Anyone know anything about RKS Guitars?

[DalyTek]

I am being offered an RKS Wave guitar in trade.
I have been looking online most of the day for info, but all I can find is they were made in the USA, the company has shut down as of 2007, they have "Powered by Lace" humbuckers, are very interesting to look at, and are both neck through body AND bolt on! :think:

I'm not too keen on the Powered by Lace pickups, but those are replaceable. The general consensus seems to be good, but anyone here have any real experience with one and could review it for me?

[xenophobe]

I'm sure you've seen these links, but sounds like it's worth giving a try...

Some decent pictures here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221141222259

And a decent review here:

http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/rks-wave/13139

A little more detail here:

http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/112593

As for experience with them, nope, sorry. I remember when they came out, but I've never seen them.

[cookiemonster]

had 2, ok for a travel guitar due to the light weight. quality hit'n'miss (try to find a good one).

[The Rossness]

The wave was a low end import rks guitar.

[Flatpicker]

RKS, from what I understand, was a great idea that ended up being a shell company for some disreputable investments.
The guitars were an honest effort from the builders, but they were owned by some shady people. They tanked and took the company with them.

[DrDestruction]

I've got an RKS guitar, an all-black Darkstar from a pawn shop in Simi Valley a couple of years ago for around $200. All it needed was some slight TLC and some lame-ass hockey stickers removed for perfection.

RKS guitars were built in Oxnard, California until they went out-of-business in 2007. From what I understand, Dave Mason even bought into the company at some point before its demise and can still be seen playing gigs with them.

My Darkstar uses neck-through-body construction using a maple 22-fret neck and a walnut body "core" with ergonomically-designed plastic/aluminum "wings". The body wings are of an on-set cutaway design similar to that of a Gibson SG, which allows for some serious upper-fret access. It has a non-tremolo Fender-style bridge and Schaller-style non-locking tuners.

As far as electronics go, it has a simple one-volume, one-tone, one three-way-switch setup and hooked up to two humbuckers that are direct-mounted into the body. The pickups are supposedly some special jobs that DiMarzio made for RKS back in the day. The bridge pickup is interesting in that it sounds REALLY bright, almost like a single coil but with increased output, while the neck pickup is much flatter sounding.

How does the guitar play? Well... the coke-bottle body design can take a little getting used to, which can slip around on your lap if you're not careful. The heel-less neck can also be a little awkward if you're not used to it. I personally found that the neck isn't particularly tailored for speed playing- it's great if you're into slow playing with lots of sustained notes, but not so much if you wanna do the Yngwie kind of thing.

It isn't particularly user-friendly as far as adjustments are concerned either- you'll find that there's only so much room for adjustment before you're maxxed out, which is painfully apparent if you like your action low (like me).

If nothing else, the guitar is just... weird. It looks and sounds cool, but feels disjointed... like it's trying to go a bunch of different directions but ends up going nowhere. It doesn't have the familiar feel that a Strat or Les Paul has, which is gonna suck if that's what you think you're getting. Of course, you might be in luck if you're trying to get away from the Strat/Les Paul formula all together.