Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Real, fake or custom?:

Looks like one of my light show conversions was so closely copied for content, although the build quality leaves a lot to be desired...

The guitar itself, however, must be a counterfeit, as nobody would butcher a real 310, and this one's missing the "beavertail" or ramp that holds the tailpiece. Hence, the scratchbuilt body.

Adam, izzat you??? Details, please, on the body construction.

The main problem here is that the LED's are either on or off. There's no sensitivity to intensity of the sound, which is the intrinsic beauty of the lightshow guitars.

Hit a note or strum a chord on one of the originals and the lights will follow the attack of the sound. Let it ring and as the sound decays, so does the light, finally winking out at some low sound level, often with a small blink or two.

No doubt this is more inherent with an LED as opposed to an incandescent bulb but I think clever circuit design could overcome this for the most part.

Adam is a member here and his username is 2ricks. He has built a few guitars and posts the details over on the BGC.

johnhall wrote:The main problem here is that the LED's are either on or off. There's no sensitivity to intensity of the sound, which is the intrinsic beauty of the lightshow guitars.

Hit a note or strum a chord on one of the originals and the lights will follow the attack of the sound. Let it ring and as the sound decays, so does the light, finally winking out at some low sound level, often with a small blink or two.

No doubt this is more inherent with an LED as opposed to an incandescent bulb but I think clever circuit design could overcome this for the most part.

Yep, that's pretty much true, the small range of voltage between on and off is quite variable (with individual LED's, temperature, etc.) and to be almost uncontrollable.

Enter: Pulse Width Modulation or PWM. That's the proper way to control LED brightness. And with the advent of all of the LEDs on cell phones, there are plenty of ready-made PWM LED controllers out there. In fact, there are even ICs that include a "color organ" function with all the necessary frequency filters and PWM LED drive.

Ain't technology great?

I'm not sure what catalog circuitry Adam is using, so this could be an effect of the video.

One of the things that we strove for in adapting our circuits (as they are distinguished from the catalog electronics available from various suppliers) was to emulate the visuals of the 6V incandescent circuit.

The circuits in some boards (including our dedicated, non-catalog boards) are attack-sensitive, so that slight attack will bring one LED of a color, into play, very briefly, whereas a more aggressive attack will engage a longer signal. PWM produces a linear modulation of the signal to the LEDS although the LEDs' output is non-linear. This affects perception of brightness and relation to signal strength (attack), but in the sense that stronger attack produces a brighter and longer illumination of a varied number of individual diodes, there is a definite perception, though it's non-mathematical (who cares?) of more levels than simply a "digital" on/off.

Now, for the question that interests me: Is that a real Rick + bondo, or is that a Sears Rick? (Apologies to Frank Zappa...)

jingle_jangle wrote: or is that a Sears Rick? (Apologies to Frank Zappa...)

LOL. I saw a chick recently with a poncho. Wanted to use that but would have gone over her head.

I'm sure it's hand built. Wish I had half this much talent when I was his age!

chrisdski wrote:

jingle_jangle wrote: or is that a Sears Rick? (Apologies to Frank Zappa...)

LOL. I saw a chick recently with a poncho. Wanted to use that but would have gone over her head.

Yep. That's how a poncho is put on, all right!

jingle_jangle wrote: Now, for the question that interests me: Is that a real Rick + bondo, or is that a Sears Rick? (Apologies to Frank Zappa...)

It appears to me that the headstock angles back much more than a Rick. My guess is that it's a fresh build... or a Mexican Rick. Hmm. (Apologies again to Frank Zappa...)

It's a hand built homemade copy.....that's not an opinion guys, it's a fact.

I applaud the kid for attempting the Lightshow system. Pretty impressive for a young guy.

Regardless of the guitar's origin, it's still pretty darn cool. You can bet that the kid who built it will get plenty of attention if/when he decides to take it to a gig.

That's pretty cool! I've always thought that the light show guitars were rather gimmicky, but that looks kind of cool, and he's definitely got that John Lennon rhythm thing down. Did anyone notice that the nameplate reads "Adambacker"!

I like it! But...its definatley fake. The way he stresses that they are "Rick" parts is a big sign. Rick parts are on Rick guitars. Also Rick never made a lightshow TRC. It does look nice though.