B.C. Rich

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

B.C. Rich is a manufacturer of guitars and bass guitars, known for their unusual and somewhat threatening body shapes, (similar to that of Slayer's Kerry King) popular among exponents of extreme metal.

1 History
2 Class Axe Era
3 Innovations
4 Guitar Shapes
5 Notable players
6 External links

[edit] History

The B.C. Rich guitar company was started in 1974 by the late Bernardo Chavez Rico (or "Bernie, 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. Rico adopted the professional name B.C. Rich and began making Les Paul-inspired guitars. 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--all of which would manifest themselves from time-to-time in certain guitars.

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. 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. 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. The present imported guitars are mostly bolt-on neck construction (except for the current NJ Classic and N.T. series) and made to appeal to a demographic of mostly younger, more inexperienced players who want an inexpensive guitar with a different look than the standard fare.

[edit] Class Axe Era

B.C. Rich has a long history of rumors and reports that they have gone out of business completely or filed Chapter 11 multiple times since their primary inception in the late 70's and early 80's, as well as reports of a constantly changing executive management. One of the more well known instances of this occurred in the mid 1990's, 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 price 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 bodies of the guitars to save money. Among the list of major complaints, aside from the obvious use of cheaper woods, was general poor workmanship including bad sanding, shaping, paint jobs, hardware, and fret wire installation.

These poor quality guitars marred B.C. Rich's reputation almost instantly, and as soon as this was brought to Rico's attention, he immediately regained control of production as he did not want his name being displayed on the substandard instruments that were being marketed and sold under his trademark. Due to this singular occurrence alone, B.C. Rich lost a great deal of respect from long term players of their brand 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 comparison between B.C. Rich's classic guitars and the Class Axe models that were now on the market, this quickly led to rumors which later became popular belief 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 90's until the manufacturing issues were sorted out.

Another part of the Class Axe era that is frequently misunderstood, is that although Class Axe was located in New Jersey, they are not to be confused with or attributed to producing any of the "NJ Series" B.C. Rich guitars. Also, some of these guitars were marketed as "Made In USA", which although is a true statement as they were made in New Jersey, is misrepresentative as people could be led to believe that they might have an original or handmade B.C. Rich guitar, all of which were well known to be made in the USA.

[edit] Innovations

B.C. Rich is known for many advancements and innovations. For one, they were one of the first guitar companies who used true neck through body design, custom battery-powered active electronics — pickups and tone controls inside the guitar that help to enhance the tone. These electronics were originally thought out and designed by Neal Moser who was a contracted employee for B.C. Rich from 1974 through 1985. He was also the designer of the B.C. Rich Bich and Virgin guitars.

Another innovation was the use of exotic woods such as Hawaiian koa and mahogany. These unique woods gave guitars different overtones than those of more traditional construction. To many, B.C. Rich will always be known for unconventional body styles. However, these designs did more than just make the guitar look cool. They helped enhance the overall playability. The guitars were usually easy to play in different positions and with easy access to the upper frets.

In the early 2000's, B.C. Rich introduced a new stringing system called Speedloaders. These were featured on guitars which had no tuning keys whatsoever on their headstocks, and were held in place by a slotted nut device at the top of the fretboard where a normal nut would be. The Speedloaders were designed to completely eliminate the usual time consuming process of restringing a guitar string by utilizing strings that were the exact length of the fretboard which were locked into a tremolo system. Although this radical invention was attractive and new, players soon found that the string tension was too great and frequently broke strings; all of which were expensive to replace, as they could only take the specific strings produced for the Speedloader configuration and could not get any more length out of them as one may do with a Floyd Rose tremolo with the strings strung upside down. This caused the time saving and novel intent of the Speedloaders to be nullified with the constant replacement of its own strings.

Another major innovation that is attributed to B.C. Rich is their creation of the "Acrylic Series" of guitars. These guitars are made completely of acrylic and their bodies are transparent, making the electronics inside viewable as well as an overall visually stunning instrument. 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. Although acrylic is arguably denser than most woods and can potentially carry a fatter tone, the acrylic models are physically quite heavy and some players are turned off by the stress that the heavier guitar puts on their shoulder and back. Although heavy, the acrylic guitars are less prone to breakage and chips as they are basically plastic and can take far more abuse than wood bodies as they have no paint which can chip or deteriorate.

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-thru, but neck joint is still visible.

Currently, most B.C. Rich guitars found in stores worldwide come from Asia (like Korea or Japan), and the Custom Shop Guitars continue to be made the same way by the same luthiers. HHI INC. now operates the Southern California B.C. Rich custom shop.