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B.C. Rich use unusual shapes for their guitars, like this Warlock
B. C. Rich use unusual shapes for their guitars, like this Warlock

B. C. Rich is a manufacturer of guitars and bass guitars started by the late Bernardo Chavez Rico. The guitar is a Musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles The electric bass guitar (also called electric bass, or simply bass; ˈbeɪs as in "base" is a Stringed instrument played primarily with the Bernardo Chavez Rico (1941-December 3 1999 was an important American Luthier specializing in Guitars Known as Bernie Rico Sr

They are known for designing guitars with unconventional designs.

Currently, most B. C. Rich guitars are manufactured in Asia, but luthiers of the company's custom shop continue to hand-make instruments. Hanser Music Group now operates the Southern California B. C. Rich custom shop.

As of 2007, no member of the Rico family is involved in the production of B. C. Rich guitars.

Contents

History

Early years

The B. C. Rich guitar company was started in 1972 by the late Bernardo Chavez Rico (or "Bernie, Sr. Bernardo Chavez Rico (1941-December 3 1999 was an important American Luthier specializing in Guitars Known as Bernie Rico Sr ") as a repair shop primarily for Spanish and Classical-style guitars. Later Bernie expanded into solid-body electrics after repairing the snapped neck of Bo Diddley's legendary Gretsch. Bo Diddley ( December 30 1928 &ndash June 2 2008, born Ellas Otha Bates) was an original and influential American Gretsch is a US Musical instrument manufacturer currently being distributed by Guitar company Fender and Drum craft company Bernie built 350 Acoustic guitars during these first 2 years. B 21, B 28, B 38 and B 41 models. An answer to the Martin series upgraded, using classical scalloped shaved X bracing on their spruce tops and incredible master Grade woods. Many of these high end guitars had beautiful figured Brazilian rosewood back and sides aged over 40 years before they began building them. They had ebony fingerboards using the classic diamond inlays markers.

Rico adopted the professional name "B. C. Rich" The history behind the name is that Rico had a friend named Bobby Rich who adopted the Hispanic name "Roberto Rico", so Bernie Rico reversed the process and adopt the name "B. C. Rich" for his guitars.

He began making Les Paul-inspired guitars. The Gibson Les Paul is a solidbody Electric guitar originally developed in the early 1950s He also built B C Rich Stratocaster styles. Later models such as the Bich, Eagle, Seagull, Warlock, Mockingbird, Ironbird and others would express the personalities of Rico, staff designers and independent contractors. Rico loved exotic cars and motorcycles, designer clothes and custom paint schemes and all these traits would manifest themselves in certain guitars. MotorCycle is the title of a 1993 album by Rock band Daniel Amos, released on BAI Records.

Popularity and use in heavy metal

As popularity and demand grew, Rico wanted to start mass producing guitars for a much lower price to a much wider audience. B. C. Rico was the name originally given to these imported B. C. Rich guitars that Rico had manufactured in Japan and sold in the US. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. This name was given to make a distinction between the US made and imported guitars, but was dropped due to a lawsuit filed by the Rico reed company. Only several hundred of these are believed to have made it into the US. These Japanese (and later Korean) made guitars were subsequently known as the NJ series, which originally stood for Nagoya, Japan, the place where they were manufactured. Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries a civilization and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. NJ still serves to distinguish an imported line of B. C. Rich guitars and basses, along with the even cheaper Platinum and Bronze series. There was also a very inexpensive Rave series in the eighties, as well as a higher-quality L. A. Series. The B. C. Rico and early NJ guitars and basses were of neck-through body construction, and were very well made instruments. Neck-through or neck-thru (or in full form neck through body) is a method of Electric guitar or Bass guitar construction that involves extending The present imported guitars are mostly basic bolt-on neck construction (except for the current NJ Classic and N. Bolt-on neck is a method of Guitar (or similar stringed instrument construction that involves joining a guitar neck and body using Screws as opposed to glue as T. series). B. C. Rich also created an innovation known as I. T. (Invisibolt Technology) which bolts the neck extremely deep into the body rather than the typical neck joint.

By the mid-1990s, B. C. Rich's guitars were widely used in heavy metal -- partly because the instruments' unusual designs were deemed more appropriate for the threatening image many metal performers wanted to project. The popularity of B. C. Rich instruments among metal musicians continues to the present.

The exclusive guitar that John Christ of the metal band Danzig owned is "the bich". Despite Christ's departure from Danzig in 1995, he still owns the guitar to this day.

In the 1993 episode "Happy Birthday Zack" of the children's television show Power Rangers, a man is seen playing an orange B. Power Rangers is a long-running American Children's television series adapted from the Japanese Tokusatsu Super Sentai Series, though it C. Rich Warlock guitar during Zack's birthday party.

