Help on a new tokai strat

[DrJzT]

Hi guys and gals

I've just recently purchased a tokai strat from ebay. I currently own a Tokai ES130 in tobacco sunburst purchased brand new from richtone last year. Well that guitar impressed me soo much, I decided to buy another

I had a strat body for about a year, and toyed with the idea of building my own guitar from scratch. But after costing it out, financially it just didnt make sense. I was very nearly going to buy a Fender highway one. But the cheapest uk price was ?440. So i opted for another Tokai )

I think ive identified the guitar in question from using the fine tools on this forum. I think it may be a AST62 for the US market built around 1985. I did a fair bit of searching on this website to try and find the ebay listing but no joy I just hope i havent bought a dud

The guitar acoustically sounds very resonant, which for me is 90% of the battle. It certainly sounds very straty through my blues deluxe :lol:

My only concern is, the seller certainly seems very genuine, its just the condition of the guitar is very very good for its age. And the pickups and hardware dont seem to have aged at all! Which is my only gripe with it. You know too good to be true etc?

At the end of the day, im happy with it, its certainly cheaper than a US strat. It has a comfortable C profile neck (ive no idea how people can play with V profiles. but hey ho, another mans meat and all that). And its almost the same as my first electric (a lovely jap squier i sold many moons ago, i was into heavy metal at the time and well the guitar wasnt). I just need to set it up with some man strings (11s) and maybe change the pickups. I was just after a second opinion really [/img]http://www.flickr.com/photos/48441708@N08/sets/72157623490315273/

 

[DaveWW]

Link to your pic's added

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48441708@N08/sets/72157623490315273/

Looks to be what the seller says it is and looks geniune to me - but I'm no expert on these. I think we could do with some better pic's to be sure.

 

[DrJzT]

Hi

thanks for the info, its a one piece scratchplate. The guitar has "made in japan stamped on the base of the neck". No serial number on the neck plate. But then again from what i've read on this forum Tokai didnt put serial numbers on the goldstars for around 85.

Dont really want to take the pick guard off yet, im not sure of the gauge of the strings fitted. I think they may be 9's. When I get around to getting the guitar set up, ill take some more photos )

Ive read up on a few of the guitars i was going to bid on. And releaved that i didnt bid on them ) One was the red tokai strat (still listed). And the other which appears to be genuine was the sea foam green guitar. Which I didnt bid on (wasnt sold on the colour).

 

[DrJzT]

Hi

Ive added some more photos of the guitar, underneath the scratchplate, the made in the japan stamp and a close up the headstock.

hope this helps

 

[Anonymous]

Please add your location to your profile. :roll:

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=13896

It is vital information to ID stuff, & it saves us digging around in your post to work out that you're in the UK - at least I assume you are?

It looks to me like one of the later Goldstars - it certainly isn't from 1985. The 80s ones had serial numbers, the later ones, after the headstock shape was changed, often didn't. I don't think we've ever established for sure when the UK market got the modified headstock, but I don't think it was before the 90s, & yours may even be later than that.

Unless anyone else knows more, it's very hard to put any kind of date on guitars like that except to say it's not from the 1980s. Some clearer pics of the controls & pickups would be interesting, but I'm not sure they will help us to pin down it's year of origin though. It's as if Tokai didn't want us to know...

Mike

 

[DrJzT]

Hi

thanks for the information, I have to admit the guitar is in very good condition. Which is what made me dubious about it being from 1985. To be honest, my major concern was whether or not it was a genuine Japanese tokai. Thankfully from what i can make out it is.

Im not too worried about resell value or anything. I just didnt even know about the fakai thing, until i started reading on the forum about them. Luckily i didnt buy the red tokai which the dodgy body which was on ebay a while back in Glasgow. The general opinion on that one was to avoid

The electronics dont seem to give any other indications, the tone and volume pots have "made in japan" stamped on them. The pickups are all non descript units with identical pole piece heights. Im considering chaning the pickups at some point, are the non descript japanese units any good though?.

 

[Anonymous]

The pickups are all non descript units with identical pole piece heights. Im considering chaning the pickups at some point, are the non descript japanese units any good though?.

It's hard to say without seeing clear pics of them, but I would be surprised if you can't get something better. But that largely depends on what you want from them.

 

[mirrorboy]

I think that's from after 2000. I certainly remember those in the shops in 2002 and the list price was about ?300. They were marketed to compete with the Mexican Fender strats which retailed for about ?400 back then. Ten years ago, Fender in the UK were distributed by Dallas Arbiter who were notoriously difficult to deal with and Tokai strats were available (in small numbers) to take advantage of the demand for strattiness.

I'm sure you've got a good Tokai there.

The Tokai is far superior for the fact that they have less pieces of wood in the body. Ten years ago, the Mexican Fenders were well known for their "butcher's block bodies" composed of multiple strips of wood.

One more thing, don't automatically fall into the assumption that the original pickups are compromising the sound of the instrument. If you do swap out the pickups, keep the original ones.

 

[DrJzT]

Thanks guys, have to admit its surprising the "big" names dont keep up with the quality control. I've no doubts about the quality of the guitar. Basically I was going to build my own bits a part strat. But that wasnt really financially viable.

