New 360/12 Order

[scotty]

PM sent Robert.

[teb]

The wound strings of the popular flats (TI's, Pyramids, etc.) tend to have a fairly dull tone with less twang than rounds and compressed rounds, right out of the box. This tends to accentuate the sound of the octave strings in the overall mix for increased vintage-style sparkle - especially through a JangleBox. It's a somewhat different sound than a set of rounds will generate and a somewhat different feel and liveliness, but if that sound is your goal, that's they way to achieve it. It's best with toasters, but not terribly far off with high-gains or a toaster/high-gain combination.

Here is how I justified my second twelve.......I play my "normal" twelve (370/12WB with a bunch of custom mods) more than any other guitar I own by a longshot. If something happened to it and it needed serious repair, re-fretting, etc. there are only two or three people in the whole United States that I would let work on it. These people tend to get booked up and aren't close to where I live, so I could possibly be without a twelve for a couple of months or more while the work is being done. That would suck. Spare justified (340/12).

Plus, I never lose money buying and selling Rickenbackers. I always make money on them and it's nearly always as good or better money than most investments, savings accounts etc. tend to pay. Amps, for example, are a different story, as are many other brands of guitars. I usually lose money to some extent when selling amps, so I keep that fact in mind when I buy one. But as long as I'm not over-paying when I buy a Rickenbacker, it's an investment that I can enjoy using and I know that I can get my money back out of it, and more, should I ever decide to trade it off.

[iiipopes]

Here is how I justified my second twelve.......I play my "normal" twelve (370/12WB with a bunch of custom mods) more than any other guitar I own by a longshot.

Todd, what have you done to your 370-12WB? I've done mods to my 360-12WB and I'd like to compare.

[Folkie]

Todd,

Let me get this straight: you're saying that flatwounds dull the sound of the low courses, thus accentuating the sound of the octaves? That's to say that they don't dull the sound of the octave strings, too? I have another tangential question: Is it easy to bend in half steps with the TI flats?

I'm embarrassed to say that I've never seen or heard of a 340/12. How does it sound and play compared to the 370/12 WB? Can you send me a photo so I can see the body shape?

Robert

[scotty]

Robert Click on the top right of your screen `Rickenbacker Register` then click on the gallery and from there you can view all rickenbacker models.

[teb]

Yes, the primary strings have more of a dull thud than a nice fresh-string twang. Since the octaves are either unwound or very small diameter wound strings, they tend to be louder and brighter in the overall mix - giving the guitar's sound a lot of sparkle, chime, overtones or whatever else you want to attribute that classic Rickenbacker twelve-string sound to. This doesn't mean that the standard Rickenbacker compressed rounds are dogs, or that they don't still sound like Rickenbacker guitars, but there is a difference, both in the sound and the feel as you play. It's all a matter of what you like and what sound you're looking for. One other advantage to the flats is that they seem to sound pretty much the same from day #1 until day whatever, rather than slowly getting old and dull like rounds do. I seldom change strings and when I do, the guitar comes out sounding just about the same as it did an hour earlier with the old strings. I guess they bend OK, though the stuff I play doesn't require much bending. They certainly bend a heck of a lot easier than the strings on my Martin twelve do.

The 340/12 is on the top, the 370/12 on the bottom. I'll hunt up the mods lists for them as they are pretty extensive. To start with though, they were originally a 330/12 and a 360/12 WB and I added the middle pickups. Here are some clips of the 370/12 on some multi-tracked office demos using TI flats and a JangleBox. The guitar was either run through a tube bass amp head and direct into the recorder, or in stereo through a pair of Vox mini-stacks with a mic stuck between them.
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/M ... amples.mp3

[teb]

Mods - I'm actually a bass player and have been for about 45 years now. I have big hands and rather blunt fingertips, so fitting them on the skinny neck of a Rickenbacker twelve is a challenge and I need all the string spread I can get as well as tight spacing of the string pairs. Here is the list of the "standard" Arnquist mods that I had done to the 370/12. It's Mark's normal "playability" package.

