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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Fender Cyclone review and demo

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Following on from Bertram's piece on the Fender Cyclone II a few days ago, Guitarz reader Ben Albey has sent us this review of a Fender Cyclone 2-pickup model plus a video demo. Nice one! Over to Ben:

This is my brother in-law's 2001 Mexican made Fender Cyclone. Everything is original except one of the tuners which was replaced by a Grover, then replaced by me with an extra Fender one I had left over from my Nashville Tele when I put Sperzel tuners on. It has the original Atomic humbucker in the bridge, and Tex Mex single coil in the neck, which is really sweet because it has an angle on it that you don't see on many fender neck pickups. It's white, which by now is cream, which is a hard color to find on these Fender Cyclones, a guitar that is already hard to find.

This year of Cyclones came in Candy apple red, black, white, and vintage sunburst. I saw a black one at a music store in Tennessee when I was on my honeymoon for $300; my wife said I could get it, but we were newlyweds and hard up for cash, so I didn't buy it, and I've been kicking myself ever since. It has a Strat tremolo bridge on it, and a 24.75" scale neck. This is a strange scale for a Fender, a scale that is on Gibson Les Pauls. The guitar also features a maple neck, rosewood fretboard, tortoise shell pickguard and a Jaguar-like control plate and a three way toggle like on a Jazzmaster.

The only draw back for me is that the body is made out of poplar, which is why if you find this era of Cyclone you can probably get it for around $300-$600. Poplar is a good enough wood, and a lot of players have poplar bodies; personally I like ash and alder. Over all this is a great, fun, and comfortable guitar. If I ever find another one, I will buy it on the spot.

Ben Albey


© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Bootsy Collins bass solo

guitarz.blogspot.com:

...just because I enjoyed watching it!

Look out for the guitarist wearing a baby's nappy! (Garry Shider, apparently.) I'm not sure what that's all about.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

It's so S-s-s-silly... The Flying S?

guitarz.blogspot.com:
We all know the Flying V. A few days ago we looked at a rather vulgar Jackson doubleneck that I dubbed the Flying W. Takamine had the Flying A (actually an acoustic take on the V design - they weren't allowed to call it a V, and viewed from the other direction it could be considered an A). Rick Nielsen, I believe, has a Flying Z, and The Tubes had a Flying Q (albeit a stage prop)...

And here we have this Maestro S-shaped guitar. Suitable for people with names like Sid, Shirley, Simon, Sylvester, Sarah, Sally, etc... Oh - there's a S at the headstock too (with machine heads seemingly positioned at random), so perhaps it's more suitable for people with the initials SS... which has sinister overtones.

Or maybe it's more suited to an episode of Sesame Street.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Boutique semi-hollow guitars - you'll have to look to know more...


For sure you won't see these guitars everyday! Only two of them were ever built, and handmade semi-hollow guitars with an experimental design are quite uncommon, because another level of skills is required than when you make up a solid body... 

And the result is - IMHO - quite stunning! The shape is brilliant, the thick contoured horns are quite a smart move (people busy with guitar design will understand what I mean) and I love the big German carve! I appreciate the fact that they look timeless and could have been made at any moment of the history of electric guitars (and they would have bizarre all along) - at least in Germany where there is a tradition of highly creative jazz guitars!

I imagine that people who will look at these strange instruments with the image of a ES-335 in the head will find hard to love them, so please forget everything and really look without any preconception - and enjoy!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Ultimate Guitar Video !!!


No comment!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Thinline Fender Jaguar


There is a Jaguar Thinline and noone ever told me!

Ach ja, it's from Fender Japan, they have much cooler Fenders there for some reason, with plenty of Mustang variations,  Teles with Filtertrons, colors you've never seen on a Fender... Check their website and cry!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Archtop Soprano Guitar


Ever heard of a soprano guitar before? Neither did I until today, but it's exciting - like a tenor or a baritone! Guitars never stop surprising me! 

This one is a one-off made by a Swedish luthier, with Stradivarius F-holes, and has a scale lentgh of 400 mm... It's so rare that I might never see one in real, but I'm very curious about this instrument!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Fender Cyclone II

A couple of weeks ago Fender released its Pawn Shop Series - "guitars that never were, but should have been" (GL had posted right away about them here). This short lived Fender Cyclone II fits to the concept, isn't it? 

