Hurricane Model BF-402

guitarz.blogspot.com:

These photos illustrate quite nicely the evil presented by stickers and why they should never be allowed to sully a guitar's appearance. This guitar had its stickers removed after many years and whilst the uncovered finish of the guitar's top had changed to a more golden colour with age, the area beneath the stickers has remained the original colour.

Actually, this is my guitar. I bought it in this condition last week, and despite the above little rant I really am not bothered by its appearance. In a way, it adds character, but more to the point I really don't care because I got an absolute bargain here. It only cost me £20 (OK, call it £30 with post and packing). I don't think anyone else was bidding because of the appearance of the guitar. But, it's a really nice player (much better than my Ovation "thing" with the horrible action and which set me back between £300-£400 a few years back). I can't tell you how pleased I am with this guitar.

But... Has anyone heard of Hurricane guitars? The name sounds familiar, but I can't find out anything much about them. Apparently they made a few of the usual Fender and Gibson solidbody knock-offs. This acoustic was made in Japan - the seller reckoned 1970s but I tend to think 1980s is more likely - and the label inside the soundhole tells us that it's the Model BF-402. It's quite obviously a Martin copy, but its not a top of the range guitar. Witness the simple black binding on the body and total lack of neck binding. The tuners are also of the open-back type, although they function perfectly competently. The Hurricane logo is a quite a simple affair, if you could even call it a logo. It's just the name set in a particular font, and with the individual characters at different heights it looks as if it was designed using LetraSet letters (who remembers LetraSet? They were sheets of transfers that you had to apply to a surface by rubbing and peeling away the backing sheet).

So, anyway, the lesson is keep checking those auctions, and try to see beyond initial appearances.

G L Wilson

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

Yamaha SGV-300 vintage re-issue

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Bertram already posted about the Yamaha SGV-300 last October. Well, I've got my hands on one and have been playing it for the last week and I can thoroughly understand Bertram's enthusiasm in that post. I'd been turned onto Yamaha guitars having investigated and bought the SG-3, and when I saw this yellow beauty on eBay, I knew I had to have it. It's in lovely condition, apart from some bizarre screw holes on the back where - apparently - it had been mounted on a wall in a bar. Which is total sacrilege for a guitar of this quality! I'm so glad someone had the common sense to take it down, because this guitar is definitely a player.

Below we see both my Yamahas:

I know I've been harping on about these babies, but whenever I pick up one of these Yamahas I'm just astounded at how amazingly good it is. They can go from a deep rock'n'roll twang through to a brittle barbed-wire spikiness. The SGV-300 re-issue is from 2000 and combines vintage styling with a more modern feeling neck (with a Gibson-esque 24 3/4" scale), whilst the sunburst Yamaha SG-3 - one of their first electrics from 1966/67 (it's nearly as old as me) has a more Fender-like 25 1/2" scale. Both have very useable vibratos which do not send the guitar out of tune, and both have the same pickups, although the SG-3 has additional Jazzmaster-style controls for added tonal options.

Seriously, guitarists, if you ever get the chance, you need to try one of these! They are not sustain monsters like a Les Paul, but play one of these and you'll start to question if sustain is the be-all and end-all that it is popularly made out to be.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Hohner Hollywood Bass VI / Baritone guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
This post is for Biliby who emailed me waxing lyrical about a Jazzmaster/Strat hybrid guitar he'd found called the Hohner JT-60 - see pics of that one here.

The above-pictured guitar, however, is a custom shop version designed to function as a Bass VI. However, the guitar scale makes the strings a little floppy at the regular bass tuning and so it's more realistic to use it tuned to G. Not quite as low as a bass (c'mon, only three notes out), but lower than most baritone guitars. This was actually my own guitar, but I sold it several years ago when I was having my great guitar clear out. It was quite sad; I needed money to pay the bills, and ended up selling virtually my whole guitar collection. However, I soon built up another collection.

The guitar was manufactured in the Far East, but finished and set-up in Wales in the UK. I believe the guitar is a Trevor Wilkinson design (hey, he gets everywhere) and features Wilkinson pickups and Wilkinson tremolo. The tremolo on the bass was fantastic - twang-tastic, even! I used this guitar on a few recordings in both bass and baritone roles. The string spacing also allowed EBow usage which sounded great. It was a very nice guitar, but not one that got played a whole lot.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Yamaha SG-3 (like Link Wray's guitar but slightly different)

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Did you guess which guitar I bought on my shopping trip yesterday?

Yes, it was the Yamaha SG-3. I confess that sunburst wouldn't have been my first choice of finish, but in real life it really is quite attractive.

