gibsonlp wrote:I bought my first Rick (a 4003) in Israel when I was 17 years old, I paid for it with money I saved from working really hard, my parents never had spare money for these things, so yes - this goes to show that if you really want something, you can work hard and get it.
+1
I have NO idea what to do with those skinny stringed things... I'm just a bass player...
about 2 years ago, making me 17, i realy started lusting heavily over ricks,
every min of the day i was thinking about wanting one, thinking how amazing it would be to own one of thoes monumental instruments like all my heros
macca, foxton, waters, squire.
So having at the time a bassic job i decided i was going to invest in the closest think i could, i had searched for days looking for a ric in my price range, and here in england that was no way near,
a 17 year old buying a ric, hahah, as if
so i considered buying a copy.
i had a chat to my dad about it, and he said why buy something that isn't what it says it is, do you really think that bass will be like what it LOOKS like.
I thought for a long time, and realised e was right.
I then went and got a job at my nearest supermarket, and there we go,
after a year a half i got the real deal
i can honestly say there was no way to describe the hours i spent sat on a checkout being talked down to by people, how much i just thought of that bass at the end of the tunnel.
admittedly things have changed now, i'm not a 17 year old school boy for starters, but i'm glad i waited,
besideds that year and a half gave me time to practice, and play like i deserved that bass !!!!
gibsonlp wrote:I bought my first Rick (a 4003) in Israel when I was 17 years old, I paid for it with money I saved from working really hard, my parents never had spare money for these things, so yes - this goes to show that if you really want something, you can work hard and get it.
But Gil, that is not totally instant gratification!!
A lot of great stories in this thread. My first bass was a 13th birthday gift from mom. She was a teacher raising 3 sons by herself and money for us was very scarce, but she felt it was important for me to have interests outside of school and I was interested in learning to play bass. It was a used Kay Gibson SG-ish copy, and at $65.00 the price was right. I played that bass and learned on it and took lessons, and over the next couple years I upgraded a couple times.
But our (my brother and I) guitar teachers told us that with a better instrument, our playing would improve. I knew that you get what you pay for, and I was serious enough about bass that I knew I wanted a high end instrument. A few months before my 16th birthday I had saved up a little bit of money from painting houses, and I had the trade-in value of the bass I was playing, so I went in to my local music shop and tried my first Rick 4001. I don't think I even plugged it in before I decided to buy it. It just fit me like a glove. I put it on layaway and continued to earn money painting and such until I had enough to pay off the bass and bring it home.
Fakes for me have always been just that--fakes. I've always been irritated by those who profit by stealing the ideas of others. I mean...get your own idea, right?! Take some pride in your ability to create a product/idea that is uniquely your own.
I know that there are quite a few people out there that want a Rick bass but are in even worse financial shape than I was at 15 yrs old, but to them I say this: There are a ton of very low-priced and relatively well-made bass guitar options available today that don't rip off somebody else's idea. Buy one of those, learn on it, and save up for the real deal. Be patient. You'll get it eventually. The fakes are way more expensive than so many of the well-built lower priced offerings from some of the original thinking, non-fake manufacturers anyway. And the used market is full of excellent low priced alternatives as well.
Fender Japan is part of the Fender empire, but a good part. They make great guitars and basses for the money, and you can get them cheap second hand out of Tokyo dealers...
There are "fakes" but as Paul says, they're (kind of) legit. A lot of the features of Fender (and Gibson) instruments have been deemed "generic" due to their (Fender's) lack of vigilance in protecting their intellectual property back in the day. There remains some vestige of trademark protection - You'll notice that Lakland and Sadowsky make very Fenderesque instruments in the USA, but with subtle headstock differences that are apparently sufficient to pass muster. The out-and-out copies (and there are some very good ones - Navigator/ESP, VanZandt, Moon and Bacchus make great clones) seem to be restricted to the Japanese market, though they may also trade in other east Asian markets.
I note that Gretsch and Mosrite have also had official models built in Japan (though with Mosrite, the licencing situation was rather "fluid" at times).
On a different level, you could argue that all Fenders made after Leo left are fakes, or that all Mosrites made after Semie died are fakes.
With RIC, this sort of confusion doen't apply, thankfully!
"I don't want to sound incredulous but I can't believe it" Rex Mossop
so this is my point.
there are mij, mim, mik, mic, fakes, clones and all kind of options to have a fender, gretch, Gibson, Hofner, spector, mtd and more.
but people steel acquiring the expensive ons. the mia and custom shop and real vintage fenders ans other companies and this companies are steel strong.
and something more, if young dude starting with cheap clone of fender, like squire or mij, mim etc, there is a huge chance that one day he will stay loyal and will purchase an expensive instrument of that company. its like long term investment on the potential crowd.
like my self, until one year ago i bought myself a very cheap and nice SX p-bass clone. my first p-bass ever. i didn't believed that i will like a simple bass like p-bass. i just bought it for wild jam sessions, but it opened my mind and i liked it a lot, so now i have an excellent mij fender p-bass, and who knows? maybe some day i will have an American or vintage p-bass.
this is just my point of view. i dont want to annoy anyone.
