Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Just my two cents, but I say go with the Rickenbacker if at all possible.

My guitarist and I have mused about this topic for decades. We've come to the conclusion that we were the neighborhood wonders 30 years ago NOT because we were just so damned talented, but because we started out on (respectively) a Gibson ES-335 and a Rickenbacker 3001. Other kids in the neighborhood could try to play Rush songs like we did, but we were actually able to PLAY the songs better AND get much closer to the "right" sounds. We've played many other guitars and basses since 1976, but we've never found anything better than our first.

Given my extremely low level of tolerance for any kind of frustration when it comes to trying to learn something new, I doubt that I would have progressed as quickly as I did were it not for the fabulous instrument that I started out on.

I'm surprised Jared hasn't chimed in with "Just do it!" yet.

Let me echo Chris's comments. But for me, it was 40 years ago, and my first guitar was an old Stella acoustic, followed by a Montgomery Ward Airline gold-top something-or-other. Then in late 1965 I got a Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Hollowbody and suddenly I "was" George Harrison! (Well I was 13, you know what I mean.)

If it wasn't for that Gretsch, I'm sure I wouldn't have stuck with it. It made a world of difference in my playing abilities, meager that they were, with a quality instrument. But no, looking back of course it didn't make me immediately sound like all my guitar heroes.

But what having a quality guitar DID do for me was to inspire me to keep at it, to get better, to actually DESERVE that guitar. Wherever I went, Alaska, Los Angeles, and back to Arizona, I took that Gretsch with me everywhere, and even when it sat in its' case for months at a time, I always promised myself that I WOULD keep playing and get better. And in 1980, in Los Angeles, I bought it a little brother -- a Ric 360-12.

Forward to 2006, I still have both the Ric and the Gretsch, I now play them about as often as I did when I was 13, and somehow, day by day, I'm getting a little better. I WISH I still had my Stella and Airline, just like a guy wishes he still had his first car, but they'd only be museum pieces in my music room. My Ric and my Gretsch -- they're still players.

Get the Ric. Don't look back.