I haven't quite worked out what all the controls do just yet. Obviously there's a volume and tone in the usual position, and a 3-way switch sits on the lower horn. The switch on the upper horn appears to turn the Jaguar/Jazzmaster-esque circuitry on and off. I haven't quite worked out what two of the roller controls are doing but the third seems to blend in the additional coil of the third pickup so you can have a single coil or a humbucker sound or a blend between the two. The vibrato again is styled along the lines of those found on Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters and it is a joy to use. (Unlike that hideous useless thing you find on Fender Stratocasters and which very nearly put me off tremolo arms for life.)

This buy was, of course, inspired by the Link Ray video we were looking at on Thursday. I just saw that guitar he was playing and had to track one down. I was extremely lucky to find one the very next day, as I'm told that it's quite a rare guitar. I guess I went to the right shop! Link Wray's Yamaha was in fact the SG-2, virtually the same guitar but with two pickups instead of the SG-3's three. The two guitars also have slightly different shaped pickguards from one another in the area of the upper horn. I imagine that the SG-3 has additional circuitry for the extra pickup.

The headstock is a distinctive shape, which I quite like. The point at the end echoes the pointiness of the body horns.

At the back of the head here we see the Yamaha name stamped on the own-brand tuners.

The guitar has the odd knock or two, but for a vintage guitar it is in supremely good condition. It looks like it was new a couple of years ago and has had just one careful owner! It even gets Elsa's seal of approval (or perhaps she just wanted to get in the photo, poser that she is).

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

70s Musima Eterna

guitarz.blogspot.com

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm proud and delighted to introduce you to my very own Musima Eterna, a guitar I bought a few days ago and received this morning! I've been trying for a while to acquire an East-German vintage guitar, and I finally succeeded, with the best model I could dream of - you may remember that I actually posted here about this guitar last summer.

I'm really not disappointed, and firstly, contrary to things I could read here and there, the sound is pretty cool. I've never played a guitar with 3 single coils (no, I've never played a strat!), so the sound is very new for me. The output is actually too high, and I think that sooner or later I'll slightly modify the electronics (I have no problem with upgrading a vintage guitar, I also already plan to change the tuner heads that are made of cheap plastic) to make it playable on modern amps.

The neck is big and round, but comfortable for me since I've been a classical guitar player and still play a nylon strings guitar, and it's quite good for soulful blues. There are two volume knobs and two rotating switches, I still have to figure how it works but two positions give nice bass sounds. Actually, without effects, the sound is really clear and balanced, when a distortion bring more confusion, but I still have to play it with my regular amp to be sure.

There is one of these huge old school tremolo, but unfortunately I don't have the arm, that looks like a Jaguar one, I think that I can manage to find one. There is a strange device that is probably a mute system, but it's not set and a little bit rusted, i'll have to soak it and the whole bridge in coca-cola (that's how we use it in Europe, also to heal stomac flu) to clean it and see how it really works.

The fretboard inlays are simple and original, and there is a pearloid binding on the neck and headstock. The chrome parts look their age, I intend to clean them intensively and rejuvenate the guitar as much as possible, and to put it on stage very soon!

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Follow-up stories: The DiMarzio "Cellophane" Strat

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Whilst at risk of alienating the anti-Strat contingent out there, today I want to talk about the background to this particular little-known instrument, the DiMarzio Cellophane Strat. It's just a little footnote at the bottom of the history of the Strat, the DiMarzio corporation, and Japanese guitars in general, but it's footnotes like these that I find particularly fascinating.

I originally saw this guitar for sale on eBay in March 2008 and instantly fell in love with it. In the late 1970s/early 1980s, DiMarzio - known for their pickups - branched out into a whole range of guitar parts - not just pickups and hardware but bodies and necks too. You could build a whole guitar exclusively from DiMarzio-branded parts. I remember this well as I used to have one of their catalogues from the period and in my mind's eye I was putting together various combinations of parts to create my dream axe.

The seller of this particular guitar claimed that it was put together from DiMarzio parts as a showpiece for the 1984 NAMM trade show. Unfortunately I have nothing but his word to either confirm or refute this, but it does at least sound plausible.

He also mentioned that the body and neck were made for DiMarzio by Charvel during their now legendary San Dimas era, so as far as I was aware this red Strat was, despite not being a Fender, an American guitar.

The auction finished without anyone bidding on the guitar, and I was so annoyed at myself for not bidding as I could have bought it for the starting price. However, soon after it was re-listed, and this time I made sure to put a bid or two in. However, I was up against a competing bidder this time around, but they didn't put up a fight and I won the auction at a little over the starting price.

