Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Here's the new 650 D:



You may have noticed that I posted an issue in my original thread "Advice on Rick Guitars." The fingerboard has some damage, and I've also notice a grounding problem. RIC is going to take care of these.

But, truth be told, while I love this guitar, I'm not sure it's right for me. While I have been playing guitar for 32 years, I'm primarily a bass player, and an also an upright player to boot. When I grab an axe, I don't caress it, I choke it. So, with the jumbo frets, if I gently play a chord, the tuning is fine, but if I finger it the way my hand naturally fingers an instrument, it's horribly out of tune.

One solution might be heavy gauge strings. Say, 13s. Fine with me. Problem is, I need to send this back to RIC for warranty work, and I'm afraid that will void the warranty. I'd like to test this theory, but I don't want to void my warranty.

Any thoughts?

Are there any other RIC guitars without the jumbo frets but with the humbuckers? These are just great pickups!

John: I think it is reasonable to try higher gauge strings. I would think that you would probably notice a difference with 12s but you may need a trussrod adjustment. This should not pose any problem for your warranty.

John, give it some time. I'm 95% a bassist too, and I was able to adapt with no difficulty after a period of adjustment.

Thanks Peter and Ken.

Peter: if I put 12s on it, could you estimate the amount of "truss rod to the right" I might need? I'm thinking two 1/4 turns over 2-3 days. Maybe I should do this after the warranty work?

Ken: I might, yes, but I need to keep the mentality I have with the upright, so I don't lose the ability to play that. The action on that at the octave is just over 3/8".

I think of truss rod adjustments in increments of 1/6, being that the nuts are hexagonal. That said, I just adjusted out a treble-side bow on my 610 Ruby, and it took 1/3 + 1/12 turns to straighten it out. If you go with 12s (I use 11s usually on my 6-strings), you probably won't need more than 1/3, IMO.

I would send it in for the warranty work first. They will have to remove the strings to repair the fretboard damage and may not reuse them.

Nice looking guitar John. Is that a Warwick behind it?

OK, thanks. Yes, that's a fretless Corvette Standard. Growls even more than my 4003FL.

Interesting. Does anyone have any direct experience? If you send in a guitar for warranty repair, but have it strung with non-regulation strings (say, 12s for a guitar), will Rickenbacker set it back up to factory spec with 10s?

Of course they will...do you think they'd keep a dozen or more types of non-standard strings in stock, not to mention that stringing them with non-standard strings is a quick way to void the warranty in many cases (RTOM), and it's THEIR call on the warranty's validity. Send it back with the correct strings, and don't swap strings until the warranty is up, unless you don't mind having a non-warranted instrument.

So that's a "no" to firsthand experience?

It's my understanding based on Mr. Hall's comments that it's an extraordinarily rare set of strings that will invalidate Ric's warranty on a guitar. Basses, with the wide variety of tensions available, are another matter. The language of the Ric Warranty is scary, but seems to be more of a "covering our asses in case you do something stupid" statement rather than a "look askance at your instrument and the warranty is VOID" kinda thing. Of course it's their prerogative ultimately, but it benefits no one for them to be overly stringent--if the perception among consumers is that the Ric Warranty is useless for working musicians, then sales (and reputation) will ultimately suffer. This, again in my understanding, has not been the case. Rather Ric has quite a good reputation on these things.

As for keeping different gauges of strings in stock, honestly, how big a problem would this be? Ric is fond of bragging up the low percentage of instruments that get returned for warranty work, so it's not as though they'd need massive quantities. If a guitar is well-setup with non-standard strings, might it be more cost efficient to replace those strings with something similar rather than take the time necessary to re-setup the instrument from scratch? Wouldn't this be particularly true if the nut slots had been filed to accommodate the new strings? In that situation, switching back to Ric-issue strings would result in a WORSE setup, no matter how hard the tech works at setting relief and action.

But again, I'll defer to those "in the know."

Give it some time...I play a Hamer Artist with medium frets & a Strat, Peavey, & a Tele with medium jumbos....

Going from any of them to my Dakota requires about 10 seconds to "get the feel" agaon for my Ric....but them again, I've been playing my Dakota since 2005....I find it to be like changing scale length...there is a big difference but your fingers & brain will compensate...

fretbuzzard wrote:Ric is fond of bragging up the low percentage of instruments that get returned for warranty work,

Several reasons for this in addition to high quality out the door. They could bring this number down to zero in a heartbeat.

I can tell you from experience that going to 12's on pretty much any guitar will require some work on the nut. Keep the guitar stock until it comes back, then have it setup the way you want. I wouldn't think having a set of 12's would void the warranty, but you never know. I have them setup on all my guitars and have for years and so far no issues.

John, what happened to the fretboard? I'm almost positive I had the very one you bought in my hands a week before you bought it and it was perfect. As for the frets, they'll take some getting used to but it'll happen. I tend to choke the neck too When I got my first 650D I could squeeze her a good half step out of tune for just about any chord! I just had to get my fingers to relax a bit ands all was well. I switched to 11's but eventually I was abloe to use 10's again. Ironically learning to use a lighter touch improved my bass playing!!

The fretboard has 13 flaws; indentations, you could call them, that are under the high E string. They vary in length from about 1/8" to 1/4". They are all located in nearly the exact relative position between the frets. They start at the very end of 13 frets and extend diagonally across the wood between frets.

That's the best I can do to describe them. I tried to take a few photos, but I couldn't capture this very well. This is purely a cosmetic issue, but quite obvious to me. There is also a grounding issue. Touching any of the metal parts causes an electronic "snap" or "click" through the amp.