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Hall was a distributor for K & F, Leo Fender’s first company, but he wanted more control over the product. Adolph continued to run the company until 1953 when he retired and sold the company to the man who made Rickenbacker what it is today: Francis C. Their partnership would continue until 1940, when Beauchamp decided he’d prefer to live the good life and go fishing every day. They chose to brand them as Rickenbackers because Adolph’s cousin, World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker, had made the name famous, and it was easier to say than “Beauchamp.” They expanded their line to include electric Spanish guitars and amplifiers, and they seemed poised to corner the growing market on electric instruments. Their final product–dubbed “The Frying Pan”–didn’t look too pretty, but it was a six-string milestone: the first electric guitar.īeauchamp brought his old buddy Adolph Rickenbacker in to assist with product development and manufacturing, and together the two of them designed and built some of the finest lap steels the world has ever seen.
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With his design finished, Beauchamp had Harry Watson, National’s former factory superintendent, build him a wooden body in a few hours using simple hand tools. All he’d do with his suddenly-clear schedule was develop the first electric guitar pickup.Īfter months of winding prototype pickups using a repurposed washing machine motor and a sewing machine, Beauchamp finally arrived at a final design with two horseshoe magnets and six polepieces–one for each string. He’d make National regret firing him, however. Dopyera left to found Dobro, and Beauchamp was in the unemployment line. Unfortunately, by 1929, the company had splintered due to personal differences. The trio enlisted the help of a local production engineer named Adolph Rickenbacker set to work making guitars.
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Kleinmeyer loved the sound of Dopyera’s resonator, and he wrote a check for startup capital that night.
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Dopyera had a brilliant brainwave: why not put small resonator cones in the body of a metal guitar? They gave the prototype to the Sol Hoopii Trio (one of the most popular Hawaiian music groups of the time) and arranged for them to be the entertainment at a swanky party thrown by Beauchamp’s wealthy cousin-in-law, Ted Kleinmeyer. One enterprising player named John Beauchamp contacted a violin repairman named John Dopyera about building him a louder instrument. But, there’s much more to the story of Rickenbacker than chime and jangle in fact, their penchant for innovation goes all the way back to the 1920s when they built the first electric guitar.īack in the 1920s, lap steel guitar players were on a never-ending quest for more volume. The low-end growl of their basses, the sparkle and bite of their six-strings, and the sweet chime of their twelve-strings have inspired everyone from Lemmy Kilmister to Tom Petty to Paul McCartney to Johnny Marr, and their unmistakable sound has formed the backbone of countless classic recordings. Rickenbacker 325c64 Chinese Replica AliExpress.Rickenbackers are a part of America’s musical DNA.Gator Guitar Case (Actual Rickenbacker cases are insanely expensive, this link is to the case that you see in the pictures).New tailpiece bought from Winfield Parts. (They have a Reverb store too, if it lists them as “out of stock” just email them.Some of the modifications I eventually made to it were: No John Lennon logo on the upper pick guard (which I removed with fine sandpaper).Had the head stock angled at 5 degrees, and not 15 (I fixed this in my next order from him of my 325c58).There were a few things I could have customized before to make this a more perfect replica. *I specifically asked for the pick ups to be evenly spaced between the neck and the bridge, which is why pictures on the site look different than mine.* Neck was parallel to the body and allowed for adjustments.Jack plate was square, like real 325c64s.The pickups, though not mounted on rubber grommets, sat above the body and left enough room for me to replace them with true Rickenbacker single coil pickups is I ever wanted to.The knobs had the correct look and the switch the proper washer and bolts.The bridge was correct, but put on backwards.The tuners were the closest thing to Grover closed-back tuners.The pick guard was more correct than any other chinese manufacturer had put on their guitars.