The Cyclone series was created in 1997 and shut down in 2007 - it never really took, probably because Fender customers just want the 3 same models again and again (same old rant, sorry).

They could have liked this one though (a Cyclone II released in 2002), nothing as radical as a Katana or a Performer, but a well thought collage of parts of various classic Fender models - the body of a Mustang with the pickups of a Jaguar slanted like on a Stratocaster, the neck, headstock and switches are also from the Jaguar, the knobs from the Mustang, the trem from a Strat... It's a pity that such alternative guitars have no room to exist, no little niche aside the mainstream models! 

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Friday, April 15, 2011

1960s Guyatone LG130-T

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Ugh! I'm still feeling a bit unclean after that previous post. This 1960s-era Japanese-made Guyatone LG130-T in original cherry/pink finish is the perfect antidote. Seriously, what can I say about this vintage piece? The pictures speak for themselves.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Jackson USA Custom Shop King V doubleneck

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This Jackson USA Custom Shop King V doubleneck is an exercise in excess with its over-sized quilted maple topped body, dual through-necks, reverse pointy headstocks, gold hardware, mother of pearl sharkfin inlays, etc. I have to confess that I'm not a fan. I never did like the Jackson pointy headstock design - it just looks totally incongruous on just about any body design, and quilted maple I'm sure is supposed to imply opulence but to me it just seems like an unimaginative short-cut to tarting up a guitar's appearance. Many would be impressed, but I have to stifle a yawn.

Flying V? Flying W more like!

Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $9,999.99.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

1960s Vox Invader

guitarz.blogspot.com:
The seller of the Vox Bulldog we looked at earlier today was also selling this Vox Invader, with a Buy It Now price of $2,250. Like the Bulldog, it failed to sell.

Again, we see some Mosrite influences, but this one is a bit more Vox-y with the classic sixties-style Vox headstock and the on-board effects that various other Vox models also carried. It's like a Vox/Mosrite hybrid, and is certainly an attractive guitar. I'd love to find out how it plays and sounds.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1960s Vox Bulldog

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The Vox Bulldog is one of the later 1960s Italian-made Voxes, and it seems that with this model they are trying to evoke a Mosrite vibe, with its slanted neck pickup, carved top, assymetrical headstock, and even the shape of the body although here it's not quite so "upside-down Strat". This example in excellent condition was recently being offered for sale on eBay with a starting price of $1,895 but failed to sell.

In the current financial climate that is probably too much to ask for a vintage guitar such as this, despite the condition. People simply aren't willing to pay out for a vintage instrument that isn't a sure-fire investment, and unfortunately in this ultra-conservative area that means vintage Fenders and Gibsons, maybe one or two other key brands. The quirkies like this one, just aren't going to be seen as an investment. And for anyone interested in a guitar such as this as a player's instrument, well, the price is probably too prohibitative.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Bat-i-tone baritone

guitarz.blogspot.com:

You could be forgiven for thinking this was yet another axe-shaped guitar, but the body design is actually based on the bat-shaped logo of comic book superhero Batman. Take a look at the headstock, that's the dead giveaway!

This Bat-i-tone baritone guitar, has a 28 1/4" inch scale, flamed maple drop top on an alder body, maple neck and ebony fretboard with custom reconstituted rock "Kapow!" inlay (which unfortunately doesn't show up too well in the photograph).

It's a one-off quality hand-built instrument,  although we here at Guitarz think that with a $10,000 (Canadian dollars) starting price and Buy It Now price of $17,000 (Canadian), it's  is a lot to have to shell out for a novelty instrument, however nicely made it is.

Via Vince Gotera on our FaceBook page.

G L Wilson 

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Prince original purple cloud guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
In February this year here on Guitarz we looked at a guitar inspired by Prince's cloud guitar built by Ergo Instruments. In that instance it wasn't meant to be an exact replica, but was Ergo's own interpretation of the design.

