might be interested in this article on the 380L Laguna:
Overview: The 380L “Laguna”
John Hall tried so hard to make people want a “modern” Rickenbacker. But it just never worked.