Rickenbacker

[wingsdad]

I think I've posted often about my cherished '82 360-12BWB, which I ordered thru a mom n' pop dealer in suburban NY back then in a non-standard finish, Autumnglo. It came thru with a 'birthmark'...a maple birdseye on it's upper bout. The ingenius headstock design makes re-stringing a challenge, but worth the aggravation; the neck is incredibly narrow and thin for a 12-string, since it's actually a 6-string neck. It's great for smalll-handed, thin-fingered players, but for average or larger hands, forming chords in the first position often requires coming up with new shapes. But the 360-12 shines best not as a chord machine, but as a melody siren. Mine's also wired to play mono or stereo, with 'Rick-O-Sound' sending the neck & bridge low-gain single coil toaster pickups to their own ouputs. The smaller 5th knob is a 'blender', operating differently in mono and stereo::


It was a major tool for me in my working days, one of just 3 guitars I hung onto after retiring from the deadly grind, and to this day, it gives me chills with its tonal pallette. Neck-thru-body design was intended for strength and stability, but has a ton to do it's ringing resonance with the hollow chambers on either side.

Strummy, if all you hear is Byrds...the string setup -- root string preceding the high octave in the 4 lower courses -- yields the characteristic 'jangle' unlike 'conventionally strung 12's before them and was introduced to the world by George Harrison, since owner Frank Hall of Rick launched the new model into the limelight by presenting him with one soon after they landed in NYC for their 1st US tour & Ed Sullivan. George was so infatuated with it that it was practically his main guitar for 'Hard Day's Night' and that sound was infused into so much of the Beatles' material in '63 & '64. It was that sound that grabbed folkster Roger McGuinn's attention and inspired 'the Byrds sound'. Of course, John Lennon's rhythm work with his 'shortarm' (short scale) Rick 325 was instrumental to the early Beatles sound. Pete Townsend used Rick 330's a lot in early Who stuff.

'Vood's already pointed to TP & Mike Campbell making major use of Rick 12's. Years ago, Rick issued limited edition Petty, Wilson, Towsend, McQuinn and John Kay (Steppenwolf) models:
Tom Petty 660/12TP
Carl Wilson 360CW & 360/12CW
Pete Townsend Limited Edition
McGuinn 370-12
John Kay 381JK

New Ricks today are relatively not more expensive than $3,000-5,000 Gibson LP's or 335's, so I think their scarcity is more a matter of limited production. Other than certain models designated for limited annual runs, they're practically made to fill dealer orders. Sort of like Heritage guitars, another brand of superior quality you just don't see many of.

And you don't see many Rick model clones like you do Strats, LP's and 335's because unlike Fender or Gibson, the company assiduously protected (protects) it's body style designs.