Rickenbacker 12 string modifications post 1985 era guitars
1- make a new black phenolic nut with the widest spacing possible
This spacing is based on the round over point of the
frets ... not the actual fretboard .
The pairs are cut at .070 for the D/4th ,G/3rd ,B2nd and High E/1st
The pairs for the Low E and A are cut at .080 apart

You gain about .110" in overall width !

2- trim the nameplate to vintage spec so that it
clears the slots in the face of the headstock

3-replace the stainless steel truss rod bard with one that is
shaped to the edge of the cavity wall .
The 'new' version on this era of Ricks ,
digs under the fretboard and when the rods are tightened ,
it wraps around the walnut
center section , causing the bar to dig and then pop the fretboards .
The replacement that I make is similar to the originals in shape .

4- the Sharkfin and bottom guard edges are rounded over .
This was original spec so you would not cut your hand on the plexiglass .

5- The 12 saddle bridge is mounted (I do not supply this part )

This entails -
5a-centering the base plate to the neck ,
5b-etching the bottom with the instruments serial number,
5c-etching a "T" for treble, a "B" for bass as this plate is NOT symetrical !
5d- The location is checked and 5/32" added to the length so that the
saddles when intonated , will be centered in the bridge chassis .
5e- the springs shifted and/or stretched to not rattle once it is adjusted/intonated.

6- the saddles are removed , and deburred on the outside edges of each pair,
The tops of each pair are gently rounded to give a visual 'pairing' of the two saddles .
This was done in the 1960's
The saddles are notched with the tops of the strings following a 10" radius .
This gives a smooth picking motion to the player.
The tops of all the saddles are sanded with 220 grit sand paper and
then steel wooled to give a nice finished look .
This was also something done in the 1960's .

7- The tuners mounted on the side of the headstock are removed , the screw holes plugged
and redrilled with a #44 bit , then the screws inserted ,then removed to
form 'threads' and a drop of Cyanoacrylate glue drizzled into the hole to harden
the walls of this cavity .
This allows the screw to tighten more and keep these tuners snug .

8- The "R" tailpiece (while classic looking) is prone to gripping strings making it
difficult to change broken strings . These fins were once deburred before plating .. I deburr every one that crosses my bench .
For solid body guitars I suggest replaing the "R" with the flat /vintage style .
This allows the setting of intonation and restringing to be much easier .

9- The strap buttons - the threads are checked .
Many of these become loose over time , and a dose of C.A. glue and retapping fixes thi .

10- the frets are checked for level and the height measured .

11- SET UP

The nut is finalized , the guitar is strung with your choice of string
gauge /brand (you supply this ,Do NOT put new strings on before you send me the guitar )
The truss rods are adjusted for minimum neck relief
The bridge height is set
The saddles are intonated for A 440hz unless you specify a different pitch .

Some of these, like the precisely shaped truss rod bar to fit the cavity and the careful shaping and elimination of any sharp edges on the bridge are really nice additions to an already great guitar.
I built my own back-painted pickguards with polished edges and also polished the edges of the TRC. I can take half a day to polish them if desired, where the factory can't afford that sort of time-waster.

In addition, I had Mark Arnquist go a step farther and refret the neck all the way out to the edges of the binding for even more room. I actually did buy a 660/12 at one point, to get the wider neck. It sounded great, but that little body just didn't trip my trigger, so I stick with the hollow body models. The 340 already has slightly wider frets than the bound necks have and so far, I made a new nut with wider spacing and tighter pairs, but haven't messed with the other playability aspects.....yet.

For electronics, both guitars have been converted to three pickups, but the added middle ones are on their own circuits with just a volume pot, for dual-amp or dual-channel/track work. I settled on this after playing with a lot of different scenarios because it seemed to give me the most tonal possibilities. Plug in a mono guitar cord and you have stock, 330 or 360 5-knob neck/bridge wiring. Plug in a stereo cord and you have added the middle pickup circuit, which you can then run through different effects, channels, amps, etc. as desired. The 370 has three toasters. The 340 has a neck toaster and high-gains converted for toaster covers for the middle and bridge pickups. Eventually, I'll have PW do some sort of cool double-binding/re-fin project on the 330, but it may be a while. It has a really resonant body (more so than any other 300 series twelve I've tried) and I'm almost afraid to monkey around with it too much.

