Colophon, etc.

This site has begun like many others. I happen to have a Rickenbacker amplifier which impresses everybody, which made me want to know more about the history behind it. When I searched the Web for info, I found a desert, that is, apart from scattered data on well-known sites (see below). I spent a little time on this project because nothing like this existed, beginning with notes in a text file. Then pictures came and had to be integrated in a HTML file. Finally, I had to give this site some kind of structure.

But it's been getting out of hand:

1. It's hard. It's archaelogy. You dig terabytes of information on Google, eBay, and whatnot, just to find sometimes a photo, or basic specs, or even simply the dimensions of a case. Then you have to make sense of it all. For example, what defines a M-11, actually?
2. I don't have access to the real stuff: these amplifiers. Well, I have one, but as I live in Europe, collecting them would be rather difficult - and I'm not a collector: I preferred to build my own anyway.
3. I have no time. This takes a lot of it. I had to choose, to concentrate on the beginnings of amp making, then on tube series. Research on solid state amps is on a stand still right now.
4. There has been a disagreement with John Hall. Ok, I was am a moron. My subsconscious was telling me I couldn't handle it and it appeared as suicidal behaviour. On the other hand, I'm stubborn like a mule, and I like it when things get done. This is why this site has slowly expanded despite missed opportunities.

Don't let the whining above impress you too much. Making this site has been fun. In a wicked sense of fun. ;-)

On the technical side (this section has been dubbed Colophon after all, like the ones found in O'Reilly books), this site has been designed with the emacs and vim editors and a small Perl script, with standards conformance in mind. Any web browser should be able to view these pages.

WARNING! This Rickenbacker Amplifier Page is beta version. All contributions and critics are encouraged. If you, astute reader, want to help/give info/take over, welcome! A lot of information has been added and corrected since its first inception, but the material presented here stays pretty raw: a lot of info is missing, there is wrong/contradictory stuff, etc. Use at your own risks. Not for children under the age of 36 months.

Thanks to all the nice people who gave me the permission to use their pictures. Thanks to Peter McCormack, Tracy Sands, and everyone at the Rickenbacker Forum who share all the information they can find, and make this discussion forum a place worth spending time. Thanks to all the good guys at alt.guitar.rickenbacker, for about the same reasons... Richard R. Smith's Rickenbacker book gives a lot of info, along with fine pictures. Thanks finally to the RIC people, not only for building great guitars, but also for having built great amps - and above all to John Hall, who could easily sell out, but prefers to stay a Craftsman.