When the guitar arrived in May 2008 I was surprised that the deep red colour looked a lot more salmon-pink in real life, although it seemed to change depending on the lighting conditions. It turns out that there are no identifying names or marks on the guitar anywhere, other than the bridge saddles being stamped "DiMarzio".

The body and neck - as you can see - are coated in a see-through red plastic-like finish, this being known as the "cellophane" finish. The grain of the wood beneath is quite clearly visible, despite the vivid colour. I have seen one or two other examples, but these have been "super-Strat" types rather than the traditional Strat-layout. Some guitars just featured the cellophane red neck on non-cellophane bodies, such as played by guitarist Earl Slick (who of course is known for his work with David Bowie). This is understandable, as DiMarzio parts would have beed used in various mix and match combinations. As far as I am aware, they were never sold as completed guitars. (But if you know differently...)

Recently, a guy named Steven Beall contacted me via the comments of this blog. He had this to say:

I have one of these red necks I bought in 1985 and love it. A few years back I heard rumors they were made for Dimarzio by Charvel and did some investigating. I contacted Steve Blutcher at DiMarzio and he said these cellophane necks were made in Japan by a small company called Harayama (now defunct) not Charvel. I would assume that the matching bodies were also made by that company because of the finish.

Charvel did indeed start making bodies for DiMarzio in the late 70s - early 80s to fill a gap in cash flow until Grover Jackson could get his own line of guitars under production but that agreement ended prior to 1984 when the first of these cellophane necks and bodies were made because Charvel was well into the production of its own Charvel brand and had no need or available resources to sub-contract parts manufacturing out to other companies.

Sadly, as I found out too, not only is this guitar not USA made, it's not a Charvel either. I hope this helps clear up any questions.

Far from being disappointed, I think this makes the story even more interesting. I have no problem with this being a Japanese guitar - I'm a big fan of Japanese-made guitars. They are often finely-crafted instruments with top-notch attention to detail. However, I'm not aware of the name Harayama - very possibly this was another factory that built guitars for other brands.

If anyone reading this has any DiMarzio or Harayama-built guitars, with cellophane-finish or otherwise, please get in touch!

G L Wilson

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Unknown bass - any ideas?

guitarz.blogspot.com:
This bass is one that I assembled from parts in 1990 (if I remember correctly). Most of the parts were bought from Brandoni guitars who bought up a lot of old Eko and Vox stock from Italy.

It's a through neck body with multi-laminates as was popular in the 1980s. When I bought the body/neck it was very roughly finished, and hadn't even been routed for the electrics. I sanded it until it was nice and smooth and oil finished it using Ronseal's All In One.

The P and J pickups were selected via a push/pull function on the single volume knob. Unfortunately, this set up didn't let me have the option of both pickups at once. There was no tone control because I don't like them.

I don't recall what the tuners where, but they were good quality and only cost me 50p each because I knew the guy who served me in the music shop!

Anyway, does anyone know what this bass is? I have seen other examples on occasion, but these have looked to have been custom finished instruments too (also bought from Brandoni, perhaps?).

I think it is most likely that it is an Eko, but does anyone know for sure? I'd like to see what the proper finished version of the bass looked like.

By the way, I no longer have this bass. I sold it a few years ago on eBay because I wanted to switch back to playing fretless again.

G L Wilson

NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!

My guitars...

The collection has changed a lot since I last featured an item on my own guitars on this blog. Here is the collection as it currently stands after having sold a few guitars recently (warning BIG pictures):

Fender Japan Blue Flower 70s style Strat circa 1988. Bought approx over one year ago - it had one lady owner previously who had played it once then put it away in its case for years, so it's in mint condition. Not to be confused with the more recent inferior re-issues.

Fender Japan candy apple red 12-string Strat

Feline Holy Panther - built by Feline guitars of Croydon using an original 1970s Fender body. Inspired by Russ Ballard's guitar.

DiMarzio one-off "Red Beauty" built for 1984 NAMM trade show. Read more here.

Sanox Sound Creator plexiglass bodied Strat-type guitar. Made in Japan in the 1970s.

Fernandes Pink Plexiglass Sustainer Guitar. Totally unique. One-off guitar made for the trade shows. VERY heavy. Has far more sustain than other Fernandes guitars I have played.

Ovation Celebrity acoustic. I can't remember the model number off the top of my head. Names are always much easier to remember. Nice sound and the built-in tuner is a god-send, but the action's a little high for my tastes.

Ovation Breadwinner - circa 1976. A true classic - the first truly ergonomically designed guitar - first production guitar with active electronics and 24-fret neck. Note glossy black finish and small scratchplate.

