I see a lot of threads about chinese ricks but rarely from someone actualy owned one. I have always love the look of a Rickenbaker bass and songs by early Rush and Deep Purple made me want to capture that tone. I never got to play a real one and at $2000 it seemed pricey to just try one. I had seen the fake ones on Tradetang a few years back but was always afraid to take the plunge. One day i saw acouple of videos on youtube of guys playing their chinese Ricks and to my ears it sounded pretty close. So I deciced at $350 shipped ***, I'll take a chance. I decided on the blueburst, entered my credit card info and voila. Took a couple of days for them to collect the money, a day later I got a tracking # so I thought wow this might actualy work. Well the tracking number did not work, messages back and forth and the guy tells me sorry but they are still building your bass ( the add said the pic is of the actual bass you are buying, BS). I started panicking then he sends me a message , you can pick a black or wood one...(jetglo or mapleglo). I told him alright send me the black one. To make a long story short, I was a mess, checking my email every couple of hours to see any progress. The website said I should have the bass in ten days, it took threatening emails on my part but finally a month later the Jetglo got here. I think I aged 5 years over it, worying and stressing. Opened the box and sure enough it looks like a rick, beautiful bass ( except for the pick guard, looked like a five year old cut it) The set up was horrible, but after some tweeking of the truss rod and the bridge I sat down and plugged in. To my ears, sounded close to what Ithink a 4001 sounds like. I ordered a replacement pickguard from pickguardian, put it on and brought it to practice. The guys in the band were drooling, telling me how great it looked. My main bass is a Fender Precision MIJ, we play classic rock covers and my plan was to switch back and forth between the two basses. Well they sounded so different that to make it work I had to constantly tweak the EQ on my amp everytime I switched. Pain in the ass, so after the first gig, where the chinese Rick sat on the stand looking good, I decided what's the point. So I put an ad on craigslist (being very clear it was a copy not the real thing) and waited. The ad said trades welcome, next day message from a guy with a Yamaha BB614. We met up I , he looked at the rick copy, loved it. I put my hands on the Yamaha, loved it. We shook on it and voila the story of my chinese Rick copy is over. I'm glad I tried it so now I dont have to wonder.....
