B.c. Rich
Rich use unusual shapes for their solid body guitars, pictured is the Warlock model
B.C. Rich is a manufacturer of guitars and bass guitars founded by the late Bernardo Chavez Rico in 1969 and the early 1970s.
Rich guitars are manufactured in Asia, but luthiers of the company's custom shop continue to hand-make instruments. As of 2001, no member of the Rico family is involved in the production of B.C.
Rich guitars.
History
Early years
Rico produced guitars for a much lower price to a much wider audience. 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.
Rich guitars and basses, along with the even cheaper Platinum and Bronze series.
There was also a very inexpensive Rave series in the 1980s, as well as a higher-quality L.A. Rico and early NJ guitars and basses were of neck-through body construction, and were very well made instruments.
(Invisibolt Technology) which bolts the neck extremely deep into the body rather than the typical neck joint.
By the mid-1990s, B.C. Rich instruments among metal musicians continues to the present.
Class Axe
In the late 1980s, 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 cost 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 guitar bodies.
Among the list of major complaints, aside from the obvious use of cheaper woods, was general poor workmanship, which included bad sanding, shaping, paint jobs, hardware, and fret wire installation. Unconventional body styles and designs that take different shapes than early electric guitars, who were inspired by the design of acoustic guitars.
Widow is a distinctive B.C.
Rich headstock shape and typically available in the Warlock series guitars and bass guitars.
"Acrylic Series" guitars. 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.
In this series the neck is bolted inside the body to look like a neck-through, but neck joint is still visible. This combines the elements of both bolt-on and neck-through designs.
Like Rickenbacker and Gibson before them, B.C.
In addition, they used custom battery-powered active electronics — pickups and tone controls inside the guitar.