prowla

Glad to see it made an impression! I bought my 1st Ric bass at 17 and I've still got it.

I've never had any interactions with Rickenbacker. But I do have 7 Ric basses.

Yes, you're right - there is a difference between a copy and a counterfeit. The amusing thing is the current counterfeits are less like the real thing than the old copies!

The thing is that RIC tradmarked some of their (ahem) trademark design features, including the headstock and TRC shape. Thus the recent copies (including Rockinbetter & Retrovibe) infringe that; however, the vintage Japanese ones pre-date the trademarks being registered and so do not. But yes, part of the game of defending your intellectual property (IP) is to demonstrate that you are doing so; it's a bit like the Rugby League players who have to do a worm impression when they are tackled to prove that they are being prevented from getting up.

As far as defending the Ric brand goes, I rather admire it; keeping production in that same factory, piecewise improvements of the design & manufacture over half a century of production; it's a lot better than the wild-west of Fender basses, where you don't know if that you are getting is genuine, there are fake transfers everywhere, and some brands even produce fake Fenders. However, producing their own treble bezel is at best a bit hypocritical, I would say.

The word is that he retired to Birmingham!

The 4004 Laredo has a Schaller bridge.

Nope - he's talking about a 4003, which evolved from the 4001, which had horseshoe magnets (the pickup came from a lap steel guitar originally). Here's one with a horseshoe pickup.

Well, they weren't in the same price bracket as Sunn & Acoustic, that's for sure. I also had HH, Maine, and one or two other brands. But certainly better than no amp at all!

I had one of those push-button Stingray amps - as I recall it was pretty rubbish! 🙂

On the noise front, I went to the Bristol guitar show last weekend and never once even considered putting in my earplugs.

It's just a wind-up!

Arf!

I've never played a faker which is as good as a Ric. Mind you, I've only got 7 Rics and 3 fakers at the moment.

Well, I couldn't even spot my own bass in the last blind test (mind you, I did think it was the other Ric, so I'm not totally humiliated!).

I think I like it!

Rics are a big step up from the fakers. The 4003 rods are replaceable. I checked out a video of AC and he holds the bass at an angle and plays on the neck, so he probably got them to shift the pickups out of the way.

Wow - you've never had a Ric? I find them very adjustable and they do the neck twist like it says on the tin. Plus, they are field-replaceable if they go wrong. If you are concerned whether they are in-step, you can loosen them and then do equal turns for each and tweak at the end, though if they were way off then one would be a lot looser than the other. I don't know about massive steps forward. Is that single truss-rod from the AC? The two visually obvious changes on the bass are: The new/prototype/custom bridge, which may well be a good 'un. The pickups layout, which suits his style, but won't a lot of other people's. If the bridge does make it into production it could well be an incremental step forwards.

What will fit a 5-string?

Just a mean face...

I'm totally ignorant about them. What's a soprano uke and what others are there?

But I do like to mess around too...

I've got a set of PK-5A and they are rather good (though I would've preferred they were mains powered rather than using an external PSU). Once you learn the channel/patch/octave dance they are quite straightforward to use. I've got a 12-Step which I need to get to grips with; it's more of a program it via a laptop approach.