Ill try and take some more photos of the pickups when i get chance Yeah i have no intention of throwing out or selling the pickups. Im not really sure what kind of sound im after with the strat. For the last ten years i've been a humbucker man. One thing i really dont want to do, is fall into the SRV clone squadron. As much as i like SRV's sound, whats the point to an extent? Im far more interested in trying to create my own.
Although playing the guitar through a tubescreamer into the fender amp was pretty addictive ) I can see why soo many people do it! My main guitar is a Tokai ES130, I basically bought the strat do very subtle tremolo wobbles although

Some of my favourite strat players are, Wayne Krantz, Peter Green (well anything greeny plays on haha), Mark Knopfler, Rory Gallagher, Scott Henderson and that kind of Tarantino surf guitar sound. I was thinking about a set of Tonerider vintage pickups failing that some Kent Armstrongs. I really begrudge paying ?60 per pickup! Same as the Gibson thing, half of the mark up is to pay for endorsements etc. Although if i feel flush could splurge on something like Bareknuckles ha ha

Im not too fussed about sounding like sounding like anyone in particular, i genuinely believe that comes from the fingers. But figuring out what kind of gear somebody uses gets you closer to the sound your chasing after in your head! One guy I've really got into to lately is Oz Noy, if you havent heard him give him a whirl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wm1agzISrQ&feature=PlayList&p=AC813CB9E960FE61&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=12

 

[JohnA]

I think the standard Tokai pickups wil be as good as Toneriders or Kent Armstrongs, to get anything 'better' you really do need to cough up some serious money!

 

[mirrorboy]

I think the standard Tokai pickups wil be as good as Toneriders or Kent Armstrongs, to get anything 'better' you really do need to cough up some serious money!

Money is often best spent on better amplification.

 

[marcusnieman]

I think the standard Tokai pickups wil be as good as Toneriders or Kent Armstrongs, to get anything 'better' you really do need to cough up some serious money!

Money is often best spent on better amplification.

Good point.... great pickups thru a sh*tty amp still sound sh*tty

 

[JohnA]

I think the standard Tokai pickups wil be as good as Toneriders or Kent Armstrongs, to get anything 'better' you really do need to cough up some serious money!

Money is often best spent on better amplification.

Mine would be better spent on guitar lessons :wink:

 

[DrJzT]

thanks again guys. Im not really looking to change my amp at the moment. Up until a year ago i had a big marshall tsl combo with 2x12 cab linked up to a huge pedal board (nicknamed the mother board). When the massive board decided not to work at a gigone night, it was time to take stock of the situation. I'm not really a rock guitar guy, so playing through a marshall with loads of knobs wasn't my thing.

I then downsized to a 1x12 40w Fender valve blues deluxe combo. Which sounds a thousand times better than the marshall did. I've still kept a few pedals (Crybaby, EB Vol, Boss Ph1-r, Wampler Ectasy drive, TS9, Boss comp, Q tron, A green ringer clone, a echo park, tuner and lastly a noise gate) It may seem like a lot, but believe me its at least half the size it used to be!!
All connected with planet waves pedal board kit. Basically the marshall i think from memory had something like 22 knobs, 9 switches and lots of other features i thought i'd need/use.

The fender has about 8 knobs, i might change the speaker and tubes and get an extension cabinet. But i cant see anything drastic to the set up. Havent really got funds to swap or buy another amp at the moment. Plus the fender was easily the best amp in my budget. I tried out the line 6 spider thing, which was too complex, the peavey valve king series (really didnt rate it at all sounded cheap), a fender hot rod (very thin). A twin would have been way too powerful for my needs.
For now the Fender sounds lovely with the ES130 and the Wampler gives me pretty much the sound ive been chasing

With the Tokai strat guitar, i think ill keep my eye out for some decent cheap pickups. I've seen some very nice stuff on ebay go for not a lot of money lately. A 1x12 birch tweed covered ext cab, with i think an avatar speaker in which cost over ?300 to make, that sold for ?97. You can grab some real bargains!

 

[Anonymous]

I then downsized to a 1x12 40w Fender valve blues deluxe combo. Which sounds a thousand times better than the marshall did.

Are you reading this John? Yeah the BD is a great choice, sensible size & power output, & one of the best all round amps in it's class. I've had mine since 1993.

 

[JohnA]

I then downsized to a 1x12 40w Fender valve blues deluxe combo. Which sounds a thousand times better than the marshall did.

Are you reading this John? Yeah the BD is a great choice, sensible size & power output, & one of the best all round amps in it's class. I've had mine since 1993.

There's Marshalls and Marshalls :wink:

 

[colinhotrod]

Go try out the clean channel on a JVM, awesome tones

 

[JohnA]

Go try out the clean channel on a JVM, awesome tones

Or a JTM-45 which addmitedy is based on a Fender Bassman but still has a sound of it's own. It's horses for courses though, and there are styles of music that will always sound better (more authentic) with a little combo with a spring reverb. Not many though, 99% of the time a Marshall is better :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Guys, the man has a Fender & he likes it. Why are you trying to get him to buy a Marshall?

:roll:

 

[JohnA]

Guys, the man has a Fender & he likes it. Why are you trying to get him to buy a Marshall?

:roll:

You started it