Aside from Spanky does anyone play these? I haven't used mine for surf, it's more of a garage rock guitar but it certainly has a unique tone to it. Am I alone here?

"as he stepped into the stealthy night air... little did he know the fire escape was not there"

https://www.facebook.com/reluctantaquanauts/
https://www.facebook.com/TheDragstripVipers/

very high quality guitar--greatjangles on rythmbutsucky on lead. hearda blues albumrecordedwith one--stinks as far as tone goes. they are very pretty!

BillAqua
Aside from Spanky does anyone play these? I haven't used mine for surf, it's more of a garage rock guitar but it certainly has a unique tone to it. Am I alone here?

Man you get me all excited with the topic then beat me to the punch.

Spanky

JakeDobner
Beatles...

Bill did you use your Rickenbacker in the Knobs?

The Knobs stuff on Myspace is all either my Gretsch 6120 or a crappy vintage Anniversary I had. I did use the Rickenbacker a few times with the Knobs but that was sucha short lived thing that I never really got to give it a good try.

"as he stepped into the stealthy night air... little did he know the fire escape was not there"

https://www.facebook.com/reluctantaquanauts/
https://www.facebook.com/TheDragstripVipers/

I play a mapleglo (blonde) 330 and love the tone. I have a toaster pickup in the neck which is super-thin and a hi-gain in the bridge which I like - it's pretty fat and bluesy, actually.

I get on really well with the long narrow neck and find it one of my easiest guitars to play lead on and it looks just fantastic. I think for £900 new (in the UK) the build quality of these MADE IN USA guitars is just unsurpassed. Beautiful wood, beautiful hardware, good sound, good finish.

I think the hollowbodies have really good twang and I do use it for surfy stuff.

My criticisms would be:

• it's a bit of a one trick pony. With stock hi-gain the neck position is unusable muffle-city; with the toaster it's in complete contrast to the bridge but the middle position is basically useless.
  

• no trem. might get a rick trem one of these days even though they're supposed to be crap.
  

• terrible tuning stability. By the end of the song the G is always way out, and is hard to tune correctly in the first place. Intonation seems to be okay so I don't know what the problem is. Anyone else got this?

i've thought about putting a Bigsby on it so many times, but I also love the look of that R tailpiece, so I'm still undecided.

Strings I'm usuallt running 11-50 roundwound, same as all my other guitars, but recently put on 10-46 with no improvement. I was thinking about a tuner upgrade.

Had a 620/6 but sold it. Stunning guitar in Ruby Red Metallic. The 620 is a solid body with a pair of Ric HiGain Single Coils. No problem rocking out on it. 620's do overdrive and distortion surprisingly well. The 1.63" nut width, vintage size frets and 10" fretboard radius are kind of Fender like and it was an easy guitar to play (the 12 strings with the 1.63" nut width are another story). I wouldn't specifically buy a Ric for Surf (IMO there are better options out there). But other than not having a trem, the 620 was more than decent for clean surf tones, especially with both pu's engaged. If you want to hear a Ric rock out, check out the first two Smithereens CD's and video of "Unknown Hinson" doing a couple Hendrix tunes on You Tube. If you are not familiar with Unknown Hinson you gotta check this guy out. He's a monster player.

Not surf, but this guy sure made his Ric 325 sound pretty amazing:

Quite a story behind it, too:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/john-fogerty-talks-reuniting-with-creedence-guitar-after-44-years-113908

And in action:

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

abdul_tom wrote:

abdul_tom wrote:

i've thought about putting a Bigsby on it so many times, but I also love the look of that R tailpiece, so I'm still undecided.

Strings I'm usuallt running 11-50 roundwound, same as all my other guitars, but recently put on 10-46 with no improvement. I was thinking about a tuner upgrade.

Decided to update this ancient post in case people use it for research.

I solved the tuning problems on my Ric - I changed the bridge out for a Bigsby bridge and cut my own slots in it, plus refiled the nut. Tuning woes gone. I blame the horrible Ric bridges.

I think the Ric "R" tailpiece is the issue with most of them. Swap that out for a trapeze or Bigsby and you have a much different guitar.

Matt "tha Kat" Lentz
Skippy and the Skipjacks: 2018-
Skippyandtheskipjacks.net
https://www.facebook.com/skippyandtheskipjacks
Otto and the Ottomans: 2014-2015
The Coconauts surf band: 2009-2014
www.theamazingcoconauts.com
Group Captain and the Mandrakes 2013
http://www.gcmband.com/
The Surfside IV: 2002-2005, 2008-2009
the Del-Vamps: 1992-1999, 2006-2007
http://www.dblcrown.com/delvamps.html

Surfadelphia wrote:

The "R" tailpieces have a rep for "exploding" or more accurately falling apart. Most experienced Rick folks will tell you that it was the few models that came out in the 80's with satin black R tails that on occasion would pull apart from the string tension while the usual chrome plate units hold up well. I will say from experience that the R tailpieces are a bit of a PITA to string on a six and a pure misery on a 12 string. The more vintage flat trapeze tail pieces are a piece of cake to string and bullet proof.

Yes, but they look great!

The R tailpiece didn't give any tuning issues. It was other aspects. I did quite a few things to that Ric including rewinding pickups, rewiring it, installing a Firebird pickup in the middle, and onboard overdrive circuit. It was a great learning platform and the big scratchplate gives you lots of space to hide things under.

I would like to try a Shade vibrato on a Ric. Once i get some stuff sold that's an upcoming project.