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Post by chris on Mar 19, 2008 23:19:32 GMT -6
Neck: 1-piece maple Specs: .90-.99" Fat C carve, 9.5" radius, 6105 frets Nut: 1.65" bone Body: 1-piece pine Finish: Nitrocellulose lacquer Pickups: Lollar/RCG staggerpole AlNiCo III Controls: Volume/Tone/3-way Bridge: Wilkinson with stagger-compensated brass saddles Tuners: Gotoh The Osprey version (see #103 for the tele sister)   |
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Post by chris on Mar 22, 2008 12:10:28 GMT -6
2nd row center:  |
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Post by Rich on May 1, 2008 9:26:06 GMT -6
Sneaking up on the color now,,,   |
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Post by chris on Nov 1, 2008 23:03:39 GMT -6
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Post by chris on Mar 12, 2009 22:41:07 GMT -6
new pics, first post
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Post by johnnyqb on Apr 19, 2009 0:19:30 GMT -6
I went to the Rice pad yesterday, to take a look at and play #110, the seafoam green tele. Not surprisingly, the guitar won me over in a hurry. It has an incredible combination of pups and all the feel and soul that you could want from a tele. I had just decided to take her home, when #102, the just barely finished pine Osprey caught my eye, and I plugged it in. WOW! I felt instantly I had never heard such a great vintage tone from a tele-type guitar. The Lollar pickups that the Rices had wound for this guitar and its sister, #103, are really "all that." They are the best of every tele pickup I have ever heard, wrapped into one set of pups. They have power, twang, depth, richness, and pretty much do whatever you want them to. There is all this richness when you dig in, just like you want from a great tele-style guitar. (I know Rich does not think of these as teles per se, but I am putting them in that family anyway. The pickups, bridge, etc. qualify it as a tele species at least.). But the tone of this guitar cannot be explained just by the pickups. The pine chosen for this guitar has a beautiful soft ripply resonance that is just right with the size of the body, and the union with the neck. Sometimes, with a lightweight body, the hard strum can overwhelm the body, where the vibrations seem to emanate out of the body, like there wasn't enough body to properly contain it. A heavy tele can do the opposite, where it smothers the vibrations, so that they are not allowed to bloom and breathe. And then other bodies are just right, where you can strum a chord, and grab the body and feel the hum in there, at play, darting around joyously, with just the right amount of space, weight, and depth. This guitar has that elusive thing in the body that makes it perfect in this way. I know these characteristics are sometimes downplayed, or exaggerated, but here it seems properly emphasized, if only because there MUST be some explanation for the magic of this tone. Seeing Rich grin while tapping the body with his knuckle is another way of explaining this body. This pine is very sweet. It has a hollowness of tone that perhaps can only come from being one single piece, in the absence of hollow chambers. But this sounds better to my ears than a hollowed out body, because there is still body there, to carry those vibes throughout. Or how about the headstock? Does this Osprey hedstock have any effect on tone? Your two high strings are shorter, due to the tuners divided three per side. Is it coincidence that these high E and B strings seem to have a particularly clear snap to them? I don't know, and my reach is exceeding my grasp in trying to describe these things. But there is something there, in this guitar, that is all the magic I am looking for. And a decent part of it does seem to come out on those high strings, for some reason. While picking chords I could get those high strings to ring out clearly in a way I had never quite managed before. Again, the Lollar pups in these are something to behold. I have to add that this is the finest Rice neck I have ever played, with the possible exception of #44, the original blackguard. That was one mighty fine piece of maple. But this one is finer to me now because I would humbly suggest that the Rice's neck work has gotten even better over the last couple years. The necks were always great, but when it is all done right, you get that extra bit of bliss. Here, the nut seems mighty fine. The spacing, the heights, the softness of the edges as they blend into the wood toward the headstock, all seem to be reaching new heights of mastery. Similiarly, Rich seems to have a more refined and definite vision of what he wants the back of the neck to feel like, and this one felt like an old friend the minute I grabbed it.
I ended up buying #110, but this one will make someone REALLY happy.
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Post by chris on Apr 21, 2009 7:22:37 GMT -6
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