Terminology: Rick-O-Sound

Part of what makes a Rickenbacker a Rickenbacker

There are two things that people who know nothing about Rickenbackers have all heard of: hairpin truss rods (click to learn more), and Rick-O-Sound. They don’t necessarily understand either one of those terms, but they’ve heard them—and may even be a little scared of them.

And then there are the folks who can’t wait to get their first Rickenbacker just so they can experiment with the Rick-O-Sound. Which they do for the first few weeks of ownership…and then often never use again.

So what exactly, then, is “Rick-O-Sound”, and why does it inspire both fear and curiosity? And why, even though it wasn’t the first to market, is it actually better than what came before—even if few players regularly use it?

Let’s start with what actually was first to market. And like so many electric guitar firsts from the 1950s, it was a battle between Gretsch and Gibson. Gretsch won this round, coming to market in 1958 with “Project-O-Sonic”-equipped guitars.

As to what “Project-O-Sonic” was, the simple answer is stereo output of the guitar’s two pickups—one pickup in each channel. The longer answer is…weird.

1959 Gretsch Country Club with Project-O-Sonic pickups and wiring

What you have here is two Gretsch Filter’Tron humbucking pickups, but with polepieces for just three strings on each—low strings on the neck pickup, high strings at the bridge. So not only are you sending only one pickup to each channel, you’re also splitting the guitar itself, with only three strings feeding each side of the stereo output.

Well—mostly. The magnets and the windings run the full width of the pickups, so you do get a little bit of the other strings. But only a bit. Weird, right?

A stereo cable ran from the guitar to a splitter box, with a separate mono output jacks for each pickup’s signal—which you would then run to two different amplifiers for the full stereo effect. And because the guitar was only equipped with a stereo output jack, players had no choice but to use the split output.

The design was later…improved? Both sides of the pickup got polepieces and players were given the choice of which three strings were sent to each channel…or all six if they were feeling daring.

The fact that you’ve probably never heard of Project-O-Sonic tells you all you need to know about how the market ultimately responded. But in those guitar arms-race days, if Gretsch did something new, Gibson was almost guaranteed to respond—and to try to do it better.

1959 Gibson ES-345

And so they did in 1959 with the ES-345—taking the ES-335 that had launched the year prior and giving it fancier split parallelogram inlays, a six-way Varitone tone switch, and stereo output.

Sometimes less is more, and such is the case with the ES-345. Gibson eschewed Gretsch’s odd split pickups and simply wired one full pickup to each channel. But once again, stereo output was the guitar’s only option.

Rickenbacker was watching with interest. After Gretsch, and then Gibson, had introduced guitars with stereo wiring, it was clear the major manufacturers saw potential in the idea. Rickenbacker wanted a piece of it—and they also saw an opportunity to solve the biggest practical problem.

Putting aside the Project-O-Sonic’s questionable partial pickup approach, both the Gretsch and the Gibson suffered from the same basic problem: stereo output was the guitar’s only option. Rickenbacker’s answer was simple and elegant: give the guitar two output jacks—one stereo, and one mono—and let the player decide which one to use.

1960 370 Capri dual output jacks

This also sidestepped another problem Gibson and Gretsch faced: with them you had to buy a special guitar (Gibson) or order a custom wiring package (Gretsch) to get the stereo option. Rickenbacker, by contrast, could in principle equip almost any guitar with two output jacks as standard. No special guitar or custom order required.

But when the feature was launched in mid-1960 on full-sized Capri (click to learn more) and F-Body (click to learn more) models under the “Rick-O-Sound” banner, Rickenbacker chose to limit its application to “Deluxe” (click to learn more) models. Standard models would have to make do with mono wiring only. You have to pay more to get more.

The stereo setup was essentially the same as Gibson’s: when the stereo output jack was used, each pickup was assigned its own separate channel. Rickenbacker’s Rick-O-Sound splitter box (sold separately) had an integrated stereo cable that plugged directly into the Rick-O-Sound output jack. The box then provided two mono output jacks—one for each pickup—from which standard mono cables could be run to two separate amplifiers.

Rick-O-Sound splitter box

But—and this is the important part—you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. If stereo isn’t your thing, just plug a standard mono cable into the mono jack. That simply wasn’t an option on the Gibson or the Gretsch.

The jacks are labeled—“Rick-O-Sound” for the stereo output, “Standard” for mono—although the lettering tends to wear off over time. Fortunately, they’re consistently placed: the mono jack is closest to the strap pin on the left (when facing the guitar), and the stereo jack is on the right.

1960 365 Capri jack plate

When the Deluxe solid-body 625 (click to learn more) joined the lineup in 1962, it too was equipped with the dual stereo/mono jacks. Rickenbacker appears not to have been fully convinced that bass players would want the Rick-O-Sound wiring—it took until 1968 for it to become an option on the Deluxe 4001 (click to learn more) bass, and until 1970 for it to become standard.

So if few players regularly use it, why is it still included on most Deluxe models to this day? The simple answer is that it really doesn’t cost all that much to include, and at some point it just became part of the brand identity—Rick-O-Sound is just one of those things that makes a Rickenbacker a Rickenbacker, even if you never plug it in.

And so more than sixty years later, Rick-O-Sound is still there—mysterious to those who don’t get it, and mostly ignored by those who do—quietly reminding you that a Rickenbacker isn’t just any guitar: it’s a Rickenbacker.

And even though I’ve just wrapped this all up neatly, I feel compelled to share the following line from the Gretsch Project-O-Sonic user manual: “The system is simple—just understand it.”

Want to learn more about…everything else? Check out our handy site map to see what we’ve already covered. Don’t see what you’re looking for? Drop it in the comments and we’ll add it to the queue!