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Does anyone here play a fairly new Rickenbacker 360-12? I've been toying with the idea of selling off some gear to buy one of these. I have a friend that owns a couple from the 1960s. He tells me that the newer ones have some serious neck" issues". Is there any truth to that?
the only serious neck issue with the 360/12 is that it's just to small for a 12 string guitar. otherwise they're very well made.
I've had several come through my place and haven't noticed any neck problems. I know a guy who had a 620 that had high action and he never could get it to where he liked it but that's the only one I've heard of recently.
Only problem ... not made by Fender.
I had one - hence the Fender Forum moniker. had to sell it years back for a mortgage payment. Now I have the MIJ Strat XII, courtesy of the good Kap'n, and it sounds great...but the Rick sounds like what you expect the Electric XII to sound like - what we all grew up with - A Hard Day's Night; Mr. Tambourine Man, etc.
My only beef with them is that the necks are kind of difficult to play with 12 strings on them. They do make a model or two with the wider neck, like the Tom Petty model, but by and large they're kind of stickers to remain the same...
Definitely TRY before you buy! Make sure you can work with the narrow neck.
No problem with that here....:hi:Quote:
Originally Posted by cherrick
+1!Quote:
Originally Posted by refin
I'm with C5 and RJ. When I was a kid the Ric 12 was one of my dream guitars. Having seen Kantner, McGuinn, et al at various bay-area venues in the '60s, it became imperative that I someday have one (in FireGlo of course). Later in life -- when stage flexibility demanded and my personal finances permitted -- I seriously looked into purchasing one. It was then that I discovered to my horror, that my hands were horribly disfigured (and had been since birth)! I simply could not comfortably play a 360-12 as my bratwurst-sized fingers refused to cooperate. I was heart-broken. Still in need of a 12-string for its tonal versatility, I finally opted for Fender's MIJ Strat XII. No -- it does not exude "cool" like the Ric. And of course, it doesn't quite have the "jangle" as a pair of toaster-top DeArmonds. But it doesn't do badly replicating the basic 12-string mojo. And I can actually fret it comfortably.
So there you have it......my unrequited love for a guitar I could never play. :bawl
HTH
PM, I feel the same way about that guitar, and I couldn't play it with my stubby digits.
An alternative, if you could find one, is an old Epiphone 12 string. Elvis Costello plays one, and it's the bee's knees and stinger. It's got its own great rickenjangle (sorry, Rickenjangle).
There's probably a market for somebody to make a stratoclone-12 that comes with toaster-voiced pickups and a swimming pool rout to drop your own choice of pickups in it.
IIRC, the current Strat-12 is routed S-S-S, not swimming pool.
..............or a Ric 360/12 with a wider neck.
That's the 620-12.Quote:
Originally Posted by Custom 5
yeah but that 360 body is oh so sexy!
:XRE Those are sexy too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kap'n
Unfortunately, I suffer from the same birth defect. I'm a big guy to begin with. And enormous hands with sausage fingers are apparently part of the basic big guy kit. I'm mainly a bass player, so the enormo-paws (tm) are usually useful. I get a pretty good tone on my Jazzes because of it. But I do most of my writing on a Taylor 355ce 12-string and in my head I hear something more like Roger McGuinn's Ric when I write those parts.Quote:
Originally Posted by phantomman
I wanted a 360/12 for years...until I finally played one. I just couldn't get around on that thing. I guess that until Taylor comes out with the rumored T5/12 I'm just out of luck.
But I'm intrigued by that 620/12. What's the sapcing on that thing?
WOW... Drool....Quote:
Originally Posted by Kap'n
WOW... Drool....Quote:
Originally Posted by Kap'n
Arggghh Double Post
That 620-12 (the Tom Petty model) is the hot dog. I've been curious to play one.
But I'm even more curious as to why having big hands would help one get a better tone from a Jazz bass.
Roger, I got the MIJ Strat XII from Kap'n. It plays and sounds great - though it's not quite as sexy as the 360-12! The 620-12, from what I understand, does not have the wider neck except if it's the Petty model. And the 620 guitars do not have the mojo of the semi-hollow 330's and 360's.
I have toyed with the idea of putting a pair of toasters in the strat XII but I think, to preserve the look, that when I get a couple hundred dollars to spend I'm gonna try the seymour duncan lipsticks in the strat. They are a bit fuller-sounding than the strat single coils...
When I was just a kid learning to play, I knew a guy at Guy Zimmerman Music who owned a 330-12 with an oddball attachment... a big chrome comb that would reach up under the string, grab the six high-tuned strings and pull them down, out of the way of your strumming hand... so that you could, supposedly, transform the guitar from a 12-string to a 6 instantly.
I was fascinated by that guitar, the goofy attachment, and the hyper-varnished fingerboard. He let me play it many times, and I remember thinking, "Man, this is a quality guitar."
EDITED TO ADD: I found a picture! According to this website it was called a 336-12. Crazy, daddy-o!
http://www.notcot.com/images/2009/09/beatlesrick9.jpg
Whoa, Never seen that before, thanks for the link Jim!
Damn, RJ -- you guys get up early!Quote:
Originally Posted by Rickenjangle
I too thought about some pickups with a little more "jangle". The MIJ pickups just didn't have enough definition for my purpose. In the interim I've installed a set of Fender CS 69s. They're not perfect but they sound way more "chimey" than stock. I also deep-sixed all the wiring and circuitry in favor of conventional CTS/CRL with cloth push-back. Lemme know how the lipsticks work out......they might be just the ticket.
I'd seen a picture of a Rick 12-string with that comb gadget, but I had no idea what it was for.
About a million years ago, I was at a guitar show. And they had a then-popular artist signing posters at the Peavey booth touting the release of his signature model bass (their first artist sig model, I think.) We were invited to sit down and play one. And if you made more people come in, you could keep playing. If you made people leave, hand it over. I'm sure that still happens.Quote:
Originally Posted by silent j.
So one of the people getting an autographed poster asked the artist (Rudy Sarzo, if anyone cares) why the bass had such great big soapbar pickups, when they weren't generally popular. He said "I've got little spidery fingers. I need all the help I can get. The guys you hear with the best natural bass tone always have huge thick fingers. Ever see John Enywhistle's hands? They're like a bunch of bananas with hair on them. Like this guy playing my bass over there." And then he pointed at me.
So I believed him. I often get complimented on my bass tone, while other people playing my bass don't. I take that to mean the tone really is in the hands. Or if not the hands, specifically, the fingers.