Highly-Modified Rickenbacker 370/12

This Ric has has been modified to have more volume, more treble, better intonation, to be easier to play, and have seven pickup selections. Here's a quick demo, after which I'll go into all the details.

1. The tone and volume controls have been moved to match the Gibson layout

2. balance control has been removed

3. strings re-ordered to match a traditional 12-string, little big little big. (Rickenbacker ships its guitars strung big little big little)

4. The new bridge I had cut to re-order the strings has 12 separate saddles, instead of the standard six. This is an actual Rickenbacker upgrade part I ordered off their web site. This is a night and day improvement. The guitar used to be unplayable past like the 7th or 9th fret. Now you can play about as high as your fingers fit—and on the Ric 370's that's quite high indeed. I've got no experience playing this high, and I don't solo, I just play rhythm, but here's the first thing I came up with to demo this ability.

5. no-load circuit removes not only the tone pot (as seen in normal no-load circuits) but additionally disconnects ground from the far end of the volume pot

6. Pickup switching: now allows all seven parallel combinations of the three pickups