Got my LS80F from Guitar Universe...

Hi guys,

Finally, my LS80F in violin burst has arrived in Singapore (first Tokai to land on the Garden City?!) today! I went over to the post office to pay custom tax and picked up the parcel. First impression, upon lifting the box was how light the whole guitar was! I was expecting a really heavy guitar knowing how Les Pauls are notorious for the weight. What treated me when I opened the box, was a really funky looking les paul case with an almost tye-die finish. Almost looks like those tye-die Grosh's Retro Classic.

Excitedly, I opened up the case and crossed my fingers hoping for no shipping damage! Thank God what greeted me was an amazing looking les paul with very tight chervon flame (laminated sycamore under a rock maple top). The guitar was detuned when I got it, but a simple strum revealed an acoustically loud guitar. Hardware looks sturdy (all Gotoh), and no orange-peel of any sort anywhere on the guitar. Nice grained mahogany back. Even though it's two-piece back it was nicely book-matched.

It came with a Guitar Universe guitar cloth, a guitar cable, a trussrod wrench, a warranty card and nothing else. I plugged it into my Tech21 TradeMark 10 and played it both overdriven and clean. Overdriven tone is definitely les paul... first impression was the pickups are really hot. I would need to play with it more over the weekend and give a proper tone report another day. I will probably give these Gotoh pickups a chance before I change them to either Duncan or Tom Holmes.

This guitar only cost me around USD800 incl. shipping. I wish it would have genuinue mother-of pearl inlay and a bone nut (it's plastic but quite well-cut), but for the price I paid I think I can live with it for the time being. Sure, the attention to details definitely is lacking compared to my Grosh and McInturff but it's not a hand-made guitar! A 2002 Les Paul would have cost me around USD1,900 with shipping but I am happy with a Les Paul replica for the time being. Oh! it even came with the maple exposing underneath the binding on the cutaway much like a real burst. Of course, this is not a real Les Paul but for the price I paid, I think it beats any Korean made Epiphone or even the Santana SE.

Just to highlight some details on the guitar:

Nice binding with no visible excess glue filler
The plastic pearl inlays were nicely laid over the rosewood board
The rosewood board looks nicely grained and brownish in color. Not dry like some I saw on a real Gibson
The plastic nut is quite nicely cut but it would have been better. I might change it to a bone nut sometime in the future.
The action is set up pretty low and no fret buzz anywhere on the guitar
All the tone and volume pots work perfectly. No scratchy noise at all. The control cavity is also neatly assembled


Anyway, will give you guys a more detailed report in the future. I better stop here and go play my favorite Peter Green's tune! Better shut up and play my guitar now!

Please check out the pics if you've not seen it yet.

http://www.angelfire.com/ar/davetang/tokai.html

Congrats! It's definitely a good buy for that amount of money. I'm a Singaporean too lurking in the forum :lol:

And no, I haven't yet owned a Tokai, lost out narrowly on eBay on a 1977 Love Rock Reborn. But I got a Greco '78 LP Standard at quite a steal. The thing about these guitars were that they were definitely close to a LP Standard. If you got the money, you can splurge it on the Dead Mint Club, buying all the '59 LP reproductions including the Dumble Bee capacitors. It'll be too **** rocking!

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Hey Mr. LB

Just remembered that Seymour Duncan offers a Peter Green mod and sells them in his custom shop ($$$$ ). I think the magnets are switched somehow so that the polarity is reversed, giving it that nasal, crying tone he had. SD even sells sets now, although he's been modding them on a custom basis for years. Sorry if I've launched another GAS attack

Here's the site:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/products/customshop.shtml

steve

"I'm going downhill- but I blame myself"

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eh? hang on?

Isn't the 'real' PG mod just to take out the pup and turn it round as in the LP which Garry Moore still owns ?

Doesn't require a new pick up and doesn't cost anything

GB

No GB, just turning the pickup around makes no difference. Its about the relationship between the magnet and the coil windings. Like Barry says you can flip the magnet in one pickup or wire the pickups out off phase. I did the magnet flip on my 81 Love Rock and it sounded spot on. Just lift one of the pickups (doesn't matter which), unscrew the base plate a little bit, gently push the magnet out and flip it over. The benefit of doing it this way is that you don't even have to unwire the pickup, although I agree it would be good to have it as switchable. And of course you can put the pickup back in the other way around if you like the PG look as well as the sound....
Incidently I've been listening to Fleetwood Mac's Shrine 69 live album and on that PG is definitly using a wah and setting it in different positions to get funky nasal tones.

And considering only one pickup needs the magnet flip SD selling high priced sets of custom shop PG pickups is a bit cheeky! Why not just offer a choice of polarities on there regular pups? Oh well, thats the Green Manalishi for you..... :wink:

null

Been busy at work to logon to this site. Anyway, thanks for the congrats guys! I really feel great to own such a nice instrument!

Just a few questions:

Have you guys change the strap button to straplock? If so, which one (Dunlop or Schaller) and is there a need to drill a bigger hole?

Do you guys use guitar polish on the finish? Both my other two guitars are nitro so I've been using the Dr. Krysler's guitar polish for that. Used to have a Martin polish but that has gone missing after I came back to Singapore.

I've noticed that my neck pickup was basically sitting below the pickup ring, so I raised the pickup higher to be parallel. How do you find the tone on those Gotoh pickups?

How do you find the existing tune-o-matic? Have you changed it to something else and what brand and why?

What about the tone and vol. pot? Have any of you change them to CTS? If so, what's the part no.?

I am just curious... any comments would be great! Thanks.

Lastly, Sandking! Nice to see someone from Singapore too! Where did you get your Greco? Would love to meet up and compare it against the Tokai.
Dave

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I've got a phase reverse switch on my LR though I haven't really experimented with it yet. Sounds very PG from my brief fiddlings though :wink:

QT - I've got schaller locks, the easiest mod in the world and probably the best investment, no drilling or filling needed. Plus you feel very cool every time you click them on. I am the Ultimate Badass!

I use the Gibson spray polish - it's fantastic stuff and specifically designed for nitro. Even has nitro as one of its ingredients.

The neck pickup looks low because of the unusually high 50's style pickup rings. Try matching the volume levels of each pickup by raising or lowering them but be careful not to raise them too high or you'll have tuning/intonation trouble. A lot of ppl like the bridge to be slightly hotter than the neck. Don't forget to get each string to be the same volume by adjusting the relative heights of each side of the p'up.

There was a problem with my TOM bridge, the saddles were all on the same level and as a result the middle strings were too low. When I had it set up the tech filed down the outer saddles and raised the bridge - problem solved. There was also a buzzing sound from the TOM due to the washers vibrating when a string was plucked (not a problem on retaining wire models). I have a thread on this board somewhere on how to cure it.

Schaller on mine too.

One more question guys... Did you send me your warranty card that's written in Japanese? How long is the warranty anyway?

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Hey Greg,

The guitar looks a lot yellower than the actual one. When I asked Yoshi for the only guitar he has available, he showed me another one which look really yellow and hardly any flame on it, so I was not impressed and through a few email correspondance later, he told me that there's another one. When I saw it, I knew I just have to get this one. I will try to post some more pictures when I borrow the digital cam from my brother-in-law. The real thing looks so much more volin in color! I will post some pics and you guys can see the contrast.

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