| Chantilly Lace: Gentleness That Rocks |
One of the great features of Rickenbacker guitar pickups, is that the toaster, high-gain and humbucker styles all have the same-sized footprint. In practical terms, this allows one type to be replaced easily with another. But there is a lot more to this excercise than the look.
Guitar sounds have changed over the past 40 years with the bell-tone sound of the 1960s slowly evolving into a more edgy, distorted or "hotter" sound. A simple change of the pickups on your Rickenbacker not only alters its appearance but also can bring about changes in tonality. In the same instrument, you can "relive yesterday and play like today." While the replacement of pickups allows for an experiment in appearance and sound, the added benefit is that the intervention is completely reversible.
The photo above revels the final look of a Model 350 with a Rickenbacker humbucker in the bridge position and vintage toasters in the middle and bridge positions. This a unique and captivating look, and by no means new, as owners of the Susana Hoffs 350 Signature Model will attest. The greatest surprise in this modification was the "metamorphosis ot tonality" that emerged. In the case of "Chantilly Lace" the fifth knob was rewired to beome the volume control of the middle pickup, a modification that allows for any combination of neck, middle and bridge pickup selection. The tonality of the neck pickup was made brighter with the addition of a .001 microfarad capacitor added to the volume potentiometer.
This guitar has all the jangle of the 1960s and has a great hot sound as well. For those of you who are only the slight bit adventurous it is highly recommended that you put a humbucking pickup in your Rickenbacker for a test drive. The different sound characteristics of the toaster and the humbucker complement one another and aptly remind the listener that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts. So why choose between having your Rickenbacker ring or rock, when it can do both.
Chantilly Lace and "much more than" a pretty face.
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