and its shit. it had a terrible setup, various finish imperfections and bridge pickup doesnt work. look at all these similar cases from the proud handiwork of american artisans and elves
lol at this being a known issue occuring so frequently.
apparently rickenbackers are still very good master crafted guitars with rigorous quality control processes so don't worry
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:21 pm
by George
a list of all the guitars i've owned that have not had such endemic problems and also cost less:
► Show Spoiler
all of them
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:32 pm
by iCEByTes
fuck rickenbackers they are crap dunno what people see on them.
it´s a trap
1000x times more a Gretch.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:37 pm
by George
imagine growing up idolising rickenbackers, dreaming about owning one, you finally save up for one, put off various purchases, scrimp a little here and there, until the day you can afford one. you nervously pay - it's the only one in the country that seems to be for sale. it arrives at your office, you wait 2 hours until home time. the minutes feel like hours. you drive home breaking the speed limit, hastily unpackage it, plug it in, and this happens
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:39 pm
by James
A little while back while I was looking into the options for a future bass purchase I did quite a bit of reading on 4003 basses. There are some pretty common quality issues with those, too. It was odd because from time to time you'd get someone from the company show up and say 'stop saying bad things about us.. *nonsense legal ramblings*' and you'd also get some Rick fan boys who were only a small distance behind them in that regard.
One thing that seemed to be agreed by both the naysayers and the supporters was that a bunch of issues were sorted out around 2006 or so (for 4003 basses at least), and the last few years have been the best for a long time. Out of curiosity what year is yours?
I was left with mixed opinions and decided that if I'm going to buy a rick I'm going to play at least four and be willing to pay a little more for a specific instrument that feels worth it rather than shopping around for simply the best price. Though that absolutely shouldn't be the case for that price point.
Did you get a good deal on it or have you been secretly shopping for one for a while?
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:41 pm
by George
secretly saving but i did haggle them down a fair bit as well. its pretty much the only jetglo 620/12 for sale in the country. i'd emailed pretty much every place that had them advertised online and they were all out of stock. its a 2011.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:43 pm
by iCEByTes
George wrote:imagine growing up idolising rickenbackers, dreaming about owning one, you finally save up for one, put off various purchases, scrimp a little here and there, until the day you can afford one. you nervously pay - it's the only one in the country that seems to be for sale. it arrives at your office, you wait 2 hours until home time. the minutes feel like hours. you drive home breaking the speed limit, hastily unpackage it, plug it in, and this happens
outch sounds odd.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:46 pm
by James
Did you buy from a store? If so are you sending it back?
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:50 pm
by George
Yeah, I'm waiting for a response. It has an unbelievably restrictive warranty so I can't even get under the hood
they are dodgy sellers. wow. should have checked this out. definitely getting a refund.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:57 pm
by James
Jon Arsecake was recently considering selling his 620 6 string. If you're not dead set on a 12 string it might be worth speaking to him about that. Upon opening the thread and before I saw it was a 12 string that's actually what I thought you had bought.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:58 pm
by George
Yeah it's just for a 12 string. I'm not really interested in their others.
Actually anticipating a full on uphill battle with this where they shaft me out of my money. Can't even find a decent receipt from them.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:05 pm
by James
I watched a factory tour video recently. The guy talks a lot about the attention to detail and quality control, then at 20:28 a guy installs one of the tuner mounting screws at an angle with an electric drill.
[youtube][/youtube]
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:07 pm
by George
Nice. although I'm pretty sure I've fallen prey to a bad seller. I'll see what they say, but I'm out of the office on an away day tomorrow so I won't even be able to reply.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:09 pm
by James
As long as it wasn't sold mentioning all of the faults stand your ground and don't compromise. Then take your cash and buy something awesome.
However, I found it through ebay "best offer" and he repied "I can pay that but only outside of ebays cos of the fees" so I did it through paypal but over the phone and he invoiced me. So technically hasn't registered through ebay or the site's ecommerce system. The paypal payment says "goods". That's why it seems a bit dodgy to me. I don't have a tangible receipt. I've taken copies of the ebay and site pages though at least and have corresponding emails that match up. Could get messy I think.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:21 pm
by James
I think paypal still covers you as long as you didn't send it as a gift. Definitely try and find out about that.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:32 pm
by Concretebadger
Urgh, what a bummer. It looks like a lovely instrument, and at that price point you'd expect them to have a decent QC department checking the stuff before it goes out the door. A bassist I know managed to snap the neck of a Ricky bass - he admits to being a bit of a ham-fisted clod but as much as he loves them, he doesn't trust himself enough to not break another one. I'm not sure whether that's down to his clumsiness or their build quality. *shrugs*
I know any mass-produced stuff, even the good mass-produced, is going to have a small percentage of duds but that's no comfort for the ones who are unfortunate enough to get landed with one. I share your pain to a degree - I yearned for a Gibson for years, but after using an SG Special for a while I got annoyed with little details in build quality like sharp bits on the ends of the fret wire. The sort of niggling things that an instrument of that pedigree really shouldn't have. It's put me off getting a new Gibson again now.
Best of luck in getting it sorted though. Keep us posted on how you get on!
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:53 pm
by lorez
That really sucks George, I hope you get these sorted quick as well
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:57 pm
by George
yeah i think ill be done after this. experience soured, mystique debunked. nick's dc12 is pretty awesome as it is. maybe i'll buy a nice acoustic, and a bass, and an amp with the refund.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:42 pm
by benecol
How did you do Paypal over the phone? Is such a thing even possible?
But like people have said, as long as it wasn't a gift, you'll be fine. Especially if they're shady sellers.
Also: unlucky. Gutting when you get a dream guitar and it's pony - I bought one of the first 72 Deluxe ri teles in the UK and it was fucking dreadful. I almost cried sending it back.