Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

sloop_john_b wrote:

cassius987 wrote:

jdogric12 wrote:In general, over the last 10-15 years, I have directly heard more negative things regarding Rickenbacker than straight-up praise.

At gigs? I only ever get praise for them at a show.

They're talking about the guitars -- big difference there.

Really? PM me if you want to explain--I don't get it.

cassius987 wrote:

jdogric12 wrote:In general, over the last 10-15 years, I have directly heard more negative things regarding Rickenbacker than straight-up praise.

At gigs? I only ever get praise for them at a show.

Both guitars and bass. 50% is praise, and the other 50% start out with something guarded like "nice Rick" and then proceed to go into their bad experiences and why they hate the company, instruments or certain characters involved who need not be named.

jdogric12 wrote: Both guitars and bass. 50% is praise, and the other 50% start out with something guarded like "nice Rick" and then proceed to go into their bad experiences and why they hate the company, instruments or certain characters involved who need not be named.

Yep. Unfortunately music store employees/owners seem to often have a few negative stories from dealing with the company.

deaconblues wrote:Yep. Unfortunately music store employees/owners seem to often have a few negative stories from dealing with the company.

That's because RIC doesn't put up with their %^!!$#!+, so they badmouth instead of doing their job properly as a retailer.

iiipopes wrote:That's because RIC doesn't put up with their %^!!$#!+, so they badmouth instead of doing their job properly as a retailer.

Or they just had a bad experience with the company. Nothing nefarious about it.

In some cases, sure, but I've heard stuff from very well-respected people (some of the rare honest ones!) that have been dealing in vintage guitars since they were just "old" guitars.

iiipopes wrote:

deaconblues wrote:Yep. Unfortunately music store employees/owners seem to often have a few negative stories from dealing with the company.

That's because RIC doesn't put up with their %^!!$#!+, so they badmouth instead of doing their job properly as a retailer.

Some of them, maybe. But are all of them in the wrong? Unlikely.

At some point you've just got to take a step back and look at the other side of the issue. Yes, Rickenbacker has a bad reputation among many for aggressive legal action and just being harder than other companies to deal with in general. Yes, it hurts the brand.

Whether it's worth the effort is where opinion comes in.

deaconblues wrote:Yes, Rickenbacker has a bad reputation among many for aggressive legal action and just being harder than other companies to deal with in general.

I can understand that the latter issue, "being hard to deal with", could be big a problem (though I have never experienced this, so I can't comment on the validity of the claim), but the "aggressive legal action" that is referred to only affects people who are infringing upon RIC's IP. You have to have an "ownership is theft" mentality to be upset about someone protecting their IP (or not understand the concept). If it comes down to some concept of "virtue" that is not related directly to satisfaction with the product and after-sales support, I would have thought that RIC's conduct is way up towards the "righteous" end of the scale relative to the competition....

jdogric12 wrote:Both guitars and bass. 50% is praise, and the other 50% start out with something guarded like "nice Rick" and then proceed to go into their bad experiences and why they hate the company, instruments or certain characters involved who need not be named.

Never experienced this myself. Talking bass here, but I've only ever gotten the "oh man I wish I had one of those!"-type compliments for a 4001 at a gig.

When Cassius987 got one of his basses, I set it up for him. He took it to a local music store to shop strings. After some leeryness of the staff, they finally played it. They said it was the best bass setup they had ever played. When he told me, I told him not to tell who set it up, because the staff luthier at that same store does my fretwork, including on my Ricks, and he is a great Rick luthier.

To expand on some previous comments about the cost of making these: the pickups are a serious labor of love. The process of making them makes my head spin... starting off with raw bar stock and cutting it, heating it, bending it(on a custom jig), sanding out the warps, trimming it, tapping it, sanding again, buffing it... then shipping it off to be treated/hardened, then somewhere else to be plated, then somewhere to be magnetized? It's a logistical nightmare and there's way too many processes involved for it to be some huge money boon. Jason has a passion for pickups and he likes a challenge, clearly. Compare this to making most other pickups, they are just magnets and wire. Getting magnetized chrome horseshoes(however "inaccurate" they may be) is a whole journey in itself before any pickup even gets wound.

egosheep wrote:To expand on some previous comments about the cost of making these: the pickups are a serious labor of love. The process of making them makes my head spin... starting off with raw bar stock and cutting it, heating it, bending it(on a custom jig), sanding out the warps, trimming it, tapping it, sanding again, buffing it... then shipping it off to be treated/hardened, then somewhere else to be plated, then somewhere to be magnetized? It's a logistical nightmare and there's way too many processes involved for it to be some huge money boon. Jason has a passion for pickups and he likes a challenge, clearly. Compare this to making most other pickups, they are just magnets and wire. Getting magnetized chrome horseshoes(however "inaccurate" they may be) is a whole journey in itself before any pickup even gets wound.

Pretty much my gutfeel too.

A labour of "love". Not done for the profitability of the exercise.

aceonbass wrote:He's not going to court for a labor of love. He's going to court for money.

As is Rickenbacker.

Lollar might also be going to court for the precedent this case would set....in that someone is apparently attempting to trademark something that was formerly patented, and also is being trademarked based on a functional aspect of the design.

That said, these pickups are probably the most expensive to produce among any somewhat common pickup design out there....

Greg

aceonbass wrote:Mr.Lollar is in business to make money, no matter how much he loves making puckups. The materials in his HS pickups do not cost $430.00. His profit is his labor, which is probably half of that. He's not going to court for a labor of love. He's going to court for money.

Even if he is making $200 per HS, it is still pocket change considering the trouble and the ridiculously minuscule market for this pickup. I would be surprised if he would he sells 100 HS over the next 10 years. A staggering profit of around $20K if my assumptions are right.