But now currently on eBay we see a genuine cloud guitar as played by Prince (and pictured in his hands on the cover of the January 2000 issue of Guitar Player magazine) and - surprisingly - supposedly the only example ever to have been finished in purple. According to the eBay listing:
It is one of the first three of 27 hand-built examples luthier Andy Beech made for Paisley Park Studios after Prince and David Rusan (who built the first four clouds) parted ways. This is not a Schecter or ESP. The guitar comes with the original letter of origination with serial number from Paisley Park and an original letter of authenticity from Andy Beech...
This is a fantastic guitar, but you'd need to be a pretty dedicated Prince fan to consider bidding with a starting price of $9,999 or Buying It Now for $17,499.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Orfeus Thinline review

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Recently here on Guitarz, Bertram showed us an Orfeus thinline guitar. Pictured above we see another similar Orfeus guitar, owned by Martin Cater, who has kindly supplied the following review:

I own a couple of other Communist-era guitars and, in common with those models, the tone of this Bulgarian-made Orfeus is best described as having not so much twang as clank! Information on Orfeus guitars is scant, but comparing this one with images I’ve seen of others, I would hazard a guess that it dates from the late 60s or early 70s.

It’s undoubtledly a crude instrument, though not without a certain character. The body is semi-hollow, not unlike the Rickenbacker 330 which probably inspired the design (if you can call a thing like this inspired), and there’s additional wood in the centre which falls short of being a centre block as there’s a narrow gap through the middle. The top is about 5mm thick and as can be seen from the photos, it’s quite an attractive piece of wood. The finish is the kind of matt varnish you might expect to find on a piece of furniture or maybe an acoustic guitar. The top and back are natural wood, whilst the sides are a contrasting dark brown matt stain. It’s impossible to be sure if either of these finishes is original. What appears to be binding is nothing more than a white painted strip around the edges of the top and back and the soundhole.

The neck is thick and fat, with a squareish profile that’s reminiscent of old Italian acoustics, and no separate fingerboard – the frets are just hammered straight into the neck. Action is on the high side, but not unplayable. The unusual string retainer seems to be typical of Orfeus models, as is the zero fret.

All the equipment appears to be original and is consistent with photos of other Orfeus instruments that I’ve seen. Typically, the name is spelled differently on the headstock and on the pickups, which seems to suggest models made for export. One of the strangest aspects of the guitar is the bridge, with saddles which appear to be made of perspex. This seems to be a standard type used on other Orfeus models. The three large control knobs comprise volume for each pickup and a third control which is probably a master volume but doesn’t have any effect. The 5-pin din output is typical, but luckily the guitar was supplied with the correct lead.

There’s a fair amount of volume when played acoustically, and plugged in, the tone is very much that of a cheap amplified acoustic: thin and middly with barely any sustain. Single notes have an almost sitar-like quality on the top three strings, especially when the volume is rolled off on the neck pickup. Both pickups combined give a pleasantly mid range Johnny Marr-style tone which sounds surprisingly good on strummed chords. Output is quite loud compared with other cheap vintage instruments, and whilst it doesn’t take kindly to distortion, what you do get when you crank it up is a primitive boxy growl that sounds for all the world like Dave Davies’ shredded speaker tone on You Really Got Me. This is essentially a Bulgarian chord machine!

The nearest thing to this that I’ve played is a Harmony Rebel – also Rickenbacker-inspired, and with a similarly crude finish and clanky tone.

Martin Cater

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Gretsch G6120S Nashville Jolly Roger

guitarz.blogspot.com:
We've looked at pirate-themed guitars before on Guitarz - see here and here - and here, pictured above, we see a Gretsch G6120S Nashville with Jolly Roger graphics courtesy of the Custom Shop. I'm not usually one for intricately decorated guitars, but this one I quite like. Somehow the graphics seem to be sympathetic to the design of the guitar. Still, with a Buy It Now price of $9,500 I think I'll leave this one to someone else to add to their collection.

Via Vince Gotera on our FaceBook page.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Monday, April 11, 2011

ESP FT-300K Fanatic Crisis Shun signature guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
We here at Guitarz have looked at a fair few weirdly-shaped contemporary guitars from Japan, most notably from makers Fernandes and ESP. This particular guitar, an ESP FT-300K Fanatic Crisis Shun signature no less, takes the familiar Strat layout and gives it a twist - or, should I say, a stretch. Despite the Strat layout of the three single coils, those are in fact Jaguar-style pickups. The guitar also seems to be equipped with a kill switch near the lower horn.

