Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hey gang. It's late and the Dog is tired, so this will be brief. A friend of mine came over tonight and played the 380L PZ for the first time. He is a monster jazz player and fell in love with the tone. I was amazed because I've never been able to get such warm brown tones out of that warm brown guitar. After about an hour of me listening to him play, and keeping my jaw off the floor, we realized he had plugged into the wrong jack! He had plugged into the jack closest to the neck, not the closest to the bottom strap button. Anyone else experience this? Laguna lovers try it out and chime in please! Thanks gang. Off to bed - J Dizzle

So only one of the pickups were working, unless you were using a Ric-O-Sound kit or a stero Y cable and plugging into 2 amps or 2 different channels on 1 amp.

Well, it's got the piezo option, and the 3-way switch was definitely in effect, as was the 5th knob (which blends elec and acoustic), so I'm confused. It seemed like normal operation. I didn't notice it until I took the guitar and played, and found the electric tone was louder than the acoustic tone, which is reverse from the normal thing.

I used to do that all the time with my 380L PZ, Jason. I'd plug into that jack, roll off the piezo volume and just use the neck humbucker. It is a wonderful "brown" sound, just like you describe it. Overdriven, it sounds nice and thick.

I've since had the phase reversed on the piezo pick-up, which has brought the tonality of that pick-up more in line with the humbuckers. I don't mean to suggest that they sound the same or similar, just that the frequencies (to my ear) seem to be a little closer, which in turn means that the piezo "sound" blends a little better and is a little less dominant when it's engaged. I think this mod worked for me because I only run the guitar through a single amp. If I was running each signal to a different output, I probably would have kept it the way it was.

I remember the thread where we discussed this. I printed out the thread and took it to my guitar guy (who is awesome) but we couldn't really figure it out. Do you have a schematic, or could you post a description of the wiring? or what the procedure is? I, too, use a single amp for this guitar.