Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

If by weird you mean unplayable and hideous, then I agree. I like innovative and quirky but this strikes me as utterly useless.

And you would fret either neck... how? Is this the King Kong model?

Custom made for "Thumbs" Carlisle

This seller has oodles of oddly-configured Korean-made bass/mandolin, banjo/sitar, tiple/baritone/13 string triplenecks and other combinations. Makes me wonder what those people are putting in their noodles for added kick...

Here's a shot of the sales staff from their website:

In case you thought I was kiddin':

ohhh my eyes

i love the concept of it!

Don, I think the guy on te left in the Sales Staff shot is the legendary "Thumbs" of whom you speak...

Neat idea ..At least it's fun to look at. I don't think I could play it.
How did you stumble on that ...?

All ya gotta do is put "ugleeee" into the Ebay search box...

You know, not wanting to sound like "me too", but these look like a hodge-podge of ideas that were not thought through very far but someone without any artistic ability.

And not meaning to be a bugger about language, I'd further qualify this with an observation (since it touches on my career area, not that that's the only reason ):

It's quite a different thing for a person to possess a sense of good design (in this case, product design--one of the disciplines that I teach) than for a person to possess "artistic ability". In fact, the two are often mutually-exclusive. As product design has evolved through the last century and this, as an offshoot of the industrial revolution, it and the sensibilities needed to practice it, have become more and more refined, taking them further all the time from what we'd consider suitable for a fine artist.

Some of the best product designers I've ever studied, met or taught, couldn't draw a human figure (the standard test for advanced artistic ability) to save their lives. OTOH, evidence is everywhere that fine artists make terrible product designers. There's also evidence that so-called good taste and sensitivity to same is less the province of fine artists and more that of designers.

There is a constant danger (and I use the term in its relative sense) that art, design, and the issue of taste will collide either intra-culturally or cross-culturally (as in the case of Antonio Tsai, who takes perfectly good Western guitar classic designs and inlays them with peculiarly inappropriate traditional Asian motifs: although his craftsmanship could be exquisite, as Sicilians are wont to say, Nottata persa e figlia fimmina (all that work, and only a daughter?)...

So, in the case of the offensive stuff above, there was little talent for design, and the results speak for themselves. What can we do to about deformity but avert our eyes, and perhaps feel some of the loss for time and materials wasted, as it was not the pursuit of beauty in utility that is the hallmark of good product design, that we see exemplified here, but the unvarnished pursuit of The Almighty Buck?

(Leaves the soapbox temporarily...)

Paul, sorry to make you type so much! The way I meant "artistic ability" was not in the classic sense, but in the meaning that there is an "art" to making all the elements come together harmoniously. As you already know (and have posted about students you've encountered), not everyone can, crudely worded, put together the necessary parts into a whole that is appealing. I'm not saying this as elegantly as I would like, but I agree with you.

John, I enjoy exercising my mind and typing fingers! And the purpose of my post was to clarify and open a discussion, not to disagree.

In thin case, John, the parts that were bought from vendors, are the standard stuff we're used to seeing: Gibson-style humbuckers, Fender-style single coils, knobs, switches, frets, tuning machines, etc.

But, as we both can see, the bodies themselves are dreadfully-designed and the placement of parts and details are about as random (or kindergarten finger-painting) as could be. Gruesome and venal.