Gibson Flying V Faded Cherry, circa 2004.

Mania Fretless Bass. Bought to replace my Mexican-made Fender Jazz Bass fretless which I never got on with. Thru-neck, lovely woods, lovely sounds... (with roundwound strings, btw. I know a lot of people put flatwounds on a fretless because they are scared of marking the fingerboard but they sound like crap. Use roundwounds and the bass literally sings.)

Short-scale EB0-bass, probably Japanese, early 70s. No, it wasn't me who painted and decorated it. Cheesy-looking but nice sound - particularly from neck pickup.

Kay K45 Travel Guitar. Thru-neck construction, DiMarzio designed pickups, brass hardware. Circa 1980s.

Traveler Pro Series travel guitar. Features magnetic single-coil pickup, piezo pickup under bridge for acoustic sound, plus "stethophones" which pick up sound from internal diaphram under bridge which lets you privately practice totally acoustically. Made in USA.

Yup! It's only got 4 strings. (No - it's NOT a bass). It's a tenor guitar. Very limited edition in Telecaster styling from Soares'y Guitars.

Guitbass. Three-stringed guitar as used by The Presidents of the United States of America. I built this from parts from an old Japanese Strat copy, Epiphone humbucker, plus various other bits and pieces that I had in my box of bits. The three strings are tuned C#, G# and C# (octave higher than the low C#). Looks like sh*t but sounds great.

Yamaha EZ-EG. Not really a guitar at all, but a guitar-shaped synth-controller. Has on-board sounds and can connect to other synths via MIDI. The right-hand has picking "strings" and the left hand has buttons laid out for each of the strings at 12 fret positions, so you can indeed play it like a guitar.

Countryman 6-string banjo. Banjo players would call it a guitar and guitar players would call it a banjo! It's a banjo, but with six strings so that a guitarist can use regular guitar tuning and get a banjo sound. Very loud.

My ukuleles. Greg Bennett baritone ukulele on the left and Mahalo soprano on the right. The soprano is a bit small for my large fingers, but I love playing the baritone.

Yamaha Pacifica. Bought in pieces, refinished and re-assembled my me. The striped "deckchair" look was an experiment with three different colour oil finishes and some tape! It's far from perfect but I quite like it. There is no tone control because I prefer it that way. (OK, truth be told, it fell off when I was removing the electrics from one broken pickguard to a second pickguard, and I couldn't be arsed re-soldering it on, but as I never use passive tone controls anyway this was no big deal). This guitar is actually a really nice player. It intones well and has a nice action. Perhaps it would benefit from some hotter pickups but they would cost me way more than the rest of the guitar. This is the guitar that I keep at my parents' house in Wales and which largely makes the travel guitars redundant. I also have the body and neck of another Pacifica which needs re-building. (An unfinished project - or perhaps that should say an unstarted project?)

Other guitars that I have owned and sold on include:

Vox Standard 25
Vox Clubman II guitar (later converted to fretless)
Westone Thunder I-A fretless bass
Eko Ranger XII 12-string acoustic
Eko mando-guitar
Aria Elecord FET-DLX electro-acoustic
Aria Legend Plexiglass Jazzmaster
Fender Japan Stratocaster pink paisley (circa 1988)
Fender Japan Telecaster pink paisley (early 1980s)
Fender Japan Stratocaster Antigua re-issue
Squier Stagemaster 7-string
Fernandes Revolver Pro with Sustainer
Fernandes Native Pro with Sustainer
Bass built with parts from Brandoni guitars
Sakai EB0-style shortscale bass
Avon EB0-style shortscale bass
Fender Jazz Bass Fretless (Made in Mexico)
Two or three Strat-a-likes self-built from spare parts
Top 20 (Woolworths) guitar complete with vibrato arm
Cheap but nice Telecaster copy
Tele-style guitar self-built from spare parts
Silvertone (Harmony?) Archtop acoustic
Unidentifiable Archtop acoustic
Washburn Idol WI64
Epiphone Les Paul Junior
Teisco MJ2
Danelectro Convertible
Danelectro 56'U2
Danelectro 12+6 doubleneck

...plus a couple of other cheapies that I didn't keep for very long.

Kay K45 travel guitar

This Kay-branded travel guitar, the K45 is currently for sale on eBay, and looks to be a pretty clean example. In the USA this guitar was known as the Austin Hatchet. Built in the early 80s, this guitar features a laminated through-neck construction, and has nut, bridge and fingerboard dot inlays all made of brass. The humbucking pickups are "DiMarzio designed" and the controls include a coil tap. The strap is integral to the design and doubles as a carrying strap when the guitar is cased up.

