Concert/Octave or Octave/Concert

[pacealot]

Bugs Weidel must have mentioned it at some point....

I remember seeing a pic of the band in Musician magazine in the late '80s where I believe Mike was holding Tom's blonde 360/12 and you could see clearly that it was "traditionally"-strung. I'd completely forgotten about that until now. I just checked the pic in the Richard Smith book (always close at hand next to the bed), and it's very hard to see, especially for my 40+ year old eyes, but there's a pic of them from probably the same photo session, and if you squint hard enough, you can just tell it's strung that way.

(Mostly I was too busy drooling over Tom's 365 OS to care! Still my all time favourite guitar ever....)

And the sleeve of Torpedoes (especially at proper LP size) makes the stringing of Mike's "#3" very visually evident - again, I've hardly thought about it until now. But, now, after having played a friend's 360/12 on a number of recordings and now becoming the owner of my first electric 12 (a '92 330/12, the most I could afford at the moment), I'm less inclined than before to put a lot of stock in the octave order being as huge a factor in the sound as I used to feel - but then again, I used to think it was absolutely essential that they be strung the "Rick" way. Tom, Mike, Suzi (ah, that poor, poor guitar), Mike Rutherford - and probably some others - have shown that they can still sound distinctively Rick-y even when strung "wrong"....

[Chrome Aardvark]

Marty Willson-Piper from The Church and the guys from Midnight Oil are others who have flipped the strings on their Ricky 12s. If you are going to attack the strings and play hard, rather than just play arpeggios or rhythm guitar, then I think "traditional" tuning may work better for you on a 12. Yes, you do lose that bell-like chime, but if that's not what you were going for in the first place then it doesn't really matter.

[pacealot]

That's true - although, funnily enough, the thing I considered as the biggest difference-maker was the total opposite style, which is delicately picked patterns where the high octave is played to the exclusion of the lower one - a very Genesis/Rutherford/Ant Phillips-y style (especially on acoustics). But I'm finding I can actually sorta play in that style, albeit crudely, even with the octaves "reversed." It's all in how you approach it. I'm not planning on switching my 330/12 around any time soon - I'm still drinking the Kool-Aid, don't worry - but I can see that they can work well (and still sound like Rickies) strung either way.

Plus, most players use both up-strokes and down-strokes (and I'm not trying to be flippant, just pragmatically observing), so at some point the pairs get hit from both directions. Personally, I can play "Eight Miles High" just as badly either way!

[theonemanband]

You can't just switch willy nilly. If you don't cut a new nut the strings will not sit right. Saddles too.

Obviously!!...........that is NOT recommended.

I am fortunate however, to have reasonable but limited guitar technical skills, so I was able to cut a new nut, fit a replacement bridge, and set the guitar up properly the "other" way.
As I said, having done so and compared the two, I have returned to the preferred original Rickenbacker stringing and I now have a "reverse" nut & bridge ready to fit, if ever needed again.