The instrument incorporates many features standard on Rickenbacker guitars, including a three-ply maple/walnut neck, a shallow headstock angle, and a thick rosewood fretboard finished with clear conversion varnish.

The 330 also features a body with Rickenbacker's "crescent moon" double-cutaway shape with sharp, unbound edges, and an R-shaped trapeze tailpiece.

[3] The 330 is the top-selling instrument within Rickenbacker's lineup, as stated by the company's CEO: The 330 is the biggest seller, followed quite closely by the 360, and 4003.

Rather than featuring the standard Rickenbacker slash-shaped sound hole, both guitars featured an f-shaped violin sound hole, which made these guitars instant collector's items.

Vintage Rickenbacker 330s included a 0.0047 μF capacitor between the switch and the volume knob for the bridge/treble pickup.

A side effect of this capacitor was a volume reduction in the bridge pickup's output.

A popular modification is to reintroduce the capacitor back into the circuit on more modern 330's, but it is usually attached to a push/pull potentiometer switch so it can be engaged by pulling up the knob and disengaged by pushing the knob back down - this allows for the more modern full bridge pickup sound as well as the thinner, more trebly sound.

Originally, this change was done to accommodate larger tuning keys as the company transitioned in the type of tuners they were using at the time.