Fanatic Crisis, by the way, were a Japanese Nagoya kei rock band active from 1992–2005; Shun was their guitarist and, no doubt, endorsee of this model guitar.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Godin Artisan ST


Can't say that I find the design of this early 1990s Godin Artisan ST extremely sexy but it has something typically Godin - a brand I quite like - in its way of keeping discreet while still proposing something slightly bizarre, but always relevant. 

Here the very long upper horn where you attach your strap is quite ergonomic, allowing a better balance, when the lower horn logically almost disappears, since it is usually mere cosmetic. The result is probably disturbing 60 years after Stratocaster set the standard for electric guitars, but it is sensible and gives this guitar a nice personality, is spite and of its boring finish.

You'll notice the double dual blade humbucker in bridge position and the competition trem - all that making this guitar a shredding machine - though I still don't really get the concept of shredding, but who cares?

Bertram


© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Stratocaster

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Music Man Bongo Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Music Man, Leo Fender's first post-Fender guitar company, are known for their guitar and basses (some would say especially the basses) which are usually quite conservative in styling. But here we see that with the Music Man Bongo Bass they decided to break the mold and go for quite an almost space-age design.

It was the result of a partnership with DesignworksUSA, a design consultancy known for its work with BMW, and features a 24-fret rosewood fingerboard and 4-band active EQ powered by an 18V supply. This lefthanded model, currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of £1,200, features a pair of Music Man humbuckers, although other pickup combinations were also available. It is also custom fitted with Orange front-face magnifying Sims LEDs whereas stock models would have had moon-shaped inlays.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Dude* plays AC/DC on Florida-shaped guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The state of Florida presents a weird shape with which to base the design of a guitar body on! Kudos to this guy for having the imagination to build some of his own bizarre guitars. In another of his videos he shows serveral other works in progress including a Super Mario guitar, a Bart Simpson guitar, and his own copy of the Erlewine Chiquita guitar.

The Florida guitar uses finishing nails as frets (again, top marks for inventiveness) and doesn't seem to have any machine heads up at the headstock so I'm guessing he's using some kind of tuning system down at the bridge end.


* If you're a guitarist you have to call everyone "Dude". I think it's a tradition or an old charter or something.


G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Mosrite Danamite Wave

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Forgive me if I sometimes come across as some kind of all-knowing "Guitar Guru" but I never claimed to be an expert, and I certainly hadn't realised that the Mosrite company were still producing guitars. Dana Moseley has followed in her father Semie's footsteps as a luthier and is keeping the Mosrite name alive. The Mosrite Danamite "Wave" is an all-new limited edition 45th Anniversary model with what looks like three P90 pickups, but which actually are "Dana-Mo" custom special pickups, and an almost organic-looking Vibramute tremolo and roller bridge combination. The wave body design complete with the German carve so familiar on old Mosrites make it look both modern and vintage at the same time - it's unmistakably a Mosrite!

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Molded and contoured top guitar Switch Stein IV by Trev Wilkinson

At the first sight, this Switch Stein IV has a 1980s look that probably repels the average vintage cultist  who thinks that electric guitar history stopped the day Fender subcontracted its guitar making to Greco (all these angles! - though in one extra decade that will be probably sooooo cool).

But if you look closer, you will figure that this guitar has something special - first of all it is a recent model (2000s but I cannot tell more - because as often with Trev Wilkinson products, short lived guitar company Switch has a visibility deficiency - their website is no more, no fan page, very little reviews...). You will notice right away its ergonomically contoured top that is supposed to provide a more comfortable access to the strings and knobs, and the Parker Fly-esque upper horn (they enjoyed radical designs, GL has already posted about a Burns Flytesque model a couple of years ago).

But the very special thing about this guitar, is that it's one-piece, molded out of a composite material called Vibracell, supposed to have the best resonance and sustain one can expect from a guitar - that you can get from wood only if you are lucky or put a lot of money... For me that makes sense - I love wood for the feel and the look, but I'm far from being convinced that it's the ultimate material for an electric guitar! Vibracell allows one-piece construction, easy chambering, design freedom and low price... Unfortunately early XXIst century is not the right time to be innovative in guitar making, so no surprise these guitars didn't take in spite of the unanimous positive reviews I could read...

