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MGR/Dr. Nile Hawver III esq « B.C. Rich Acrylic Series Mockingbird »
Published on 11/13/02 at 15:00I bought this guitar for about $250 at Guitar Center, for half off the normal price of $500.
This axe looks and sounds amazing. The fact that it is transparent green makes up for a lot of its problems. The double humbuckers are nice-- hope to get a Seymour Duncan Invader replacement soon, but the way they sound now blows away my cheap old Affinity Strat. As my second solid-body electric in two years of playing, it is great!
There are three problems with this beast. First, it is HEAVY. My wrist aches after a straight half-hour of playing. Secondly, it contains extremely cheap hardware. Third, most retail stores do not carry the case that fits it!
The biggest problem with this guitar is the low-quality construction. B.C. Rich probably decided they could put crappy parts in a cool-looking guitar, sell it to unsuspecting 15-year old guys, and get away with it. I had the guitar for less then a month, when the strap on my gig bag broke, and the guitar hit the ground, snapping the headstock almost clean off the neck. Luckily, B.C. Rich was very helpful, and they sent me a new neck in a few days, free of charge. However, when I replaced the tuning pegs, and went to re-attach the neck to the guitar, most of the screws snapped in half! They were all made of galvanized aluminum. I replaced the screws with steel ones, and the guitar was fine for a while. Then, during a gig, it stopped working again. I pulled apart the input jack, and found that the wires (which had been glued, not sautered on) had snapped off. I ended up replacing the jack for $17, and am currently waiting for the next problem to occur.
Bottom Line: Buy this guitar if you have patience, time, and money. It also helps to have a decent knowledge of how guitars work, because you'll need to repair it frequently. If you don't have time, patience, money or know-how, this guitar is better left sitting and looking very pretty on a shelf then being used in serious gigs. Don't be fooled by its weight and gnarly looks; it may as well be made of glass.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com
This axe looks and sounds amazing. The fact that it is transparent green makes up for a lot of its problems. The double humbuckers are nice-- hope to get a Seymour Duncan Invader replacement soon, but the way they sound now blows away my cheap old Affinity Strat. As my second solid-body electric in two years of playing, it is great!
There are three problems with this beast. First, it is HEAVY. My wrist aches after a straight half-hour of playing. Secondly, it contains extremely cheap hardware. Third, most retail stores do not carry the case that fits it!
The biggest problem with this guitar is the low-quality construction. B.C. Rich probably decided they could put crappy parts in a cool-looking guitar, sell it to unsuspecting 15-year old guys, and get away with it. I had the guitar for less then a month, when the strap on my gig bag broke, and the guitar hit the ground, snapping the headstock almost clean off the neck. Luckily, B.C. Rich was very helpful, and they sent me a new neck in a few days, free of charge. However, when I replaced the tuning pegs, and went to re-attach the neck to the guitar, most of the screws snapped in half! They were all made of galvanized aluminum. I replaced the screws with steel ones, and the guitar was fine for a while. Then, during a gig, it stopped working again. I pulled apart the input jack, and found that the wires (which had been glued, not sautered on) had snapped off. I ended up replacing the jack for $17, and am currently waiting for the next problem to occur.
Bottom Line: Buy this guitar if you have patience, time, and money. It also helps to have a decent knowledge of how guitars work, because you'll need to repair it frequently. If you don't have time, patience, money or know-how, this guitar is better left sitting and looking very pretty on a shelf then being used in serious gigs. Don't be fooled by its weight and gnarly looks; it may as well be made of glass.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com