Hipshot Does It Again....

[tomersg]

hello.
I received yesterday the hip-shot bridge and my technician installed it.
its looks OK - and the sound is the same.
i just happy to get rid of the mute assembly and be able to put my palm on the bridge when picking and perform palm mute picking.
i couldn't stand the mute assembly and those large screws interfere my right hand.
but one thing that upset me is the saddle wobble of the hip-shot bridge.
so i rolled three small pieces of duck tape and stuffed them between the saddles to eliminate the wobble.
i thinks its help, at least until i figure out a better solution.
what do you think?
any other, better suggestion?

[cassius987]

Ridiculous how neither RIC nor Hipshot can get the d*** thing right.

[tomersg]

if Badass would make a replacement bridge for Ric I'm sure it would be great.
But now the Hipshot with the duct tape between the saddles is great.
After few hours of playing, I can say that that I like it very much.
What's ridiculous is the way they deleted the Hipshot thread at the Rickenbacker official forum. I found this offensive against the customers.

[johnallg]

Ha! They did. Their company forum and Hipshot is an infringing vendor....

[rickenbrother]

What's ridiculous is the way they deleted the Hipshot thread at the Rickenbacker official forum. I found this offensive against the customers.

RIC does not have a forum on their website so they can entertain threads dedicated to to products that infringe on their trademarks.
RIC shouldn't have to worry about customers are want to buy products that infringe on their trademarks.
I really don't get why people cannot try to understand or accept the infringement laws.

[tomersg]

they could cooperate and combine forces on a propose to offer a better product, or design a better bridge by themselves, after so many claims from lot of costumers, but they choose to offense in a claim of infringement, and this is not the better choice. IMHO.

the infringement laws are important but the costumers is more important IMO.
as a Ric owner i spend lot of money on that bass and as a player, i want to get the best out of this instrument, and the original bridge is bothers me.
and i want to mod it to my own requirement and i don't want to drill or make any irreversible changes and that is where the hipshot came in, and the Ric company doesn't offer.

[rickenbrother]

They could cooperate and combine forces or a propose to offer a better product, or design a better bridge by themselves, after so many claims from lot of costumers, but they choose to offense in a claim of infringed, and this is not the better choice. IMHO.

Whether you are 100% satisfied or not with with the functionality of any product made by RIC, it doesn't make it right for someone else to infringe on their designs. RIC is well within their right to protect their trademarks.

[Starless]

I can understand bamboo 'Rockinbetter' copies and the rest, upsetting Rickenbacker, but to throw their toys out of the pram because someone else came up with a better designed lump of metal with a similar footprint to Rickenbacker's shockingly badly designed lump of metal, is nothing short of corporate petulance. It wouldn't surprise me if they are deliberately refusing to change their bridge design and sticking to the line that there is nothing wrong with it because so many people have pointed out to them just how gawd-awful it is. Talk about digging your heels in, folding your arms and having a real good pout.

I know they make a big deal about 'keeping it in the family' and not selling out to the big-buck corporations, but their zealous pursuit of anyone and anything that 'infringes' their precious 'designs' really puts them up there with the worst corporate bread-headed suits. Except that Hall et al aren't doing this for the money, they're not losing any money when people buy Hipshots because there is no equivalent Rickenbacker product.

If I spend a fortune on a musical instrument that is flawed (more fool me), then I would want to have the freedom to improve it if I so choose. Rickenbacker are not offering me that choice, Hipshot are.

Keep up the good work Hipshot, it's all about the music, something the 'inventors of the electric guitar' seem to have forgotten along the way.

[johnallg]

You know, I too believe the RIC tailpiece has major shortcomings that should have been addressed by now, but this topic has been discussed to death in numerous threads that die from loss of new things to say.

RIC has their reasons and rights to protect designs, and they are flooded with a 2 year backlog that no matter how hard (so far) they try to reduce, keeps pace because of the new general interest in Rickenbacker instruments with new artists taking them up and the orders that generates. JH has a new bridge design he is working on when the time permits, and he will probably release it when it is as he wants it and when RIC has the time to bring it to production.

We're getting nowhere here....

[antipodean]

But getting there is half the fun, John!

We have a saying in my household: "No-one is happy unless they have something to complain about".

Maybe we should start a "get it off your chest" thread and let everybody vent (within forum rules of course!)!

[aceonbass]

I know they make a big deal about 'keeping it in the family' and not selling out to the big-buck corporations, but their zealous pursuit of anyone and anything that 'infringes' their precious 'designs' really puts them up there with the worst corporate bread-headed suits. Except that Hall et al aren't doing this for the money, they're not losing any money when people buy Hipshots because there is no equivalent Rickenbacker product.

Although many long standing corporations lost many of their trademarks, copywrites and patents years ago, no company worth their salt lays down on the issues of trademark, copywrite or patents these days. It wouldn't be good long term business sense to do so. Think about it, you go through years and millions to bring a product to market, and then someone who didn't go through all that time and expense copies it and sells it for cheaper. If you don't protect your rights, you WILL eventually be put out of business. If RIC were to ignore infringing products, they would lose their rights to their unique designs forever. Most of the Fender and Gibson looking stuff out there isn't made by either company and probably is much of the reason that both companies have offshore produced "feeder lines". Most people who own RIC's don't post on any forums and don't care that much about these issues since they don't even know how to adjust they're instrument. I don't believe RIC cares about or wants to restrict anyone from modding their own instrument, but infringing products have to be dealt with. I don't care for certain specifics of the stock tailpiece myself, so like many here, I do something about it. In my case I mod it, but I believe as RIC owners go, we are the vocal minority. Hell, as guitar owners go, we're in the minority.

[rickenbrother]

I know they make a big deal about 'keeping it in the family' and not selling out to the big-buck corporations, but their zealous pursuit of anyone and anything that 'infringes' their precious 'designs' really puts them up there with the worst corporate bread-headed suits. Except that Hall et al aren't doing this for the money, they're not losing any money when people buy Hipshots because there is no equivalent Rickenbacker product.

If RIC does not aggressively protect their trademarks, they will lose their rights to them.
If F*nd*r and G*bs*n did the same as RIC to trademark their designs, then EVERYONE would understand why guitar manufacturers protect their trademarks!

[ram]

+1
what Dane & Joey said!

[aceonbass]

+1....what Tom said!

[jingle_jangle]

I'd #1 it too, and I do, in fact, but this darned topic comes up about every couple of months on this forum.

The troublemakers here are F*nder and G*bson (and a few others), who never had the foresight to protect their intellectual property, thereby causing the vast majority of guitarists and bassists to believe that ANY and ALL guitar or bass designs are "public domain".

So the one firm that has practiced due diligence and continues to do so, gets bad-rapped by its own customers?