Well said, and beyond discussion. But there is no such thing as a "legal" Rickenbacker clone. And therein lies the rub, not to mention the point of the biscuit.
When I was about 15 and wanted to take up bass, my dad (an ex-bass player himself) looked through some local classifieds, found me a Peavey practice amp for $30, and got in touch with a guy who was selling a couple used instruments, including 2 or 3 basses. We went over to his house, and he's one of those local hero musician guys that everyone on "the scene" knows, older guy, and first we checked out whatever his cheapest option was. I don't even remember what it was, probably a knockoff Fender type, but who knows? He wanted $75 for it. Then he said, you know, I have a much cooler bass that I can let go for $200 -- I know that's more than you want to spend, but it's a much nicer instrument ... and he took out an Ibanez fakenbacker and let me play around on it for a while, and you know what? It was a lot nicer than the cheap beater bass. I bought it and played it for years.
Funnily enough, even though I was already into Yes and Rush (in addition to Zeppelin, Sabbath, and more current music), I had no idea what a Rick was or who played it. I did buy the hype about the copy being "so accurate that they got sued and had to stop making them".
After grad school I stopped playing for a while, focusing on singing and a few other hobbies. One of those other hobbies was poker. I played poker rather seriously for about two years, and after treading water for the first year or so, got good enough to win, move up in stakes, win there, move up, etc. The problem was that with online poker, you can play pretty much anytime, anywhere, and it got to the point where I felt if I was not playing, then it was like losing out on free money. It wasn't fun anymore, it was like a job (and although I was winning a significant amount of money, I was putting in a LOT of hours, and the hourly rate was nothing to write home about). But I knew that the only way I'd really quit playing seriously was to get rid of my bankroll so I couldn't play in anything but low-stakes games. So I spent it, and set aside enough to buy myself a real Rick so I could get back into playing bass with my soon-to-be-free time.
I bought the autumnglo 4001 that Tony C now owns (and is the topic of my first several posts here), and the moment I picked it up and played it, I could tell it was in a totally different league than the Ibanez. The faker was a perfectly decent bass, but in comparison, it sounded dull, weighed a ton, felt unresponsive, and looked funny. That was about two years ago. I've owned a dozen or so Ricks since then as I sift through to find the really special ones, and played a couple dozen more. Every single one has been better than the faker (some better than others naturally).
So I guess I didn't work hard to save up for my first Rick like so many people here, and I guess I'm sort of supporting the argument that fake Ricks lead to the purchase of real Ricks (I don't think that's necessarily true although it happened that way in my case), but I did get there, eventually -- it just took me 15 years or so. Now I have a great little collection with two great Ricks, a pre-cbs jazz, a new p, a gorgeous fretless j that I really need to learn to play competently, and a darkstarred fenderbird, and I would take every single one of them to a gig if that's the one I felt fit best. The Ricks don't always get picked, but they're still my favorites.
RIC will never make a lower line, allow or liscense fakes to be made, or let anyone make replacement parts despite an apparant market for them. Numerous posts on both sites all yeild the same results-pages of people complaining, Paul W defending Rics stance in every conceivable way, and when someone crosses the line, the thread is locked or vanishes. Sometimes it's a Hall family member that responds, but usually the thread stops before. Given these circumstances, I often wonder why people to continue these threads, which ultimately end in the moderators getting accused of being censorship hungry heavies.
As far as I've read or seen, no faker, it's parts or as a whole, even begins to compare to the real deal. None! Seeing these babies on the forum is entertaining, and I'm sure the legal department gets a quick note after these things become available. My question would be-why aren't these reporters called "narcs" when the moderators are called "censors". Isn't this all part of the same thing?
I don't think RIC, their instruments, or their legal position need defending.
I do restate and clarify what I know about these things, which often leads to a post being withheld by me before I hit the "Submit" button, rather than being misstated or possibly worded to be subject to misinterpretation by anyone reading it.
Sure, you could say that I'm "on RIC's side". That's where my sympathies lie, probably because I've been in business and have personally dealt with a lot of the same issues that affect RIC and other companies. Being a product and vehicle designer and prototype fabricator for 30+ years has brought me in contact with issues of intellectual property (I own some mechanical patents, and have trademarked names and logotypes), manufacturing technology, especially as it concerns factors involved in transitioning from 2-D concept to 3-D prototype, and thence to mass-production. I apprenticed as a craftsman and finishing person, so I know the ins and outs of how things are hand-made, too.
So, the things that RIC does just plain make common sense to me. In every sense, I can see their position and empathize with the way that they do things--in virtually every case, it's the way that I have done, and continue to do the same (or similar) things, although I arrived at my own conclusions long before John Hall and I ever began communicating.
Beyond that, of course I just "get" the products and RIC's business philosophy.
The main point here is that these matters can still be discussed, along with bridge design, trc's and other potential issues if presented with appropriate delivery.
One coming here for the first time, young and full of enthusiasm for all things RIC, (or, even a poorly made copy), may never come back if the tone perceived is negative or elitist. It's easy with our experience and knowledge to forget about the passion one has in the early stages of coveting a specific instrument, especially at a young age. Those who own a copy today are more than likely to be a small part of the future for both RIC and this forum...