I wonder if this material will ever find its proper use - maybe for other instruments aimed at less conservative crowds...

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Friday, April 8, 2011

The Strobel Rambler - a travel guitar that's equally at home on stage

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Most travel guitar are instruments built to a compromise. They are compact and lightweight, and usually this means they are fine for practice or something to bash around on while travelling, but you wouldn't really want to play a gig with one.

Not so the Strobel Rambler, which is a professional quality electric guitar that just so happens to be able to be able to be packed away in a standard-sized briefcase. We first looked at Strobel Guitars back in 2008 when their sole offering, the Rambler Custom, would have been out of the price range of many people wanting a travel guitar. They now also offer the Rambler Classic which takes the same concept but makes it available for $599.

Tommy Castro with his Rambler
Strobel Guitars
Rambler™ Travel Electric Guitar

Want to jam when you get there? Practice in the hotel? Jump on stage and play? Take along a Strobel Rambler™ Travel Electric Guitar - a full scale professional instrument that breaks down to fit in a briefcase or computer bag in minutes. This is a great sounding, great playing instrument perfected for the traveling musician. The Rambler™ offers unsurpassed quality, playability and resonance.

The Rambler™ travel guitar features locking tuners located on the bottom of the guitar with the strings loaded from the top of the neck through the patented StringKeeper™. Dual humbucking pickups are switchable from neck to bridge (or both) to provide a fat full sound and excellent tone. Separate tone and volume controls provide a wide range of equalization. Intonation and string action is set with a fully adjustable Tuneomatic bridge. The adjustable nut (a unique feature of the Rambler™ portable travel guitar), allows adjustment of the string action at the top of the neck.

Weighing in at less than five pounds (and with an assembled length of about 30”), the Rambler™ is a very portable guitar. The Rambler™ Classic comes with a nicely padded embroidered gig bag, fitting nicely in the overhead bin when traveling by air. The neck is 17-1/2” and the body measures just over 15” when disassembled, so they fit in most all computer bags. Scale length is a standard 24-1/2” Gibson scale with 20-21 frets. The nut is 1-5/8” wide and the neck profile is a thin “C” shape.

Travelers typically take the Rambler™ Professional Electric Travel Guitar apart and place the separated neck and body in their carry on luggage. To take the guitar apart, simply loosen the single thumbwheel on the top of the neck and remove the StringKeeper™. Wrap the strings around the body through the StringCatcher™, tucking the StringKeeper™ between the middle tuners. Then take off the neck by loosening the four body thumbwheels. Simply reverse the process to assemble the guitar.

While playing and sounding like a full size electric guitar, the Rambler™ portable guitar has a sonic advantage due to the absence of a headstock. The string energy (normally wasted as the vibrations pass over the nut) is channeled back into the neck, providing superior resonance and sustain. Neck relief is adjustable with the dual action truss rod, allowing more or less relief as desired. The Rambler™ Classic has a solid Maple body, in either Tobacco or Cherry Sunburst. To order a Rambler™, please log on to www.StrobelGuitars.com.

Strobel Guitars also offers the Rambler™ Custom Travel Guitar, with choice of tone woods, neck shape, fretboard, inlay initials and a full line of custom colors. Some of the many custom options include gold hardware, quilted AAA maple tops, coil tapping, on board pre-amp, custom inlay, Piezo bridge, etc. You can also check out the new Rambler Custom Bass Travel Guitar at www.StrobelGuitars.com.

The Rambler™ Classic Travel Electric Guitar
Spec Sheet
  • Fits in a computer case for travel
  • Easily breaks down without tools
  • Removable interchangeable neck
  • Full 24 ½” scale length
  • 12” fretboard radius
  • 20 medium jumbo frets
  • Overall length 30”
  • Weight between 4 to 5 lbs.
  • Double action truss rod
  • Adjustable Nut
  • Removable StringKeeper™ for fast assembly
  • StringCatcher™ to protect finish
  • Patented innovative design
  • Dual humbucking pick ups
  • Volume and tone controls
  • Locking tuners
  • Tunomatic bridge
  • Solid Canadian Maple body
  • Tobacco or Cherry Sunburst finish
  • Maple neck with Rosewood fretboard
  • Mother of Pearl dot inlays
  • Expert, proprietary luthier fabrication
Thanks to Russ Strobel for this info.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Yamaha SX 900 B


I don't have much information about this Yamaha SX 900 B - but that it's the 3 single coils version of the SX series and that its shape is brilliant (and there was an Ibanez copy of this model)... Again one of these great Japanese guitars from the early 70s - pre law-suit era - before they started to clone American guitars better than the originals...