Obviously, these two are a purist collector's nightmare, but I don't collect guitars - I use them. If I can do something that improves their sound and playability for my uses, I do it and I would put them up against any Rick twelves on the planet for those aspects. Like I've always said, if I ever get run over by a bus and my wife puts them up for auction, and you're a player - you DO want to bid on them.

[iiipopes]

Todd,

Thanks. Very interesting. I'll have to check into the nut issue to try to get some extra spacing. When I first got mine in 1989, the narrow neck was no problem. But as the years go on....

Anyway, here's what I've done to my 1981 360-12WB FG ckbd:
1) Installed modified mandolin tuner bushings on the six horizontal tuners so that the wood doesn't wear, and it takes the stress off the tuner post, so the old Klusons work more smoothly.
2) Custom strings, from D'addario singles: 9-9; 11 1/2-11 1/2; 17w or 18w-8; 24w-10; 32w-14; 42w/22w. I find that the cores on the chosen wound strings are close enough to the gauges of the octave singles that it makes the core stretch similar, thus the offset for intonation similar, and therefore the 6-saddle bridge intones much better.
3) On the low E string, I ordered saddles from RIC and custom filed an offset saddle so the octave wound string intones on the front edge of the saddle and the low E string intones on the rear edge of the saddle. This has solved the big bug-a-boo of RIC 12-string intonation. Chords are solid, jangle is perfect, and I've had more pleasure playing my 12 than I have in a long, long time.
4) With the rest of the bridge, I upgraded from the original intonation screws and locknuts, as mine had corroded, to the new stainless screws with springs, trimming those springs as necessary for enough rearward saddle compensation on those that need it. Then I polished everything out as I reassembled. The new saddles are marginally thinner than the old saddles, and my old saddles had the burrs on them, so that all went away so they are smooth and matched.
5) Mine had the mismatched highgains, (6.2kohm bridge, 14kohm neck) so I put the underwound bridge pickup on my 320 with the other two it already had. the 320 had a pickup that died, so Lollar rewound the dead pickup to @ 7.5kohms to keep it bright for a highgain. It's in the neck position. Then I took the stock 14kohm neck highgain, unwound it to 8kohms, and put it in the bridge. With this setup on a 24 fret neck, the neck pickup alone can start approaching an acoustic-12-string tone with the right eq on those occasions it is desireable.
6) the upper pickguard had a gap around the bridge pickup, but was flush against the neck pickup, so I dremeled out the notch to make them even and symmetrical, rounding off the edges as you have described.
7) I've done my wiring mods so that I have the push-pull to take the cap in or out. On the 370 version of my mods, this also wires the mid and neck pickup as either/or (neck when the pushpull has the .0047 cap in the bridge circuit, mid when the cap is out), as I cannot stand the stock RIC neck+mid setting. It doubles the usable number of tonalities on the guitar. You gotta hear the mid + bridge without the cap and how sweet it is. Let me know if you'd like and I'll send a pdf to you. What I like about my mods is that all the knobs retain their stock configuration so if I do ever have to sell it, I don't have to do anything to get it back to the way it was.

I've kept the R tailpiece, as I don't change strings that often. I usually let them get pretty dead, for the reason you talked about: without the high overtones on the wound strings, they don't get in the way of the jangle on the octave strings.

Thanks again for posting your mods.

Oh, and likewise -- I'm a player, not a collector, so if it doesn't do what I want or need it to do, it either gets changed or goes away. On another forum, I saw this one-liner that made my wife laugh so hard she almost cried: "When I die, my only real concern is that my wife will sell my toys, for what I led her to believe I paid for them!"

