Hello Splods. I would be happy to post a photo of my collection of Chinese guitars (about 20 or so) sometime in the near future. About the Rockinbetters compared to the Chinese 'Ric branded' basses.
1. Rockinbetters are made of maple and have a thru neck, chickenbackers do not (set neck with spliced neck joint).
2. The bridge, treble pickup assembly and machines are identical.
3. Neck pickup of the Rockinbetter is different to the cheap one on the chickenbacker.
4. Treble pickup on both seems to be the same. The Rockinbetter basses bridge pickup is mounted in approx the same place as a real Ric. The chickenbacker is mounted closer to the bridge.
5. Wiring, you guessed it, Rockinbetter is superior.
Out of the 7 chickenbackers I currently own (one is the purple double neck), three sound better than my 1978 Jetglo which I sold recently. No BS!
They needed a lot of work to play as well as the Jetglo though and sadly, they still don't play as well.
The old story about these chinese guitars are true. They need to be setup correctly (full fret dress and truss rod adjustment). You have to spend some extra money on fixing the wiring and sometimes replacing the pickups (pickup quality control is woeful).
Hope to post soon and get more controversy going in 2014.
Cheers,
rick4001s
The rockibetter/ rebelrocker basses all use the same hardware and pickups. I wonder if they come out of the same Factory.
Rcik4001s: Maybe you should post a photo of the whole collection?