I own one of these guitars, although mine appears to have been very well used (and abused) over the years (not by me, I hasten to add - it was an eBay purchase last year). It also lacks the case. The construction is incredibly solid; the neck is like a baseball bat with a deep V shape in section. However, it needs some work doing to it. The electrics aren't great and it needs a good set-up. One of these days I'm going to get around to sorting it out properly.

Needs must...

OK, I'm having a bit of a sale right now, because (a) I don't really have the room for so many guitars, and (b) because I need to be able to pay for the latest purchase (more of that later!). So, here we have for sale the following:

• Danelectro '56 U2 circa 1990s with mismatched body and neck
  
• Danelectro 12+6 doubleneck circa 1990s (Was sold but the courier companies made it all but impossible for me to ship to Spain, so I had to issue a refund. I feel a rant coming on! - GLW, 20/02/09)
  
• Fernandes Native Pro with sustainer
  
• Washburn Idol WI-64DL with Buzz Feiten tuning system and VCC tone controls

So, if you like what you see, get bidding! EVERYTHING MUST GO!

(And yes, I did take my guitars out into the snow for a few photos, and no it didn't do them any harm whatsoever.)

Yamaha EZ-EG digital guitar

Here's something that I've been playing about with over this last week. Now I've seen these "guitars" before and had always written them off as being toy-like. However, having read a few reviews and followed some discussions on forums, I decided that I'd like to try one out. Although it was designed as a basic learning instrument (the idea being that the learner can play along to songs with a backing track whilst being guided by chord shapes that light up on the "fretboard"), the fact that it is MIDI-equipped makes it really quite interesting.

I found a seller from Japan on eBay who seemed to be shifting a fair few of these, and the price wasn't too prohibitive, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Last Monday I arrived home to find that it had been delivered - and all without having to pay the expected custom charges (although perhaps I should keep quiet about that).

Getting it out of the box my first impression was of how toy-like it looked. The wooden body is a nice touch, but much of the rest of it is plasticky and flimsy-looking. The wooden portion of the body is only a thin slice sandwiched between two layers of plastic housing parts for the electronics. I mean, look at the back of this instrument, it's hardly neat is it? It would have been so much nicer if all the electronics could have been housed inside a wooden body. It needn't cost that much to produce. Bear in mind that Yamaha also produce the cheap and cheerful (and excellent value-for-money) Pacifica 112 guitars which have solid wood bodies.

The plastic neck also is very insubstantial. When playing the "guitar", I was aware that I was bending the neck when playing certain chords. Again I wonder if the back of the neck couldn't have been made from wood.

Another gripe is that on my model the tremolo arm seems to be totally knackered. Unfortunately this guitar was sold as seen, and even if it wasn't any return postage to Japan would make this a much more expensive experiment.

On plugging in and turning it on I soon found out that the internal speaker beneath the "strings" on the body is absolutely rubbish. Every sound I tried selecting was distorted and quite unlistenable. Oh dear, so far NOT so good.

Next I plugged in headphones. Now, that's better!

Now this "guitar" doesn't actually have any strings as such. It has buttons for each of the fret positions on six strings up to the twelth fret, and for the right hand it has six plastic bars which can be picked, plucked or strummed. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to find my way around using this system. In its favour, it does feel like you are playing a real stringed guitar. The fretboard buttons are shaped as if they are small sections of string, and the right hand "strings" are actually quite responsive. Keying the left-hand string-buttons will start up the relevant note(s) but quietly as if hammering on with the left hand on a real guitar. You need to strike the right hand "strings" to get any real attack to a note.

Obviously with the string-buttons you can't perform string bends so no chance of any expression there, but you are allowed quite a lot of expression with the right hand as those bars seem very responsive. They are certainly responsive in terms of volume, in how hard or softly you play the strings.

I suppose the other way of injecting a bit of expression would be through use of the whammy bar, but that's a no-no on this particular example.

There are twenty on-board sounds. A classical guitar, steel-strung guitar, twelve string, several basses, banjo, etc. Some sounds are better than others (the banjo's quite good), and the bass sounds are better when you drop the whole instrument down an octave using the tuning function. The 12-string sound raised an octave gives quite a nice mandolin sound.

Did I mention that the string-buttons on the "fretboard" light up as you play them?. Although this was conceived as a learning aid and might seem a little cheesy, it's still quite useful because it highlights where you are playing sloppy chords, perhaps where one finger is straying slightly onto a string where it shouldn't, which I'm sure I do quite a lot. So, it discourages sloppy playing, which is surely a good thing.

So things are getting more interesting, but it's still limited in what it can do.

