prowla

Mine is identifiable and I'm sat in my office with my Winchester .357 close to hand... (It has been customised a bit, but I'm on the lookout for a gap-tooth bridge to revert it to stock.)

I'm a fan of Rics and fakers! I've got a '72 Ric in age-darkened Fireglo, checkered binding, wavy Grovers, crushed pearl. 😍

Yep. Lots of other brands too (really all from the same couple of factories) and variations (bolt-on/thru neck, 1/2 truss rods, treble pickup, generic/replica machines, single/dual jacks, pickup location, etc.). The 70s ones will take standard Ric parts as-is; I'm fiddling around with a Hondo II (MIK) and putting Ric bits on it pending getting a real Ric carcass.

I do wonder how many have plugged its output into another pedal, though... 🙂

Yes - I might get him to make me a bass when my ship comes in.

Expect to pay in the £400-500 range, or £100 up for parts/project depending upon what's there.

70s Rics & fakers: I've never seen 70s faker which is better made than a real Ric; that's based on my having owned 6 fakers and seen several more over the years. Primitive truss-rods: One of my Rics had a neck repair, because a previous owner adjusted it incorrectly, but that is their fault for doing it wrong; why should things be done the Fender way? There is an advantage in the old truss-rod system, namely that they can be easily replaced. I like the old truss-rod system. Exploding machines: I've got a 72 Ric with Grovers which seems OK (but I've got a spare set just in case!); Ric resolved the issue by replacing the machines they use and the current ones are fine. Tail-lift: Tail-lift, that's a fair criticism; the stock tailpiece is an achilles heel. But the part can be replaced like-for-like with a current one or 3rd party. many people will replace a bridge on a Strat without complaining that a 30 year-old part hasn't lasted a lifetime. It is possible to fit a fix (as I know you know!). Neck-lift: I don't know how many instruments neck-lift has affected over the years, but is often caused by not following the recommendations on string gauge/tension. Rickenbacker shifted the neck pickup to help mitigate against the risk. It is, however (and admittedly), an inevitable consequence of the whole premise of the instrument: placing a pickup there and having the body thin means that the wood at that point will be thin. But on the flipside, nobody complains that their acoustic guitar is fragile because the body's wood is thin and they have to treat it carefully, so why should a bass be any different? I've got a 70s Japanese faker with neck-lift. I suppose the basis of the issue is inherent in a thru-neck design; with a Fender, you just put in a shim or adjust the micro-tilt and job's a good 'un! Finish: I've got one 60s and two 70s Rics and the finish is fine; matured to a nice vintage feel and certainly no better or worse than any other vintage guitar. In contrast, my experience of faker finishes is that they are more brittle than real Rics and they are more prone to chipping. It's funny that owners of other brands try and emulate the "road-worn" look of their heroes' guitars and refinishing a vintage instrument is frowned upon. MIJ quality materials: I've had a couple of fakers whose binding has detached. Their tailpieces tend to be made of thinner metal than the stock Ric ones and so are equally (or more) prone to tail-lift. The materials may not be so well matched and may flex differently with age, for example forming a channel along the skunk stripe. Chickenbackers: Yep - the current ones are pale imitations, but there are folks who use the "better than a real one" line when talking about them and I don't know who they are trying to kid. Overall, Rics are undoubtably quirky instruments which are made by a company who sticks to its own path and has not become part of the homogenised Fender-a-like blandness of many others; I kindof like that. I also think that the vintage fakers are fun instruments, but the "better than a real one" really doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Just one correction to the above - neither the 70s Japanese fakers nor the current Chickenbackers are of similar, let alone better quality than an actual Rickenbacker. I challenge anybody to demonstrate otherwise.