[Folkie]

Todd,

You and Chris Clayton are clearly on the same page. He said that flatwound strings really capture that vintage sixties chime. He also said something that surprised me: he said in his experience flatwound strings cause the guitar to intonate better. I'm not sure why this is, but it tempts me to have my new 360/12 strung with either a Thomastik Infeld Jazz Swing Custom 12-string set or a set of Pyramid Golds. The only real downside is that the flats are so expensive. Also, I'm accustomed to the feel of nickel wound strings on my 330/12. I once played a Rick 12 with flatwounds and it felt strange to me. But if the difference in tone is that dramatic, it's worth the extra cost. Advice?

Robert

[teb]

I can't say for sure whether or not flats intonate better. If the guitar is set up properly and the strings are the proper diameters, I don't seem to have many intonation problems and I don't get the feeling that flats are going to cure intonation problems by themselves. I have been told by Mark Arnquist and have also seen John Hall mention on this forum that the Pyramid Gold strings tend to have thickness variations along the length of individual strings and that it can make them hard to intonate properly. I've never taken a micrometer to a set to confirm this, but coming from two Rickenbacker experts who almost never agree on anything, there must be something to it. Personally, I' not a fan of Pyramid strings. I went through a couple sets on my first 360/12 and just don't like strings that are that stiff and hard to play, or which put that much strain on the necks of my guitars. I can get the same sound with TI Jazz Flats with less tension, making the guitar easier to play and reducing the stress on the neck. Some people like Pyramids, but I took them off of both my twelve-strings and a couple basses that I had them on quite a while ago and see no reason to ever go back.

Feel-wise, flats are a bit different, but I don't think it's terribly hard to get used to them, especially if the guitar is easy to play. When I started playing, almost all electric guitars were being set up with flats, so obviously, they felt pretty normal to me. The price is higher, but they last a very long time without the tone changing much at all. You don't really tend to get that feeling that your strings are getting old and losing their sound, the way you do after a few months with most rounds. I can get a couple years out of a set of TI strings, but I use a super thin (Dunlop .46mm nylon) flatpick, play with a very light touch and never break strings. I can't really say what kind of lifespan they have for folks who tend to play harder. I grimace every time I have to lay out the cash for a new set, but in the long run, the sound, playability and long lifespan are worth it for me.

[Folkie]

Todd,

I have a set of D'Addario Chromes on my Guild X-170 jazz box, but that's the only one of my guitars strung with flats. Over the years I've used a D'Addario EXL150 Nickel Wound 12-String Super Light set on my 330/12. In my experience they last a long time. Because it's such a pain to change strings, it's not uncommon for me to have the same set on the guitar from six months to over a year. If I decide to set up my new 360/12 with flats, I'll certainly go with the Thomastik Infeld set you recommended. I have on hand a set of POTR Curt Mangan Fusion Matched Nickel Wound strings, which have the same gauges as the Rickenbacker Compressed Roundwound set. I'm leaning towards the rounds, although the longevity of the flats is a genuine plus and I'd like to hear that extra sparkle.

I own the DVD "The 12-String Guitar of Roger McGuinn," which has been very helpful. But Roger never says anything about strings. Does anyone have any idea what string set McGuinn uses on his 370/12?

Robert

[Folkie]

Correction! Roger shows how to change strings, but he doesn't say what brand, style, or gauges he uses. Is there somewhere online where I can find this out?

[teb]

He's using Rickenbacker compressed rounds on the DVD. You can hear the sound difference if you compare the DVD sound to the sound on old Byrds classic recordings - more twang on these, and less of that bee-in-a-beer-can tone like you hear on the original MTM or EMH recordings. I don't know what he uses on a regular basis these days.

[Folkie]

Thanks everyone for all the advice! I've just e-mailed an order to Chris Clayton. If that 360/12 hasn't been taken, I hope it will be mine! I've opted to replace the hi gains with toaster tops, since Chris said he would install them for free. I was in a quandary over whether to have it strung with TI Flats or Curt Mangan rounds.
I'm leaning towards the flats because of what Todd said about them, although they feel a little funny on a 12. We'll be getting tons of snow in the next few days, and Chris has just gotten in some new toaster tops, so if the purchase goes through, I probably won't see the guitar for at least another week. I haven't bought an electric guitar in almost 8 years, so I'm very, very excited! I'll keep everyone posted.

Robert