Next I dug out my old Yamaha QY-20 sequencer and connected the guitar with MIDI cables. Now the cables were quite short at only two metres so I made a mental note not to go walkabout while playing. (I doubt I'd ever want to play this in a performance, so no worries about running about the stage and not having a long enoguh MIDI cable).

I used to use the QY20 quite a few years ago when recording songs. I'd spend ages programming it, but rarely entered any tracks in real time as I'm not too familiar with a keyboard layout and also the keyboard on this thing is tiny and made of rubber. How great would it be to be able to use a controller laid out like a guitar fretboard, something that I'm familiar with.

The guitar hadn't come with a manual so there ensued a session of trial and error trying to get the guitar to communicate with the QY-20. For ages it seemed that nothing was working, then I realised that I had a synth sound from the QY-20 on the high E-string.

With just one string working I tried out a few QY-20 sounds. Some worked better than others. Not everything sounds great with the kind of attack you get from plucked strings. I particularly liked some of the more tuned percussion sounds such as vibes and xylophone.

It took me a while to work out how to get all the other strings working. The QY-20 is an 8-track sequencer. What the MIDI was doing was assigning one "string" of the guitar to each of the first six channels of the QY-20. I found it somewhat tedious having to dial in the same sound to each of the six channels just to try out a synth sound across the whole guitar, but I soon realised that this system had its advantages too. For example, I could assign different synth sounds to different strings. This sounded quite interesting with sax sounds where I could put a baritone sax sound on the low E and A, tenor sax on D and G, and alto sax on B and high E.

Another trick was that I was able to pan each string to a different position in the stereo spectrum. Neat!

Now I was beginning to get ideas... But, these are going to have to wait for now as I want to experiment some more. I think the real test will be to record a song using this instrument.

Stay tuned...

And now for something completely different...

After a couple of posts about 12-string guitars (and basses), I'm now going all minimalist on you and am once again featuring my down-tuned three-stringed guitar - or, according to The Presidents of the United States of America - my "guitbass". I built this from parts from an old Japanese Strat copy, plus various other bits and pieces that I had in my box of bits. The three strings are tuned C#, G# and C# (octave higher than the low C#).

Perhaps I should also add that this poor instrument is the one I take out my frustrations upon. It's been dropped and abused and has also survived being set on fire.

If you want to know what it sounds like, then check out this video that I put together this weekend:


I like the idea of minimalist instruments such as this. In a way it's a reaction against these guitars and basses with an ever-increasing numbers of strings just for the sake of it, rather than because a greater number of strings is useful musically or makes for a more playable instrument. It seems there is rivalry amongst some bassists as to who can have the instrument with the most strings. (And I'm talking about individual strings, not strings arranged in courses such as on a twelve-string guitar or the Hamer 12-string bass we looked at yesterday.)

You don't need a 7-string guitar - just listen to what a three-string can do. Sometimes less is more.

Breadwinner Re-issue is Sadly Not To Be

I actually got reasonably excited when I saw this photo tucked away at the bottom of a page over at My Rare Guitars. On the left is a prototype Eastwood Breadwinner guitar alongside an Ovation Breadwinner original. It's not an exact copy - you may want to play "Spot The Difference" and see how many variations between the two you can find (the most obvious being the headstock design, of course).

Apparently Eastwood Guitars were going to gauge the public interest in this re-issue with a view to launching them next year. However, according to the good folks over at The Ovation Fan Club forum, Ovation (or possibly Fender who now own Ovation) have put the kaibosh on this re-issue, wanting to retain the option to re-issue this guitar themselves. This would seem to be a very strange reaction for a manufacturer who have in recent years seemed almost embarrassed by their solid bodied electrics such as this model - which, as any guitar enthusiast worth their salt ought to know, was years ahead of its time. However, I suspect it's Fender who are pulling the strings now. Who knows, perhaps we might see a Squier-branded Breadwinner re-issue!

I said that The Breadwinner was years ahead of its time. Well, to qualify that statement let me tell you that for starters it's an ergonomic beauty, and was in turn the inspiration behind that most celebrated of ergonomic guitars, the Klein. Standing or sitting, the guitar balances just right and is an extremely comfortable guitar to play. Manufactured in the early to mid 1970s by Ovation in New Hartford, Connecticut, the Breadwinner and its more upmarket sister, the Deacon, were among the first production guitars to feature active electronics, having an onboard FET preamp, and were also one of the earliest production guitars to have a 24-fret neck.

I had been coveting one of these beasties for quite a few years, when in September 2006 I got really lucky when I found a listing by a German seller on eBay that none of the rabid Ovation collectors seemed to have noticed. (I think they must have been searching eBay listings in the USA only. They're probably wise to this oversight by now.)

