prowla

A Shpectrum...

Someone's project - a barebones body, add the hardware, make up an active circuit, bodge the missing back panels. (EDIT: I stand corrected!)

Someone's got that app for their phone where you can add ears on people's faces.

Certainly too many 9s for me!

It's weird - some of the work on it seems really good and other bits are just slap-dash.

Less neck dive than if it were a full-scale bass neck...

1 set of Gotoh SG360s fitted - straight in, screws went in smoothly. Thanks for the help!

Thanks folks. I’ve ordered a set of Gotoh SG360.

Well, well, well!

Wow - £1k for a broken one!

...for the museum of dysfunctional guitars.

That's as sad as a fly with no wings.

There were two jetglos there(!) - mine was in the big hall. I think a few folks had a go.

The jetglo and mapleglo are 4003 2010 models. 🙂

Well, I think my 78 has a deeper sound than my others, but recognisably Ric. Incidentally, I've only ever played one Ric bass which I didn't like - it had a really chunky neck, as opposed to the slim one on every other one I've played. However, that's personal preference - I was chatting with someone a short while back who said he didn't like Rics because the neck is too thin!

I usually take at least one to a BC Bass Bash. @cetera had a go on mine at the last one and said he doesn't normally like Rics but liked mine (slight paraphrasing there...). As for sound, they are quite versatile, but the neck pickup location adds a depth and authority of sound that you don't get on all of the Fender derivatives (except the Billy Sheehan Yammy). As far as quality and finish goes, they are at least as good as any other mass-produced bass (better, IMHO). I'm not sure if there are any in-depth threads on Rics.

I think it's about protecting IP, not customer confusion... RIC do have elements of their design registered as trademarks.

We've had shops and dealers selling Chickenbackers as real Rics. In the past year one shop got flamed for lauding the repair they had done to a lovely Ric, which was in fact a Chickenbacker. There's a counterfeit on ebay at the moment which was priced at double its purchase price. So yes, whilst there are people who can spot them, there are many who would not.

You can trademark a shape, ie. a design; there is no doubt that the headstock and TRC shape of a Ric are fundamentally characteristic of the product. The issue with the current counterfeits is that they also copy the brand logo.

Nope - discussions are within the site rules, just not sales. BC decided to just ban all Ric and faker sales, to avoid any hassle from RIC, including any links to for sale items from other sites. As far as legalities go: It is perfectly legal to own one of these vintage Japanese ones. The new counterfeit ones are illegal to sell.

Cheers - I bought it for the colour (which I call "avocadoglo"!). It's a Matsumoku, branded Vorg (by Pearl) and has a bolt-on neck, 34" scale, wavy waffle tuners.

Yep - that's too much for one of them. OTOH, I have one, so it's good to know... The outer two in the pic are Hondos which I used for projects and they're now gone, the middle one has someone in Scotland interested, the 2nd left is a basket case, and I'm in no rush to lose the CMI (2nd right).

I was visualising one of these...

What’s a carnet?