a few of my chinese cheapies

[Lt. Bob]

First up we have my chickenbacker 12- string.
I kept seeing people raving or hating the chinese knockoffs and since I have bought a fair number of super cheap Chinese pedals like Dolama and Caline and they were all pretty good, I though I'd give this a shot.

As you can see, it's pretty.
I was surprised how lovely it was.
But LOTS of things are screwy.
For example you see the two jacks because the Rickenbacker is stereo ..... so there's two jacks ..... but they are simply wired to the same spot so not stereo.
I could make it stereo but doubt I will.

It plays ok .... not bad but not great. I have 3 12-strings so I understand how they play and both of my others play a bit better ......... but it's not awful.
You can see at the heel they have a quite long square section sticking out ..... not a good replication of the real Rick heel .
On a real Rick that little extra section of pickguard is elevated a bit but on this, it was just screwed down flat ....... so I put some grommets under it to raise it a bit.

And lastly the p'ups have extremely low output .... they measure 7.6k neck and 10.8k on the bridge but output is also about the magnets and these things are super low output.
So I ordered a couple of aftermarket Rick p'ups and guess what ..... super low output.
perhaps that's a characteristic of ric 12's?
It does have that Ric jangle so maybe that's part of the formula.

Anyways .... for a couple of bills it's decent ..... not great.

[Lt. Bob]

Second we have an Ovation fake.
I wanted a living room git that I didn't care about and this was on Wish for 65 bucks!
In the pics it looks a lot like an Ovation Adamas with those nice carved wood accednts around the shoulder soundholes so I ordered it ......... came with a gig bag.

It came in not very playable .... really high action.
No prob ... I know how to do that stuff ..... so I cut down the bridge saddle ...... still need to do a little more but you can't put saddle back on after removing it so it's a PIA because you have to pull the strings ... sand the saddle ...... put back on a repeat.
But the neck is straight and I now have it playing fairly well.

Damned thing sounds good actually!

But the big LOL are those 'wood' carvings.
They're just printed on card stock! lol
And in one of the pics you can see the cardstock actually extends past the edge of the body!

I am suprised by how good it sounds.

[Lt. Bob]

And finally my red sax.
It's absolutely the cheapest sax you can buy ..... 284 dollars.
Hell, a Yamaha student horn is over a grand and my Selmers retail around 9k

So absolutely stupid cheap.
I wanted a red sax and man, the thing is freaking spectacular looking !!
Unbelievable really
Wife and I oohed and ah'd over it ..... and damned if it doesn't play suprisingly well.
It's pretty thin sounding compared to my 25x's the price Selmer but I kinda think I can adjust to it and improve that a bit.
But it's no slouch and the silly thing plays in tune and no problem notes.

[Armistice]

Love the red sax - you'd just want to have that in your lounge room with a spotlight on it. Doesn't matter what it sounds like!

[rayc]

The photos, on my screen, scream pomegranate. Cool thing.
My Harley Benton, Chinese, knockoff Ricky 12 has low output too.
I found a reference from a bloke who wrote a book on the brand and a long section on their pickup progression...
The toaster -“Compared to other pickups it has a fairly low output, but it has that particular chime and jangle we know Rickenbacker for today. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but it gave Rickenbacker instruments their unique, inherent sound. " & "Hi-gain is fitted to most standard Rickenbacker models today, but their vintage-style guitars feature toasters."
My creature doesn't have the faux stereo jack thing.

[Lt. Bob]

The photos, on my screen, scream pomegranate. Cool thing.
My Harley Benton, Chinese, knockoff Ricky 12 has low output too.
I found a reference from a bloke who wrote a book on the brand and a long section on their pickup progression...
The toaster -“Compared to other pickups it has a fairly low output, but it has that particular chime and jangle we know Rickenbacker for today. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but it gave Rickenbacker instruments their unique, inherent sound. " & "Hi-gain is fitted to most standard Rickenbacker models today, but their vintage-style guitars feature toasters."
My creature doesn't have the faux stereo jack thing.

cool ! .... so prolly normal then.
It'd be fairly easy to make it stereo ..... maybe I will.
You could, for instance, run each p'up into it's own track and each have totally different sets of plug ins .... play with both p'ups on and that might be an interesting effect or possibly a way to have a huge sound. ...... hmmmmmm ......

And really, to get it just right I need to cut new saddles and a new nut to reverse the pairs of strings ..... but that's WAY too much work.
If I could just buy 'em and I would though.
That's supposed to be a big part of the sound.

[WhiskeyJack]

Love the Chickenbacker and the red sax.

I had no idea Sax's were so friggin expensive. Learn something new everyday around here.

[rayc]

The photos, on my screen, scream pomegranate. Cool thing.
My Harley Benton, Chinese, knockoff Ricky 12 has low output too.
I found a reference from a bloke who wrote a book on the brand and a long section on their pickup progression...
The toaster -“Compared to other pickups it has a fairly low output, but it has that particular chime and jangle we know Rickenbacker for today. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but it gave Rickenbacker instruments their unique, inherent sound. " & "Hi-gain is fitted to most standard Rickenbacker models today, but their vintage-style guitars feature toasters."
My creature doesn't have the faux stereo jack thing.

cool ! .... so prolly normal then.
It'd be fairly easy to make it stereo ..... maybe I will.
You could, for instance, run each p'up into it's own track and each have totally different sets of plug ins .... play with both p'ups on and that might be an interesting effect or possibly a way to have a huge sound. ...... hmmmmmm ......

And really, to get it just right I need to cut new saddles and a new nut to reverse the pairs of strings ..... but that's WAY too much work.
If I could just buy 'em and I would though.
That's supposed to be a big part of the sound.

The traditional wiring is a separate out for each pick up BUT one, I can't recall which, does both if the other isn't closed.
Mine is strung thin then thick so not trad but I can live with that. My cheapie - AUS$430 delivered from Germany looks like this...

[Greg_L]

I've never heard a Rickenbacker pickup not sound thin and jangly.

Cool cheapies Boob. The overlays on that Ovation....