Hmmm, so much for good intentions.... four days in and my first NGD of 2013....

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Awesome guitar, congrats!

[gwEm]

Love the headstock  8)

[Mr. Air]

Congrats on the NGD!!!

Super great looking wood and I love the headstock, but the form of the body is really not my thing.

[Sancho]

It's a shame that BC Rich's import lines are such a shambles. I'd love a decent quality, affordable Mockingbird or Bich.
You'll want to hold on to that one!

[Philly Q]

Thanks for the comments, guys!

Super great looking wood and I love the headstock, but the form of the body is really not my thing.

It's not really my thing either, in a way, but there are certain guitars from the late '70s and early '80s that I've always had a "thing" about because I was just getting into guitars at that time and I loved the look of them in the magazine ads.  Mainly Japanese guitars, actually - Ibanez Artist, Washburn Falcon, various Aria models, Yamaha SG2000 - but also a couple of US brands like Hamer... and BC Rich.

BC Rich first came to my attention because Rick Derringer and Joe Perry played them, but the thing which really sealed my fascination with the Mockingbird was this picture of Craig Chaquico of Jefferson Starship on the cover of Guitar Player.  I really liked the colours, and he had bits of tape stuck on the guitar with arrows showing which way the various switches should be pointing!  :lol:

[dave_mc]

sweet you finally got one :D

Very nice. Very like mine apart from the things i mention below (oh and the zebra pickups... oh and mine has a thick veneer over the neck-thru centre bit, too).

is that a US guitar?  the maple top isn't a veneer, and it's got the R logo.  or were the Czech ones like that?

yeah they are. but they don't have the rosewood veneer on the headstock or all those switches or the badass (?) bridge.

[Philly Q]

Hmm, I wonder if this was made in the Czech Republic?  Would 2008 be about the same time as the Calibre models?  It does "feel" like a far eastern guitar to me, though.

The bridge is a BC Rich "Quad" bridge.  It's quite a neat design, individually height adjustable saddles with grub screws which don't stick up and scratch your palm!  I am tempted to fit something more compact like a TonePros or ResoMax bridge, though (if they fit the stud spacing).

[AndyR]

Nice one. As you can probably guess... not quite my cup of tea...

But it's nice to know that some things never change and that 2013 looks like it's going to be just like any other year :D (I wonder what Twinfan's gonna buy this year month?)

[Nadz1lla]

Amazing axe, nice one dude!

[Twinfan]

But it's nice to know that some things never change and that 2013 looks like it's going to be just like any other year :D (I wonder what Twinfan's gonna buy this year month?)

I heard that!  :lol:  I've got an inkling for a couple of guitars, but I need to pay off the PRS Collection first.

Nice score Phil, I see you watch Mark's site as much as I do  ;)

[Philly Q]

Nice score Phil, I see you watch Mark's site as much as I do  ;)

I look most days! 

Not often he has many guitars at the more affordable end of the spectrum, though.  :lol:

[PhilKing]

Hi Philly, that's really nice.  This is mine:



I put double cream cold sweats on it (it came with double cream DiMarzios), and they work really well with the preamp and switches.

[Philly Q]

 :D Nice one, Phil!  An original USA model, presumably?

Do you find the preamp and varitone much use?  I was mucking about with them yesterday and wasn't crazy about them.  The varitone sounds OK at "0", but just seems to get woollier and weaker sounding as you turn it clockwise.  Of course the US version probably uses better-quality components.

I have already been thinking about switching to cream plastic parts - cream mounting rings for sure, to better suit the '70s look, and maybe double cream pickups.

I was also considering Cold Sweats, I recall them being mentioned a few times for neck-through guitars.  I could get the chrome covers removed from my CS set, I think they're zebra underneath.  What else would go well on a neck-through?

[dave_mc]

(a) Hmm, I wonder if this was made in the Czech Republic?  Would 2008 be about the same time as the Calibre models?  It does "feel" like a far eastern guitar to me, though.

(b) The bridge is a BC Rich "Quad" bridge.  It's quite a neat design, individually height adjustable saddles with grub screws which don't stick up and scratch your palm!  I am tempted to fit something more compact like a TonePros or ResoMax bridge, though (if they fit the stud spacing).

(a) I dunno :lol: It doesn't look like mine, and i suspect it's different enough that it's not a calibre classic... that being said, when i got mine i looked up about them on the bc rich website, and they were specced as having rockfield pickups while mine has duncans, so it looks like the spec may well have varied.

I dunno if mine feels like a european guitar. It just feels like a nice guitar, lol.

I'm not entirely sure what year the calibres were... as i've (maybe? :lol: ) said before, I got pretty lucky with mine, I got mine a while after they'd been discontinued I think. They were still on the BC rich website when i got mine, but I think they'd already been discontinued for a while and BC rich was just a bit slow to update their site.

(b) ah right, thanks.

[FernandoDuarte]

Never saw that I'd see you with a BC Rich... But it's a cute guitar, for sure!