I can understand the pickguard shape and choice of pickups.
But I think the entire mounting ring is silly on a Rickenbacker. The shape serves no purpose at at all. It leaves an awkward gap on either side of the bridge pickup. And it looks clumsy.
Re-creating it on a non-Rickenbacker like this, I think is downright stupid.
Of course it's silly. Rics are quirky in every possible way. But when they tried to offer a better designed model, it tanked.
(Let's see... lacquered "African" rosewood board? why? 33.25" scale, truss rods that no one knew how to set and cracked the neck, Plexiglas guards that sometimes you can see the harness through them and crack when you raise the neck pickup, 6-pole guitar toaster on a bass or the button-top with its narrow window that turns string bends into sharp volume drops, thumb screws used as strap buttons, conversion varnish finish that has you waiting 48 hours before opening the box to play your new bass, the "stereo" output, the control layout with the tones on top and the volumes at the bottom, THAT BASS-CUT CAPACITOR, Midnight Blue that bleeds into the binding, Mapleglo (okay, all those silly names for finishes) that turns to Glueburst, a bridge that can not be intonated without loosening the strings, zinc tailpiece that tail-lifts, a mute cage that prevent palm-muting, huge swimming pool rout for the neck pickup at the weakest point of the body, huge treble pickup rout, a "handrest" that raises and lowers with the pickup and limits how low you can set it, 3-screw nameplate that has so easily turned so many Asian copies into "real" Rics, upside-down headstock and inlays on lefties...)