I thought that Ampeg did a rack-mount preamp and here's one that sold on ebay recently. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ampeg-SVP-Pro-Preamp-/113112449571?hash=item1a56070223%3Ag%3Akk8AAOSwD99ayMYj&nma=true&si=NHDiROD4oAAb%2FJ7CV2z5DMB%2BEgw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 Also, in searching for links to it, I came across this clone... http://www.frontiernet.net/~jff/SonOfSVPCL/DIYSVTBassPreamplifier.html

The headphone output is equivalent to a preamp, so won't drive a speaker. EH do a power-amp in a pedal https://www.ehx.com/products/44-magnum which I've seen being used at a guitar show.

And a nice jetglo one it is! Mine was the mapleglo and Harry bought the Shaftesbury faker off me.

Probably better made than a real one, but probably cost a bit.

Beware also that there appear to be fake Tokai fakers about (ie. cheap copies pretending to be Tokai copies!) - there's a 6-string guitar being discussed elsewhere at the moment.

Just as a foil to the "can't spot a faker" mantra, here's a Gibbo which is being called out as a fake. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392090193584?ul_noapp=true

Aye - I forgot to add a smiley! 🙂

I can confirm the veracity of my statement!

He'll be OK - here's my 4 real Rics! (Also, I don't have any of the current illegal fakers.)

There are a couple of easy tells, more obvious than a Fender (there are so many variations in Fenders, "upbranded" Squiers, fake decals); I don't think there are any factory fakers which are an exact copy. The current Chickenbackers are an easy spot - they are a different scale and the bridge is wrong. There was a site, joeysbassnotes.com, which spelled it out, but it appears to have gone off the air. Here's some of mine: A Hondo II and a CMI(?) Japanese I'm currently working on: Both have single truss-rods, the Hondo's treble pickup is in the wrong place (ignore its bridge, that's a Hipshot), the CMI's machines are standard Japanese (the Hondo's machines are replacements), the Hondo has a bolt-on neck, the jack sockets, the strap button position, the split-shaft pots and push-on on knobs. These are the typical Japanese machines. A nice Shaftesbury I sold. The Shaftesbury is one of the best ones, with a thru-neck. Note the same machines. This one has a real Rickenbacker bridge/tailpiece. From a distance it looks right, but up close it's like Joanna Lumley wearing makeup. The weight and general feel are wrong. Only 1 truss rod. The back of a bolt-on neck CMI with wavy non-Grover machines which I sold. No 4001/4003s have bolt-on necks and those machines are unbranded. The skunk stripe is too wide. The strap button is usually in the wrong place. Some have shonky treble pickups, like this Diamond (Aria) branded one; this was my 1st faker, which I sold on. The finished Diamond. Replacement machines' posts too wide, strap button wrong, wide skunk stripe, bolt-on neck (notice the stripe isn't full-length), jack socket says "Stereo Sound" not "Rick-o-Sound". And here's the above CMI (4001 copy) alongside a Rickenbacker 4003. Skunk stripe, machines, pickguard, strap button, bolt-on, position dots for control knobs. (The neck pickup position is OK - that's a 4001/4003 difference.) Just like with any copy, they look fine from a distance, but a little bit of sleuthing and you can pick out the details.

They hadn't registered the designs as trademarks back then. I sort of respect the fact that they still just run from that same factory and haven't offshored. As for the Chickenbackers, they do have them seized when they can.

It is very easy to tell a faker from a genuine Ric (I have 4 real ones and 3 fakers currently and 3 others previously) - way easier than other brands. However, some fakers also infringe Rickenbacker IP and the company is committed to protecting its brand by legal means.

A Ric sounds like a Ric when it's not plugged in. Now, if you were to put a neck pickup on a Precision or Jazz and also a series capacitor on the mid-way pickup it might get some of the characteristics of the amplified sound.

It probably sounds like that after a few glasses of Port.

It was originally that cream colour, but the previous owner stripped it, varnished it, and then abandoned the project. I had been thinking of black, but a surf green would suit it, wouldn't it?

The gold hand-painted Fender logo was a bit of a stretch, I have to say! 🙂 I'm stripping off the overpainting, but it's taking off the finish too (red leaning towards orange), so I'll have to redo that; it's not exactly the finest instrument every produced, so I'll be having a think about how far to take it.