mnb's Reviews

Classic sound, but limited guitar

I thought the 3 pickups would be more versatile, but the switching doesn't really give much variety in the sound. The neck is pretty narrow, so the string courses are close together. I find a simple strum often caused the strings to bang against each other, creating an unpleasant sound. There's a wider nut you can use to alleviate that, but I haven't got one installed yet. It makes that great, classic Rick 12 string sound and looks great doing it, too. If I were to buy another, I'd probably go for the 360/12 instead.

One heck of a guitar

McCloud is a small custom shop. I bought this on Reverb. It's basically a Tele, but with TV Jones Filtertron type pickups (think Gretsch) and a Bigsby tremolo. The controls are dirt simple: volume, tone, 3 way switch. There's no coil taps, but filtertrons aren't very hot humbuckers, so splitting the coil would probably make it too cold. It has a great sound, I love the bigsby and the playability with the stainless steel frets is just awesome. This is one of a kind and very special.

Plays wonderfully and is very versatile

I'd have given this 5 stars if the two humbuckers had coil splits. With two great Seymour Duncan humbuckers and a pretty nice Godin single coil in between them, this guitar can access a good variety of electric sounds. But it also has a piezo pickup for acoustic sounds (with separate volume, bass, mid, treble) as well as a hexaphonic pickup and 13 pin system to connect to Roland Guitar Synthesizers like the GR-33 or GR-55.

The locking tuners work well. It has a Tusq nut, but I still think a little lube would help with tuning stability. I had to do a bit of setup on mine, but once you set the saddles and truss rod to your liking, it plays very nicely. I like the tremolo. It has more range than a Fender, a good solid feel and it's not overly sensitive and fluttery like a Floyd Rose.

Overall a very nice guitar and for the features, nicely priced. I'd much prefer a hard case to the typical Godin gig bag, but lugging it upstairs today, with a Katana Air in hand as well, I was kinda happy it was in the bag. So maybe there is a decent use for a gig bag after all. I'm very protective of my instruments, what can I say?

The LGXT and LGX both have fancier wood finishes and are several hundred dollars more, but I think the xtSA is more versatile. Note: only the Special Edition has the dual Seymour Duncan Humbuckers. The standard xtSA has Godin Humbuckers.

Wonderful guitar with a terrible flaw

This guitar is gorgeous, plays well, sounds awesome and is versatile. But it has a fatal flaw. I've owned two of these and both have a buzzing that I think comes from the bridge pins on the body. It's not the bridge as it's a solid bridge. It's very noticable fretting a full 6 string harmonic strum rather strongly. It comes and goes, but I can't play for 10 minutes before I can hear the built in fuzz box on my notes and chords.

I'm not sure it can be fixed without radical surgery. Odd thing is, my White Falcon has the same bridge base/pin setup and doesn't have the problem at all. But it doesn't have the TV Jones pickups or the tonal options of this Penguin. If I can find a really good repair shop to fix this up, I'd gladly get it fixed it the cost wasn't absurd, because I do really love this guitar. It's a work of art.

Update: I haven't investigated this but I was noticing when loosening the truss rod on another guitar that a somewhat similar buzz started. So I need to slot a little time to see if a slight tightening of the rod on the Gretsch solves the problem.

Not dead sounding like Phosphor Bronze

The wound strings have life, unlike with Phosphor Bronze strings. Probably not a good choice on an overly bright guitar like a Takamine. They brought the life back to my Martin, though.

Fantastic Guitar

This guitar feels soooooo good to play. It's got great tone from those humbuckers and very flexible electronics for coil tapping and out of phase, etc.

The aluminum case sucks twofold. It's an anchor that weighs a ton and there's no lid for the pocket, so what ever you stash in the case falls out if you open the case and it's not flat on the ground or a table. I'd much have preferred a traditional, lighter case with a stash pocket with a lid.

The robo tuners are an interesting idea. They worked great for a month or two, but now, they clearly aren't quite accurate enough. I don't play that often, so the strings shouldn't need changing, although web searches say changing the strings will help. I'm pretty sure I'm going to chuck the robo tuners eventually and install standard tuners if I can find some drop in replacements. The robo tuners have a high ratio, so if you tune manually, you have to turn it A LOT to get a pitch change. And one side is backwards.

But tuned up and ready to play, you don't care. Playing this guitar is such a wonderful experience. The feel of the neck, the excellent fret work, bends are like butter, that classic les paul tone. Wow. It's really hard not to love this guitar.

It gets 5 stars despite a stupid case and the dumb robo tuners because it's just that awesome of a guitar.

A classic that will will love and hate

The jangle of a Rickenbacker 12 is practically legendary. And for that, it's unmatched. But it's mostly a one trick pony. It doesn't have a lot of versatility in the sounds it makes. I think the 3 pickup 370 is less versatile than the 2 pickup 360 version. Mainly because it the 370 has a 3 position pickup switch instead of 5. And I think all the pickups are the same, they just sound duller in treble as you move towards the neck.

Speaking of the neck, that's the Rick's main flaw. It's too narrow. Chording is often difficult unless you have very thin fingers. The neck does have a double truss rod, though, which is nice if you need that level of adjustment (hopefully not!)

The bridge and tailpiece are another weak point, but that's not unique to Ricks. The bridge is loose. It sits on a metal plate and the tension of the strings hold it down. That's annoying when restringing. It's much worse on a 12 string, though. THe tail piece is also loose. The string tension pulls it against a hook on the bottom. The strings don't pull through holes in the tail piece, they hook along the back of slots underneath the R tailpiece. This combined with the loose tailpiece and bridge make for 2 hour string changes. The strings fall out of the slots often. It's very frustrating and timely to restring this beast.

But you're not going to do Tom Petty songs justice without one. Free Falling isn't quite the same on another brand.

Great sounding and very playable strings

Your classical guitar will sounds its best with Augustine strings. A fellow player turned me on to these way back in the 80s and compared to the run of the mill brands I'd tried that were available in music stores (La Bella being one), these are leaps and bounds better. There is a warmth to the unwound strings and a nice bite to the wound ones that give a rich, full sound.

They make them in various tensions, but I've only tried the blues (regular tension treble strings, high tension bass). I would think lower tension bass might buzz too much, especially with my heavy handed style.

Great, classic sound

This is not the amp for killer overdriven tube distortion. But if you use a good pedal, the tube preamps warm it up and you can get a great sound. I use an old ProCo RAt distortion.

I have two of these Amos, one 1974 w/stock JBL speakers and one -975 that I replaced the blown stock Fender speakers with EVM12Ls. I prefer the JBLs, but run together, the warmth of the EVs compliments the JBLs nicely.

They are heavy, but have wheels. I haven't hugged in years, but I can bring myself To sell them, I love them too much.

My go to distortion pedal

It's a solid state fuzz box, so how good can it sound, right? It sounds great! Especially run through a Fender Twin Reverb.

Dial in just a bit of crunch and you can do all the REM/Smithereens/etc sounds you want. Max the Gain and run it through a stereo chorus for a marvelous singing tone, similar to Santana.

Or anywhere in between, with a tone and output level adjustment to make it suit your needs and drop right into the mix without being too brash.

No fancy lights, your most basic on/bypass switch, but this is one of the best distortion pedals made.