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
Ibanez

Thursday, April 7, 2011

1969 Gibson SG with striped refinish

guitarz.blogspot.com:
We seem to have been having a bit of a SG fixation on this blog recently, don't we?

Do you think this refinished striped 1969 Gibson SG outdoes the silver glitter SG that Bertam posted about earlier? This one, again, would probably be best suited to a glam rock band. I have to confess I secretly quite like it. Hey, it's even complete with the Gibson Lyre vibrola.

Via Vince Gotera on our Facebook page.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Custom glam SG


SG time! Sparkling SG! Glam for the people!

One out of 18 SGs by Gibson custom shop in silver sparkling finish, with 3 humbuckers and everything needed to fight the Emperor Ming on planet Mongo!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

1970s Hoyer SG



Yes I'm a little bit obsessed by these vintage German trems lately - that is ironical for someone who has very little use for one when playing guitar (but I still have so much to learn!)

Look at the big chrome trem and rolling saddles bridge of this superb 1970s Hoyer SG in burgundy finish, isn't it he sexiest thing in the world? 

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
guitarz.blogspot.com

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Ibanez Roadstar II from 1984

guitarz.blogspot.com:
MIJ (Made In Japan) Strats from the 1980s have a particularly good reputation. The enthusiast of such guitars could do far worse than this 1984 Ibanez Roadstar II. Whilst not a direct Strat copy, you can't deny the obvious Strat influences. Indeed, some would say that its an improvement on the Strat design. Personally, I find the shape quite pleasing. It is very yellow though and with matching pickup covers - perhaps it's a nice change from the multitude of all-red guitars we have shown on this blog before.

If you're interested in bidding, the auction is up in just over 4 hours as I type this. No-one has bid - as yet - and the starting price is $299 (item location is California), so someone could get a good bargain here. (Let us know if it's you).

Thanks to Oren Clark for pointing this one out to me.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Höfner Telecaster


In the 1960s Höfner made Telecaster one of its unescapable models.

But they didn't just copy the Fender original model, this is their own version, that has everything more or less different: as much as I can see with the angle even the body shape (bigger horn, isn't it?) is slightly modified, as is the headstock, also the rectangular control plate with the jack output, big knobs and flat head switch, the truncated pickguard and of course the pickups that look like nothing I've seen so far...

And on top of that it has one of these extra cool Höfner trems!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Monday, April 4, 2011

1960s Decca Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:
I don't always get around to blogging about guitars I'm watching on eBay before the auction ends. I try my best to feature guitars while the auction is still active just in case some of you guys want to place a bid or hit that Buy It Now, but I'm usually watching so many at any one time and it's not possible to feature everything at once.

Sorry, that's a long-winded way of me saying this auction has already finished. This Decca-branded bass had a starting price of 99c and sold for $261.79. It's a Japanese-made instrument, and the seller claims that:
It is clearly an early product of the Matsumoko (whose Guyatone bass guitars had these pickups as well) and the pre-Kawai owned Teisco guitar factories as it has recognizable parts from each of those plants.
Well, the neck definitely looks Teisco with those inlays along the bass side of the fingerboard. The metal control plate is an interesting shape and incorporates an angled outward output jack (NOT "input jack" - sorry, pet hate of mine) which calls to mind a Strat style output socket mounted upside down and inside out.

The seller believes that the brand ties in with the Decca records label and that this brand of instruments was primarily produced for sale to small record shops. All of which sound highly feasible, but is conjecture.

Does anyone out there remember the Decca brand or know any more about this?

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Got Wood?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I just picked up a Fender Classic Player Baja Telecaster last week and posted on my Facebook page (My first "real" Fender apart from a couple of Squiers and a FR48 resonator). I mentioned that I'd like to see it with a rosewood fingerboard and that got me thinking...