I picked up my black Breadwinner (pictured left) for absolute peanuts compared with what these guitars will often fetch. It's one of the models circa 1976 with the smaller-sized pickguard and a smooth finish (many had a bizarre textured finish). Sadly it was lacking a case, but I have found that it fits quite nicely into my Flying V's gigbag.

Having said that, it's swings and roundabouts when it comes to getting lucky on eBay. When bidding on a 12-string Ovation Deacon I lost out to another bidder in the final five seconds of the auction, and for a price just a few quid over what I had bid. As you can imagine, there was much cussing when that happened.

But, yeah, I love these guitars.

Even if they don't sit too nicely on a guitar stand!

It's that red Strat again... or is it?

Just to show that I put my money where my mouth is, after enthusing about this American-made Strat type guitar allegedly made from DiMarzio parts for the 1984 NAMM show, I did actually go ahead and buy it.

However, the colour was a surprise. In my previous post about this guitar back in March, I dubbed it the "red beauty", and indeed in the photos it did look very red.

I feel the picture I have included here to the left here gives a better representation of the colour, although I still can't decide what colour it actually is as it seems to change in different lighting conditions. Sometimes it looks orange, sometimes salmon pink, other times - usually in dim or artificial light - it does look red. Actually, it looks almost fluorescent. I wonder if this was the only brightly coloured guitar on the DiMarzio stand at the 1984 NAMM show? Perhaps there were fluorescent green and fluorescent yellow sisters to this guitar. I'd love to know.

Despite the all-pervading colour on this guitar - not just the body but the whole of the neck and the fingerboard - the finish is actually see-through and you can see the wood grain beneath quite nicely. The body appears to be a 3-piece affair.

The seller had mentioned "Charvel San Dimas era", so I'd like to do a little research and find out if Charvel ever built guitar bodies and necks for the DiMarzio brand.

Given its age, the guitar is in very good nick. With only a quick glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was built recently, although a closer inspection reveals one or two minor knocks and dints. This guitar doesn't appear to have been played very much at all, which is unusual seeing that it's 24 years old. You may be able to make out in the photo an area where the finish has worn away on the headstock, and also the pink has worn away on the pink-coloured machine heads.

What is the sound like? Well, very authentic Fender Strat, I'd say, although I've not yet been able to test her at volume.

Did I really need another Strat? (This is my 5th). Well, no I didn't, but something about this guitar really appealed to me and I just had to add it to the collection.

UPDATE: I think I'm on the right track. According to the USA Charvels website, "...in 1978 Grover Jackson put a deal together with DiMarzio which allowed Charvel Manufacturing to make guitar and bass bodies for DiMarzio."

Futhermore, sandimascharvel.com tells us that Charvel's "Strat necks are most commonly oiled...", but goes on to add that "Some are 100% lacquered or painted to match the body."

Happy Birthday to the Flying V

Wow! It's fifty years since Gibson Guitars launched this radical design upon the world, and it's still one of the freshest and most instantly recognisable designs in the guitar universe.

I've read that it was originally designed as a triangular guitar - like a large Russian balalaika - but the shape was thought to be too unwieldy, so a section was cut out of the base of the triangle thus forming the fins of the now legendary Flying V shape.

Granted, it's not a guitar that's really suited to playing whilst seated (although this is possible if you position the lower wing between your legs and hold the guitar in a classical guitar-playing pose), but it's certainly a great-sounding guitar that's bound to get you noticed.

For many years it was a guitar that I loathed (I thought Accept had the right idea with their Restless & Wild album cover), mainly because it was such a popular choice of axe for many a dodgy metal band. It took the likes of Marc Bolan, Jimi Hendrix, and Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals to convince me that it was quite a cool guitar after all.

See also: Gibson Guitar Celebrates 50 Years of the Flying V from Modern Guitars Magazine.

(Pictured left: my own faded cherry Gibson Flying V).

Look what I've just got my paws on...

It's an original 1988/89 Made in Japan Blue Flower Fender Strat, not one of the inferior recent reissues (nasty scratchplate and small headstock on those), and what's more - it's absolutely pristine! There's not a scratch on her. One lady owner, low mileage, etc.

Long-term blog readers will know that I used to have a pair of Paisley Pink Fenders from this same period - a Telecaster and a Stratocaster (pictured here on the right) - and I had to sell them as I needed the money quite urgently at the time. I've always regretted that sale, but this Blue Flower baby makes up for some of that. Wow! What a find!

