Hi from a first-time Rick owner

[lefty360]

I've sure been having fun with this guitar. The novelty of it kind of blinded me to a couple of things at first, but I eventually noticed the action was too high up the neck. Easy to lower the bridge and re-tune, bing. Ah but then the treble pickup was too close to the strings, back 'er off a bit, bang. Plug it back in and hey now! Not only does it play better but it sounds better too. I love the round plummy tone of the low strings and the bell-like tone of the high strings.

One thing though; I'm going to have the controls rewired for clockwise operation. Like the lefty Telecaster I bought last year, the control pots are reverse-wired. This would be (sort of) OK if reverse-taper pots were used, but they weren't. The roll-off is much too steep. When my Tele was rewired this was cured and I'm sure it will be with this 360.

Does Rickenbacker wire all their lefties this way? Fender seems to, but they didn't always; when I bought my lefty '78 Strat it was wired correctly (for clockwise operation).

[electrofaro]

I can post pics if anyone's interested.

Lovely MG there, Peter - welcome!

along with a goofy grin every time I mention the name Rickenbacker.

I already smile in a goofy way just looking at mine

Question: Are the "R" tailpieces on lefty guitars always upside-down?

First thing I spotted in the pictures that show the tailpiece...

[jimk]

Yeah, I'm a lefty who plays righty too. I've been of the opinion that the standard right handed instruments were actually designed for lefties. I mean, what you do with your left hand, chord formations, etc. generally requires a lot more dexterity than what you do with your right hand (well, not in the case of Flamenco and other complex picking styles). So, it just seems like a lefty would be better adapted to a standard guitar...

I've often thought the same thing. In fact, you've no idea how many of my young right handed students are having difficulty keeping the fingers of their left hands on the fretboard in the simplest of chord shapes there are. I literally have to take each of their fingers, place them properly, only to go back and do it all over again.
JimK

[jimk]

I know of a lefty who can play left handed, Right handed, and a guitar strung right handed lefty. How can he keep it all straight?

Practice Actually, I think that would be a pretty neat parlor trick to amaze and amuse your friends.
JimK

[jfine]

Nice 360! At least they're doing the correct headstock and nameplate on the lefties now--they didn't used to. (Example--Paul McCartney's bass.) I'm also a lefty who plays righty, but I've got a good excuse--my teacher said she wouldn't teach me left-handed. As it turned out, she did me a huge favor. I had polio when I was three months old (missed the vaccine by only a year or so), my right tricep doesn't work, so I can't raise my right arm higher than hip level, or extend it very far from my side, and if I'd tried to learn to play left-handed, I never would have been able to reach the neck! Playing right-handed, I don't need to extend my right arm; it just rests on the rim of the guitar and I pick from the wrist just like you're supposed to, with a bit of elbow action on strummed chords. I can't do Pete Townshend windmills, but who cares? I'm firmly convinced that right-handed guitar is in many ways a left-handed instrument anyway.