About Us...

• My name is Rich E., so it didn't take me very long to come up with a name for this great little box.  I spent the early chunk of my life in the Seattle area, but have since claimed Eugene, Oregon as my home.
  

                                                      

• I've been playing bass in rock bands, on and off, since the 60's.  The first time I saw John Lennon with his black and white Rickenbacker 325 I knew I had to be in a band.  I bought a brand-new Rickenbacker 4001 bass, Jetglo, in 1974 after being heavily influenced by the likes of Chris Squire (Yes), Roger Glover (Deep Purple), and Geddy Lee (Rush).  That unique Rickenbacker sound really set the hook in me.  But it actually took me a few years after that to put to use the Rick-O-Sound™ feature on my bass.

• Back then I built a split box similar to the Rich-E-Split, though not as elegant as today's model, and wired up my own stereo cable.  I used my deep, boomy Ampeg rig for the neck pickup, and got a Marshall half stack for the bridge pickup.  After some experimenting, I had it dialed in just right.  It was a sound I called "thunder and lightning" - a low, deep bass punch that would loosen your teeth, and a crisp over-driven growl that always got attention - all coming out of the same instrument.  Again, think Chris Squire.

• Anyway, years passed and I quit doing the band thing.  Yet all that time I always wanted a Rickenbacker 12 string.  I couldn't shake the chime of Roger McGuinn (The Byrds) out of my head. Finally a couple of years ago I bought a brand new 360/12, Jetglo of course.  One of the first things I did was to build a new split box - the Rich-E-Split you see today.  I split the pickups over a couple of Crate amps, tweaked the settings, and added some compression to the bridge pickup.  Amazing!  And I just keep playing with the variations.
  

• I quickly found out that the original Rick-O-Sound box from Rickenbacker was long-gone, and nobody else was making them.  I wondered what all those Ric owners were doing about their Rick-O-Sound, and realized... probably nothing.  Well, it made sense for me to fill that hole with a quality product I would feel proud to offer the rest of the world.  The result is Rich-E-Split.
  

• My wife Joanne and son Eric help me with several of the aspects of producing and shipping the Rich-E-Split box.  Our oldest son Cory, who died in 2009 from brain cancer, was a life-long music fanatic, musician, and recording studio technician.  We do this as a family in his honor. 

• UPDATE - I am very happy to say that, after a long span of years, I'm back playing bass again in a working rock band, actually TWO working bands.  I got a new 4003 bass (Jet-glo).  I use my Rich-E-Split to split the pickups to a pair of MarkBass combo amps - the neck pickup straight into one, the bridge pickup through my pedalboard and into the other.  It sounds amazing - especially at gigs.    

• Thanks to all of you who have purchased Rich-E-Split, those who will purchase in the future, and those who are just visiting this site. Thanks for looking!
  

                               

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