Rickenbacker...rhythm only?

winston · Post by **winston** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 4:07 pm

"Brian, Crossroads was very cool....but dang you, now I've got to go practice it too!"

Ha! Me too Jerry. I have to practice every day just to keep my hands and wrists in shape to be able to play anything on guitar at all.

Thanks for the nice comment BTW.

firstbassman · Post by **firstbassman** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 4:40 am

The mentioning of tone and Strats and Les Pauls remind me of a story out of the Allman Brothers book.
Apparently Duane was kind of touchy about his work on Layla and the reactions to it. I guess he felt that people didn’t believe this unknown guy was able to keep up with the great Clapton.
When he finally got tired of people asking him which part was him on the record, he responded (paraphrasing) “Eric plays a Fender and I play a Gibson. If you can tell the difference (between them) then you’ll know which part is me.”

winston · Post by **winston** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 7:33 am

With a bit of fiddling with the controls you can get some really great sounds out of a Ric. Dare I say that the sounds that can be achieved are somewhat reminiscent of other guitars already mentioned in this thread?

trancedental · Post by **trancedental** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:41 am

"With a bit of fiddling with the controls you can get some really great sounds out of a Ric. Dare I say that the sounds that can be achieved are somewhat reminiscent of other guitars already mentioned in this thread?"

How about sharing some of these settings Brian?

winston · Post by **winston** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 11:04 am

John, I covered this subject last year in some detail, albeit in another thread. The only difference is that this year I now have two Ric 6 strings. A 350 with two hi-gains and a humbucker and a 360V64 with toasters. The V64 has an overdrive circuit in it that I rarely use. Which of the two would you like to hear about?

Bear in mind also, that I use a Peavey 212 Stereo Chorus amplifier to assist me to achieve my sound. That amplifier provides lots of sustain and great tone with virtually any good quality instrument. Having said that, each guitar that I own (15 or more) manages to sound totally unique when played through that amp.

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 11:22 am

Oh well... i wasn't wrong this time, Brian - isn't it?

(sorry, couldn't resist...)

trancedental · Post by **trancedental** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 4:24 pm

OK Brian, give us some settings from the 360? Can you get any Fender sounds?

I've got a 330 with hi-gains, 360 12 with toasters & a Epiphone Sheraton with filtertron type Pups so no Fender guitars at present!

As I was going to start some recording projects it could be handy to have more settings to give variety. I've got 4 valve amps so there's plenty of variation on that side of things.

winston · Post by **winston** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 5:15 pm

John,

My 360V64 has been modified as I mentioned albeit by the previous owner. It will produce Strat like glassy tones. It does that with the pickup selector in the middle position and by fine tuning the blend of the two active toaster pickups. The caveat on this guitar is that the Rickenbacker fifth knob and the bridge pickup tone control have been modified.

The fifth knob on my guitar no longer acts as control to blend pickups as Ric originally intended. It is now a three position rotary switch. What that knob does now is initiate the overdrive circuit in position providing a 10db gain and a further 10db gain in position 3. The bridge pickup tone control has also been modified. It is now a five position rotary switch which provides a distinct setting rather than variable settings. I don't use the overdrive feature because it produces a higher signal to noise ratio than I like. It does produce a nice rich tube emulation like distortion. However, I do not need that from my guitar as I can achieve the same results by adjusting my amp settings.

So with the overdrive circuit off, neck volume control all the way up, bridge pickup volume control at the midpoint and the bridge pickup tone control set at position 4 voila I have Strat like tone. Place the bridge pickup volume control at position all the way up and roll the bridge pickup tone control back to position 2 and it produces a tone similar to a LP. In all cases the neck pickup tone control is all the way up. In other words set to produce maximum amounts of treble.

Now how does this relate to a 330? Well It should be much like what I have to do with my 350. The answer is to adjust the mix of the volume controls and your tone controls first and then blend the pickups with your fifth knob. The fifth knob is really the secret once you get close to the sound you are looking for. It will allow you to fine tune your sound. My 350 BTW will not produce Strat like tones. It will produce a very good imitation of a LP. Perhaps the hi-gains effect that result.

I hope that answers your question, if not e-mail me off line and I will be glad to put together some sound bytes and pics to explain how I achieve certain sounds.

trancedental · Post by **trancedental** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 5:36 pm

Very interesting, Brian, I don't usually mess about with the pickup settings on my 330, & have not had my 360 12 c/w toasters very long. I usually leave the 330 neck on full & the bridge on 3/4 & tone the same, adjust the 5th knob to taste?

What I have noticed since I have played valve amps for the first time in over 15 years for the last 15 months or so is that the pickup settings & tone controls make a very big difference to the sound on my guitars.

I've been playing the Epiphone the most because it lives in the lounge or kitchen! It's just a cheapo anyway!

I'll mess about a bit more with the settings, see what I can come up with!

Cheers!

winston · Post by **winston** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 5:46 pm

John,

I am glad that I could be of some assistance in your quest to obtain different sounds from your Ric. Let me know how you make out with your trials.

danbind · Post by **danbind** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 12:58 pm

If you've ever heard Bill Kirchen play "Hot Rod Lincoln" live, you know how a good player can make a single guitar/setup sound like ANYTHING. I encourage you to either get one of his live records that has the cut (which is basically his signature tune), or better yet SEE HIM LIVE! He imitates about two dozen different players in the course of a couple of minutes on his '50s Tele. He lives on Austin now, but used to play every Thursday night around the corner from me in Virginia.

firstbassman · Post by **firstbassman** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:54 pm

Dan, you're right. I saw Kirchen a few months ago at Jammin Java. The guitar-styles piece WAS amazing. (He even had to do it on a backup guitar. His Tele had some problems.)

jamesvwaal · Post by **jamesvwaal** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:13 pm

Mark, I thought that I knew the difference between Duane's guitar and Eric's guitar on "Layla" because Duane played the slide guitar parts! Am I wrong? Did/does Clapton play slide also?

Legend has it (probably an Urban one) that when asked once how it felt to be the world's greatest guitarist (or something like that), Eric C responded, in effect, "I don't know; go ask Duane Allman."

longhouse · Post by **longhouse** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:28 pm

Ouch! Duane played crazy out of tune on some of those cuts.

firstbassman · Post by **firstbassman** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 4:43 am

James, though Duane of course is most famous for his slide playing I BELIEVE he did more than just slide on the Layla album.

My quote comes from Scott Freeman's book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316294527/qid=1140187015/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-3586587-4879822?s=books&v=glance&n=283155