What I’ve leaned about my Ric

[Slippery fingers]

I guess this would be an up date to my two former post, slow fret board, and string height. I have a Ric 370 VP VB MG, made in 2002, it’s a beautiful guitar but it’s spent most of its life as a case queen, I always considerd it great for chords, but I could never play lead with it like I could with my American Standard Strat, and G&L Fullerton made ASAT. I run Ernie Ball super slinkies 9’s on the Strat, and ASAT, and they are playing machines. Well I got to thinking my Ric should get out of the case and get some play time, it’s ashame for such a nice guitar to sit in the case. I got some good advice and tips from some of the forum members on this sight, so she came out of the case, I put on a set of Ernie Ball regular slinkies 10’s, set my action at the 12’th fret to 1.25 mm on all the strings and spent a rainny fall afternoon playing her. The two amps I used were my Vox AC15 C1 the all tube model, with the green back, and my 1997 Corona made Fender Hotrod DeVille 4x10. I kept playing four songs over and over, that I figured would be good to get used to the varnished fret board, Johnny B Good, Shakin all over, Youngman blues, and summertime blues, those four songs are loaded with slides, bends, pull off’s, and hammer’s. All it took was a few hrs, and I was flying around that fret board, my fingers are gliding around it like they do with my Strat, and ASAT. I noticed the bass side of the Ric sounded a little to boomy to my liking, so I moved all three toasters down away from the low E string side, just a touch, and that was the SWEET SPOT. Now I’ve always heard Ric guitars, and Vox amps go together like meatballs and spaghetti, and while my AC15 is a real nice amp, it wasn’t even close, that DeVille, on the clean channel, and the drive channel blew the AC15C1 right out of the water. Those toasters, and that DeVille really love each other, I tried the Ric with the more drive channel on the DeVille, but the toasters don’t like that, some weird things started coming out of the speakers useing the more drive channel.The only thing I didn’t touch on my Ric was the neck, even though it’s a newer one, I’m still afraid to mess with the dual truss rods, but that’s ok the neck is almost flat straight and with action set low she plays sooooo good, and sounds sooooo good. It’s remarkable what you can learn if you just have a little patience and just do it. It’s like I just got a new guitar, I’m half tempted to try a set of super slinkies 9’s on the Ric, but I don’t want any trouble with the neck, that may require a neck adjustment, and besides she plays way better that I ever thought she could, Now she’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with the Strat, and ASAT, and those toasters, with the DeVille, to my ears sound better than either the Strat, or ASAT.I guess it’s the Strat, and ASAT’s turn to spend some time in the case, that Rics gonna make up for a lot of lost time. It truly is a wonderful geeetar, down the road I can see a 330 coming into my life

[jdogric12]

Very cool!