Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Richard Johnston was good, IIRC.

I think that Rics being 'outsiders' just further enhances their mystique, at least for the discerning musician and music listener...

cjj wrote:One thing you need to remember is that magazines aren't there to disseminate information to their readers for purely educational purposes. Magazines are commercial ventures whose main point is to sell advertising space. If a company pays for lots of advertising, you can bet the magazine will cater to that company by writing all sorts of articles featuring their products. If another company doesn't buy space, the magazine has little incentive to "waste" space on products that don't generate advertising revenue...

I beg to differ with this.

As a former technical editor in a computing magazine, my world did not cater one bit to advertisers. If an advertiser had a product that blew goat chunks, I made sure the public knew it blew goat chunks. With that said, I would work with the manufacturer and see what might be wrong... but I did that to non-advertisers as well.

At my publication, we did not even really associate with the marketing/advertising staff since they were put on the other side of the building... and this was the intent of all of their magazines. I don't know if it's still that way since I've been out of that business for a decade but I can guarantee you that back then, it was this way.

And if our publication had a "beef" with a certain manufacturer's product that was an advertiser, we never heard about it from management.

I have more than one or two stories with big name computer companies and their engineers getting into it over our findings.

As far as BPM or any other bass magazines, I haven't seen anything that really blows my whistle. In fact, were I inclined, I could probably get a better written and definitely more entertaining magazine put together.

I always thought the idea of any magazine that featured products in a Hot Rod sort of way would be awesome. That's how the magazine I worked at did things and we had diehard fans. Maybe that's too unconventional for some publishers to deal with, though. I know I'd be throwing money at a bass magazine that showed a lot of customization techniques, how-tos and "performance" articles.

When most of those magazines have only rehashed press releases for edit copy with an occasional personalization (i.e., "I met so and so for beers and we talked about such and such"), I want to just gag.

I have definitely seen advertising influence BP--usually it's one or two months before the review of something comes out, you see a paid ad for it in the back.

cassius987 wrote:I have definitely seen advertising influence BP--usually it's one or two months before the review of something comes out, you see a paid ad for it in the back.

I wasn't trying to suggest it doesn't happen elsewhere or even at BP.

My apologies if it came off as a rant or anything of that sort.

And I didn't mean to imply that all magazines only write articles about stuff they are paid for, or will give undue praise just because the manufacturer buys advertising space. I was merely trying to point out that magazines, for the most part, exist to make money and a large part of that revenue comes from advertisements....

I sure enjoyed the BP issue with the Rickenbacker factory tour. Nice descriptions of the instrument building process and a peek at the factory museum.

cassius987 wrote:Funny though, that was not long after the 4003 was voted very high on a reader's poll...

I remember that. Also, when reviewing a new amp, BP usually runs it through its paces using about five different basses, but never a RIC that I've noticed. That's despite the poll result, and despite the 4003 being a top seller for quite a while now.

I don't think you'd have to be a RIC fanatic to wonder what gives.

VRICKY63 wrote:I sure enjoyed the BP issue with the Rickenbacker factory tour. Nice descriptions of the instrument building process and a peek at the factory museum.

I heard about that, apparently John Hall tried to explain the business model to Bill Leigh or some such. The standout bit of the synopsis I got, through the grape vine, was that they had already been operating as a "green" business (without drawing attention to it with a big leaf logo) for some time and weren't trying to dodge state and federal regulations about VOCs the way Fender and others obviously were by moving some of their factories little more than one foot into Mexican territory. I thought it was pretty cool that John Hall was willing to speak up about that although like I said, this was given to me through the grape vine.

Now when I have tried to show people what RIC's factory is like (if someone posts misinformation like, "All Rics are still handmade," or, "They only employ like ten people," etc...) I like to link to that web site that covered it in good detail recently, and tipped people here off about the RM1999 reissues.

There are some people out there who have a very, very nasty view of RIC, and I used to be in close contact with several of those people at another forum (no, NOT TalkBass). I think a lot of their behavior was rational at first but then it became (and remained) a bizarre collective anger spasm that rarely attempted to look at "the big picture". There were a few people who made reasonable and legitimate points that were critical of RIC, and then there were a lot of people who raised further unfounded criticisms and generated, with almost no information, character-assassinating portrayals of RIC staff. It got way, way, way out of hand. I don't know how much influence these rabid internet people may or may not have on a magazine, like Bass Player.

I have only subscribed to BP since 1996. I don't remember any negative comments about Rickenbacker in BP in all that time. I think they look at RIC basses as one of the great standards along with Fender.

I DID see a full-page color ad for RIC in the latest Guitar Afficianado magazine, talking about the quality of the instruments.

And Guitar Aficionado magazine ran a story on John Hall's beautiful home (the main door handles are Guitar necks!). Is there a nexus? I'm not drawing any conclusions because I know nothing about the magazine industry. GA also caters to a different demographic - more affluent. It's similar to Cigar Aficionado if you haven't seen a copy.

Still, it would be great if Bass Player could run a feature on the 4001/4003 like they did for the Jazz Bass, but I won't hold my breath. If it bothers you, cancel your subscription, but call them and make sure they know why you cancelled.

I have a super Ric 4003, am subscribed to BP magazine along with others and simply enjoy the positives of everything and leave the politics out ,its the music baby

SUCCESS! SUCCESS!! SUCCESs!!! It only took two months! Here we are boys........

http://i789.photobucket.com/albums/yy17 ... 100556.jpg


To be serious, GREAT PHOTO! Interesting tapering of the bridge pickup surround.

congerz83 wrote:SUCCESS! SUCCESS!! SUCCESs!!! It only took two months! Here we are boys........

http://i789.photobucket.com/albums/yy17 ... 100556.jpg


To be serious, GREAT PHOTO! Interesting tapering of the bridge pickup surround.

To go into greater detail..... A great photo of Pete Quaife wearing his trademark Rickenbacker necklace!