Yamaha Pacifica 112 Guitar Project, Part 4

I thought it was high time I blew the cobwebs off this long-forgotten guitar project from a few years ago. The damn thing just needed assembling and wiring up and in theory it should be ready to go. However, I had a small mishap when I dropped the replacement loaded scratchplate and broke off the lower horn. Fortunately, I still had the original guitar scratchplate, so I transferred the pickups, 5-way switch and volume pot to this plate. ("What about the tone pot?", I hear you cry. Well, somewhere along the way over the last couple of years it had detached itself, and I'd lost it. Then I decided that I didn't really want it anyway as I never use tone controls, so I figured I'd just leave it as it is).

As a plus point, I noticed that the original scratcplate had faded over the years to a pleasing deep cream colour. You can see the orignal colour in the area previously covered up by the now missing tone control.

So, I put all the parts together, soldered the output wires to a jack socket and attached this to the edge of the guitar using a football-shaped (American football) plate. Then I strung her up.

Uh-oh! The string tension was tipping the tremolo bridge up at an alarming angle. Quick - add more springs!

Now that was a good idea! As has often been said of Strat-style guitars, the springs in the tremolo cavity give the guitar a kind of built-in reverb. It turns out that this guitar now has a really nice tone. It has this ringing reasonance to it that is lacking in many other much more expensive guitars, and this was built up from bits and pieces that I'd bought from eBay! I've got to say that I'm really happy with this guitar and am surprised that it turned out to be so playable.

No doubt the guys over at the forum on GuitarSite.com would happily nominate this guitar as a candidate to their on-going Worst Colour/Finish/Detail on a guitar thread, but Hey! - it was an experiment, and I secretly quite like the "deckchair" stripes. They make the guitar individual and add to its personality. Perhaps if I was starting this project anew, I wouldn't go down the stripey route again; I'd probably experiment with some other unique look and it could end up looking even more disasterous!

Fender Stratocaster XII

Here's another new toy. I've had it for two weeks now. I decided that I needed a dedicated 12-string electric. My only 12-string was one half of my Danelectro doubleneck, and I was finding it too cumbersome. If I ever fancied playing 12-string, then the doubleneck was too much of a pain to play for extended periods of time. I suppose it's a stage guitar really, rather than one for playing around the house or for recording.

This Stratocaster XII, however, is the business. The neck is actually thinner at the nut by a whole millimetre than that of an American Standard Strat. It wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but for me this means it's an ultra-playable twelver. The extra-wide necks on 12-strings was one thing that always put me off. I did consider a Rickenbacker as an alternative, by the way; I've played Ricky XIIs in the past and they play fantastically (although personally I'm not too fond of the design), but the Stratocaster XII was more suited to my budget.

If you look at Fender's website you'll see that this model is only offered in three finishes: sunburst, lake placid blue, and Burgundy Mist Metallic. However, mine, as you can see in the picture, is Candy Apple Red. A quick check of the serial number (Q + 7 digits) reveals this guitar was made by Fender Japan between 2002 and 2004, so it could be a discontinued colour or else a Fender Japan guitar not intended for export.

So... Does anyone want to buy a Danelectro doubleneck? Seriously. I'm looking for £300 GBP for it.

Soares'y electric tenor guitar

Here's an eBay purchase from earlier in the year.

As older readers will know I am quite interested in guitars with reduced numbers of strings, and am a fan of the baritone ukulele which is tuned the same as the first four strings on the guitar.

I was intrigued to try out a similar electric instrument, and I got a good deal on this Soares'y tenor guitar. However, I found the sound to be too bright for the usual DGBE tuning, so have been experimenting with open tunings on it and also trying to teach myself a little slide.

Soares'y Guitars website

My latest guitar - Ovation Breadwinner

I've been after one of these vintage 1970s solid-body Ovations for a while now, and I finally tracked this beauty down for quite a nice price.

It was sold to me as being an Ovation Deacon but I'm not quite sure. The Deacon was the "posher" version of the Breadwinner and generally had a natural finish, bound fingerboard and "double diamond" inlays on the fingerboard.

Now, whilst my guitar (pictured above) has the smaller scratchplate that adorned most Deacons, it doesn't have the bound fingerboard, diamond inlays, and is a solid black in colour.

My inclination is that it's a Breadwinner with the smaller scratchplate, but I'm not 100% on this.

Any Ovation fans out there? Does anyone have any more info for me?

Link: The Ovation Breadwinner Fanpage

UPDATE: OK... the guys over at The Ovation Fan Club are pretty insistent that it is a Breadwinner, albeit a bit of an unusual one. It looks like they may have mixed and matched parts at the factory. (1 Oct 2006)