Rosewood vs Maple... hmmmm? What other kinds of woods would be suitable for fingerboards? So I did a little Googling and came up with this interesting snippet from www.axehandle.net
"The most common fingerboard materials are Maple, Rosewood ,and Ebony.
Maple (Acer Saccharum) can be available in different flavors including flamed, quilted, birdseye, and hard maple. A maple fingerboard will brighten the sound of any instrument. It is a very strong and stable wood that can be found on most fender necks.

Brazilian Rosewood (Dalbergia Nigra) is the wood of choice for fingerboards of high-end guitar manufactures. Right now, this beautiful dense wood is the trend but because of CITES making it illegal to harvest living rosewood trees, it is getting harder to find. Brazilian Rosewood will add a warm clear rock + roll like tone to your guitar as well as $$$.

Ebony (Dispyrus Melanoxylon) is by far our favorite choice for fingerboard material. Its sexy black color is perfect for popping the white mother of pearl inlay that will really show off your custom guitar features. This fast feeling fingerboard offers a bright tone with uncompromising sustain!

Some other wood suitable for fingerboards include Bocoto (Cordia Elaeagnoiders), Bubinga (Guibourtia Demeusei), Canary (Centrolobium Ochroxylon), Cocobolo (Dalbergia Retusa), Indian Rosewood (Dalbergia Latifolia), Macassar Ebony (Dispyrus Macassar), and Bloodwood (Brosimum Paraense).

Some of these different species are more pleasant to work with then others. A word of caution: Different people react differently while milling exotic woods. Several of the types of wood mention above are considered somewhat poisonous. They are very oily and during sanding can create vapor-like fumes that will irritate skin and respiratory systems. Please educate yourself and take the proper precautions".
Of all these the only uncommon wood I recognise is Bubinga. I have seen a couple of guitars with eye boggling figured curly (or birdseye) maple fingerboards and I have a Maccaferri with its plastic fingerboard as featured here in 2009.

Are these the only suitable materials or we just a very conservative bunch?

I wonder if any of our readers have come across bizarre or unusual fingerboard materials.

David in Barcelona - A bit snowed under at the moment so aplogies for lack of recent posts.

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Watkins Rapier 33 from 1961

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Further to the previous post, here is one of the latter, more commonly-known, Strat-inspired design of Watkins Rapier, although this one from 1961 is still quite an early model. If you compare and contrast with the Rapier in the previous post you'll notice that they are not really the same guitar at all, they just share a common name. This one is a Watkins Rapier 33 - the 33 denoting three pickups.

G L Wilson

Edit: Sold for £210.

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Watkins Rapier from 1958 - the original model

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Compare this early 1958 Watkins Rapier to the later models and it should become apparent how revolutionary the Stratocaster design must have been at the time, for manufacturers such as Watkins to borrow from its curves in their later designs. This early slab-bodied model Rapier was only made from 1958-1959. Some later examples borrowed the Strat-style headstock shape before the redesign to make the whole guitar's outline more Stratty.

For more about Watkins and associated brands WEM and Wilson, I must direct you to the fantastic Watkins Guitar World website, essential reading for anyone interested in the history of British guitars.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Orfeus thinline


The only thing you can be sure about Bulgarian communist-era Orfeus guitars is that they often look like no other guitars... That's the case with this one, about which I unfortunately know nothing... 

Like many of these east-european guitars, it looks like it was designed by someone who heard a description of an American model (here could be a Rickenbacker) and tried to recreate it in his own way - like when in the Middle-Age people having heard of a rhinoceros envisioned it as an unicorn... For example Orfeus had a model called ДжипсонDjipson - a Bulgarian interpretation of Gibson...

BTW, a Jazzmaster trem looks good on thinline, isn't it?


© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Höfner HE179 Jazzmaster-esque evaluation model

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Now here's a Höfner guitar that I've not seen before. And no wonder, it's what they call an "evaluation model". I think that means "prototype" to you and me.

