So I went out to Santa Ana CA to visit John Hall and Kenny Howes at Rickenbacker on Wednesday this week. My mission was to work with the guys to develop special presets for their (famous and iconic) electric guitars. Mark Chipeur from Bose also attended, being our representative in the Southwest. What fun and what history!

The Ric business is all in Santa Ana, including manufacturing. I was proud to see such gleaming works of art being made in the US, much of it by hand. Kenny is responsible for customer service and is a Genuine Guitar Player, a veteran of stage and studio, including being a songwriter. John Hall, CEO, is an amazing piece of work himself, playing bass and in the process of doing a recording project with Kenny. These guys really live the life their instruments inspire. Rickenbacker is celebrating its 75th anniversary, making it (my guess) the oldest electric guitar company in the world. Although the business is located in a modern and attractive So Cal industrial/office building, the place is simply dripping with electric guitar tradition and mojo. It was inspiring to be there and to hear the unique tone of the Rickenbacker instruments.

We did a variety of tone shaping settings on our 1/3octave in preparation for their introduction as part of the L1 "ToneMatch(R)" program, now in development with selected instrument makers. Many of you are aware of our first shot at this, now a big fave with Taylor guitar customers. Included in our work was the Rickenbacker basses, 12-string electric and 6-string electrics, all of which are played clean by many players. We played and listened in a large rehearsal-size space with the walls simply covered with new and old Ric's. We got a lot of very useful tone shaping done, making all the Ric instruments sound like they ought to thru our system. We also used a good processor (A Vox) and concluded that this just needs to be used in a flat input. The system we used was a quad-bass L1 system (with PacLite amp) so bass guitar could speak The Mighty Voice if called upon. Here's a photo. On the wall, among the little treasures there, is the Ric that has the built-in color organ. It's the one with the white swirl on its top. There's also the "Bantar", half banjo, half electric guitar. Weird instruments from Mars. Last, check out the Ric amp with silver tolex.

But wait: there's much more. Here's Kenny playing something famous:

Here's John Hall doing a turn at the wheel. He ended up developing a very useful technique for voicing the guitars and stayed at it. If something works, stay with it...Also, this is the back wall of the room we worked in. The wall'o-Ric was a bit dizzying at first, some amazing pieces there. It turns out that this is John's personal collection. Wow.

Here's a collector's vintage Rickenbacker Transonic amp. And yes, it's trapezoidal, big at the top and slim at the bottom.

Here's one of the basses we played, gleaming.

Way cool! Glad I was able to hook you guys up! Must've been a fun day.

Lee,
Where have you been?
We've missed seeing you on the forum. Your posts were a big help to me when I first got my L1 in Dec. 2003.
Is your band still using the L1 systems?
Welcome back!

Cliff passionately expounds upon the ToneMatch concept.

Rickenbacker's John and Kenny in action with a 4003 bass while Cliff looks on.

John, Kenny & Cliff, getting close the "the sound" discuss the finishing touches to get the "perfect" eq curve.

We all need a break sometimes so John took us out to Jerry's Famous Deli for lunch. I can understand now whay it is called "Famous" due to the fantastic Ruebens they make!

quote:

Originally posted by rwj:
Lee,
Where have you been?
We've missed seeing you on the forum. Your posts were a big help to me when I first got my L1 in Dec. 2003.
Is your band still using the L1 systems?
Welcome back!

Hey, thanks! Yes we are most definitely still using our systems and love it! I still lurk here every now and then but haven't had much time to post... I moderate a forum for bands on Harmony Central and have a monthly column in EQ magazine, aside from my band of course, so time has been kind of scarce lately.

Nice to see you too!

Great pics Mark!

Love to Kenny, Cliff, and JH.

John takes us on a tour of the Rickenbacker factory where all of their instruments are made. The very high demand keeps the facility going at full capacity just to keep up with already earmarked instruments.

Here John explains the process by which the smoothe curves and internal chambers are created for the 300 series electrics.

Highly skilled craftsmen sand the wood until it is perfect for a multi-coat (a dozen?) finish that will show every nuance of their fine work.

Into the paint booth.

Final details to ensure perfection before these Rickenbacker guitars go out to their loving new owners.

Completed instruments ready for final setup, tuning and testing before shipping.

Excellent! It's too bad someone didn't suggest Rick presets a year ago...Oh wait, someone did, here:Rick Presets

PmP