Class Axe Era

B. C. Rich has had a long history of rumors and reports that they had gone out of business completely or filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since their primary inception in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as reports of a constantly changing executive management. Chapter 11 is a chapter of the United States Bankruptcy Code, which permits reorganization under the Bankruptcy laws of the United States One of the more well known instances of this occurred in the late 1980s, when Bernie Rico decided to step away from guitar manufacturing and licensed production out to a New Jersey based manufacturer known as Class Axe.

Class Axe produced guitars at a fraction of the cost of other manufacturers. However the quality of the guitars was extremely poor as they used glued and layered plywood along with other generic lumber yard woods for the guitar bodies. Plywood is a type of Engineered board made from thin sheets of Wood, called plies or veneers Among the list of major complaints, aside from the obvious use of cheaper woods, was general poor workmanship, which included bad sanding, shaping, paint jobs, hardware, and fret wire installation. A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a Stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck

These poor quality guitars marred B. C. Rich's reputation almost instantly. As soon as this was brought to Rico's attention, he immediately regained control of production. Due to this singular occurrence alone, B. C. Rich lost a great deal of respect from long term players who soon abandoned them, while at the same time retailers slashed prices on the Class Axe models in an attempt to sell off their stock of the now known poor quality guitars.

Because of the incredible difference in quality between B. C. Rich's classic guitars and the Class Axe models that were now on the market, rumors started that the Class Axe guitars were in fact bootlegs or underground knock offs that were being sold and distributed by unknowing retailers. B. C. Rich disappeared into temporary obscurity for most of the latter 1990s until the manufacturing issues were sorted out. The company has only recently started to become recognized for high-quality instruments again.

Another frequent misunderstanding from the Class Axe era is that although Class Axe was located in New Jersey, the NJ series of guitars were actually made in Nagoya, Japan. Some of the Platinum and NJ models from this era have "LA California" or "New Jersey, USA" stamped on the neck plate which is misleading. The USA made guitars from this period state USA on the headstock in addition.


Innovations

B. C. Rich is known for many advancements and innovations.

Since 2003, for the imported models, B. C. Rich used their own brand of pickups, known as B. D. S. M. (broad dynamic sonically matched). These pickups were an improvement from the generic pickups factories provided. However starting in 2006, B. C. Rich primarily uses Rockfield brand pickups. Due to the broad selection of features B. C. Rich is selecting pickups that match the guitar's design and player's requirements.

Design and materials innovations

Widow is a distinctive B.C. Rich headstock shape and typically available in the Warlock series guitars and bass guitars.
Widow is a distinctive B. C. Rich headstock shape and typically available in the Warlock series guitars and bass guitars.

Unconventional body styles, guitars shapes that take different shapes than early electric guitars, who were inspired by the design of acoustic guitars. See also Acoustic Guitar (magazine An acoustic guitar is a Guitar that uses only acoustic methods to project the sound produced by its strings

"Acrylic Series" guitars. These guitars are made completely of acrylic and their bodies are transparent, making the electronics inside viewable. Poly(methyl methacrylate ( PMMA) or poly(methyl 2-methylpropenoate is a Thermoplastic and transparent Plastic. The original run of the acrylic models featured a standard bolt-on maple neck with wood headstock, but later models featured an acrylic headstock, matching the same color as the body and making the overall appearance of the guitar more attractive. Acrylic is denser than most woods which makes the guitar heavier than if it would be made by wood. The density of a material is defined as its Mass per unit Volume: \rho = \frac{m}{V} Different materials usually have different

In 2006 B. C. Rich introduced the IT (Invisibolt Technology) series. In this series the neck is bolted inside the body to look like a neck-through, but neck joint is still visible. This combines the elements of both bolt-on and neck-through designs.

Active electronics

Like Rickenbacker and Gibson before them, B. For the American WWI fighter pilot see Eddie Rickenbacker. For the airport see Rickenbacker International Airport. The Gibson Guitar Corporation of Nashville Tennessee, USA is a manufacturer of acoustic and Electric guitars The company's most popular guitar C. Rich used a true neck through body design in many of their instruments. In addition, they used custom battery-powered active electronics — pickups and tone controls inside the guitar. A pickup device acts as a Transducer that captures mechanical vibrations (usually from suitably equipped Stringed instruments such as the Electric guitar These electronics were originally thought out and designed by Neal Moser who was a contracted employee for B. Neal Moser is a California -based Luthier. He began his career with Guitars in 1964. C. Rich from 1974 through 1985.

A B.C. Rich Virgin Platinum Series guitar.
A B. C. Rich Virgin Platinum Series guitar.

Guitar Shapes

External links

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