Here's what the seller has to say about it:
Höfner HE179, Jazzmaster style evaluation model, mint condition, in original carton very rare. In 2003 Höfner designers came up with a jazzmaster styled model in very limited number (apprx 50) which were sent out to specific dealers for evaluation across the World. Perhaps not wishing to go up head to head with Fender on the similarities of the jazzmaster, Höfner decided not to proceed. [...] Maple body, with rich sunburst finish, Grover tuners, stop tailpiece and adjustable tuneomatic bridge, 3 way pickup switch, volume and 2 tone controls, fully bound neck and headstock. Pickups are a pair of stonking Gibson-style humbuckers (which look suspiciously like a set of Lindy Fralin Nickels), fully pole-adjustable, these produce a mighty punch. One of these guitars found its way to Oz last year and fetched over £1000 on Oz Ebay.
So, there you have it. Personally I wouldn't have thought that the body shape would put Höfner "head to head with Fender", as plenty of other manufacturers have borrowed this same body style. I'm also not too keen on the 3+3 headstock design with this body shape; it looks a tad incongruous.

Whatever, it would seem to be quite an individual guitar for the player who doesn't want to have the same axe as everyone else, and the Buy It Now price of £340 seems very reasonable.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Racy Gibson SG GT

So we have to get used to it, Gibson will never create a new guitar any more, the best they can do is to release endless variations of their classics - once brilliant innovations ahead of their time and setting the standards for those who followed.

Unfortunately they are not even good at their current trend and get easily lost in these high-tech gadgets they're busy with lately - the worst being the Firebird X (the non-reverse body is everything but cool, you have to remember that it has been issued first  in 1965 when Gibson was in its worst phase and didn't have the guts to stand for the radical reverse body design of the original Firebird).

OK, enough ranting now, maybe I should have started my post with a more positive tone, like: 'waow, look at this cool and racy SG!' The 2006 limited edition Gibson SG GT is one of the good Gibsons of the last years (for some reason, the SG has been inspirational, I also find the Zoot extremely interesting  (I finally saw one at my local guitar shop but guys were queuing in front to try it). 

Its design (racing stripes and lots of chromes) is inspired by some sport car (I'm French, the only car I can identify is the Citroën 2CV) - this kind of idea had worked too when the Firebird was conceived by car designer Ray Dietrich. I love the big shiny stoptail aerodynamic cover and fitting pickup rings, and amongst the technical improvements, you'll find super hot splitable humbuckers (activated by push-pull knobs), high pass tone filter, locking jack output and dual truss rod.

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Friday, April 1, 2011

Have Fender got something right at last with the Pawn Shop Series?

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Now I'm not normally one for doing a piece on every new guitar released by one of the Big Boys in the Guitar World. I usually let the other guitar blogs cover that kind of thing whilst I continue ploughing through eBay and elsewhere for the weird and wonderful.

But, Wow! Here are some new issue Fender guitars that I'd actually want to buy. These are the Fender Pawn Shop Series dubbed in the marketing blurb as "Guitars that never were, but should have been", instruments with the "look and vibe of a modified vintage guitar and hybrid models that have never existed before".

OK, so these could be considered to be variants on existing models - indeed we on this blog have been very critical of Fender in re-issuing variants of the same guitars, mainly Stratocasters and Telecasters, over and over - but now Fender are being a little bolder with these designs, I believe.

One model which should already look familiar to us is the Fender '51, which is essentially a higher spec'd, bona fide Fender version of the Squier '51. The '51 was so-named because of its looks based on the '51 Precision Bass. I guess that the Fender '72 is likewise named after the 70s version of the same bass reissued and renamed the Telecaster Bass. The Fender '72 takes the '51 template but adds a chambered f-hole body and a neck humbucker. The other model in the series is the Mustang Special which features two Fender humbuckers and a hardtail Strat bridge.

Personally I'd love to get my mitts on a Fender '72 in surf green, which I think looks absolutely fantastic.

Thanks to Bill Cesavice on Facebook for the heads up.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

April Fool?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's a Gibson SG that has been painted in a psychedelic fashion to resemble Eric Clapton's "The Fool" SG that he played back in his Cream days. The original is now in the hands of Todd Rundgren, but along with George Harrison's "Rocky" and Jimi Hendrix's Monterey sacrificial Strat, hand painted replicas of varying levels of artistic competence regularly turn up for sale on eBay.

The example pictured here has a Buy It Now price of $1,199.99. For the Clapton fan who desires such a replica, a cheaper option would be to seek out the John Hornby Skewes Vintage-branded replica which we already looked at in my London Guitar Show 2008 review.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!