Case candy and an early ST-60 Tokai

"This is the exact replica of the good old strat"

With rare tag

I had to go have a look on some of the Tokai and MIJ guitar forums to see exactly what this one is about. It is an early 1978 Tokai ST-60 in the sub-600 serial range. These early Springy Sounds had a slightly narrower neck plate and also pre-date the use of the "E" stamped grey bobbin pickups.

I was able to confirm that indeed that the pickups were original; the solder is virgin and I had never seen the particular brass grounding plate that Tokai used on these guitars. 

It is a typical ST-60 with a centre-matched SEN body and one-piece maple neck with a nice thin poly finish. These really look to me like fresh nitro with the thin layer or poly letting the grain of the SEN come through.

It came with a rare "Springy Sound ST Series" hangtag that is actually a sticker. Nice to see one of these, I don't recall seeing them before so perhaps it was something from the early days.

Currently available in my Reverb store (click link below). Direct messages welcome as well!

Original "Type A" pickups

Stamped "ST-60" and a reverse ink transfer of the S/N stamped on the neck

Tokai assembly with pickup grounds soldered to the baseplate

DRY-Z Part 3: From the blog of Jun Takano

Sorry, finishing this translation of Jun Takano's blog posts on DRY-Z development slipped my mind. Better late than never!

Part 3 of the blog entry of Jun Takano regarding the "Z-DRY" development. Translated from the original Japanese.

Part 2 here.

Part 1 here.

The factory cost of the pickups we had developed up to that point was higher than the popular imported Dimarzio pickup of the time and it didn't make any sense to put them in the lower-priced guitar models so they were used only on the high-priced models.

Many guitars that had the pickups installed were passed to foreign artists. Among them were some people like Andy Latimer who didn't want a guitar but only wanted to have the pickups.  

Of course, I was still not 100% satisfied with what we had accomplished up to that time. I wanted to improve the specifications but I was unable to successfully negotiate this with the factory side and so the road for being able to suggest further improvements became closed.

I was able to improve the bobbins at the time of the Mint Collection ramp-up but that was the end.

Some time after the new bobbin was introduced the specifications were changed for the worse. The stock of wire ran out and they switched to plain urethane wire but I never had any report of this.

After that rich tone was completely lost, it never came back.

From http://ameblo.jp/ktguitarresearch/entry-10475069153.html

Crews KTR Limited K&T NFS Bridge Pickup Demo

I forgot about this short recording I made a couple of years ago of the K&T (link to website here)NFS bridge pickup of this Crews KTR Limited. Not a great recording or terribly good playing, but I think the pickup character comes through regardless.

Dry-Z : From the blog of Jun Takano Part 2

Part 2 of the blog entry of Jun Takano regarding the "Z-DRY" development. Translated from the original Japanese.


At the time I had a pretty close relationship with a music promoter who also played guitar and consulted me regarding foreign musicians' guitars and gear more than a few times.

Or course, whenever he had problems with equipment of foreign musicians (such as needing emergency repairs) I would always deal with it on an emergency basis so I had come to the point where I had gained his strong trust.

So, when I showed him the guitar with the prototype pickups he told me that he wanted to borrow it so he could show it to some foreign musicians.

There was no particular plan to put the guitar for sale on the market so I agreed and left the guitar in his hands.....

After a few days had passed word came from my friend that he had shown the guitar to Don Felder (Eagles) who really liked the sound and wanted to have one himself.

After that we sent out a newly built guitar with a set of pickups installed. We were both pretty happy to have the pickup get some recognition.

However, there was still some way to go yet. While it was close to the essence of the sound that I was aiming at, there was still a substantial gap to overcome.

On the occasion of the next business trip to Matsumoto I had another meeting with the previously-mentioned Ushimaru-san.

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Photo of a winding machine from 1981 Greco Catalog: "The R&D Department; continually developing and building prototypes. The passionate pursuit of sound using the know-how accumulated over the years has given birth to pickups like "DRY", "Screamin'", "The Groove" and "Baby Gang."

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Ushimaru-san firmly grasped the sound I wanted and we resolved to change the specifications of the magnet.

Around that time I was personally pretty well connected with the music business. There was a very big name in the music business (who everyone probably would still know today) who was a busy producer and studio musician so I passed one of the guitars to him.

A few days later he let me know that he was really satisfied with the guitar. At the time he was playing on a prime-time TV show and had ended up using the guitar all the way through the whole show.

Another proposal came from Ushimaru-san. 

There was a small amount of US-made wire that was a sample (for prototyping).  Right away we went to making a third prototype......

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Winder picture from the 1981 Greco catalog: "There is a dedicated prototyping production line in the Greco R&D Department.  With all the machines needed ranging from those for prototyping bodies to the coil winders for numerous coil and pickup combinations,  refinement of sound goes on until it it is completely acceptable."

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The result came out to be extremely close to what I wanted. 

Santana ended up trying it out and wanted a set so a few days later I sent them off.

Up to that time the pickup had more recognition by foreign musicians than within Fujigen itself and more and more foreign guitarists gave good feedback.

At a planning meeting it was decided to put the pickup into production.  It was now time to name the pickup as a crystallization of the efforts we had made. I really didn't like the inorganic names like U-3000 and PU-2 that had been used up to that time. Respecting that "the name should demonstrate the voice" it was given the name of "DRY" to most closely match the tone. This was way before Asahi Beer did it mind you!

Part three to follow.

Dry-Z : From the blog of Jun Takano

There is a lot of speculation on what makes a DRY-Z sound like it does. Nobody really seems to know what that is except perhaps the persons who designed it way back in 1979. 

Jun Takano (高野順)was one of those people and is well-known today as a boutique winder for K&T pickups.

Jun Takano from http://www.musicland.co.jp/content/ktr/img/about/takano.png

Fortunately, he wrote a few pages about the development of the DRY-Z. There are unfortunately no secret recipes revealed. The following is translated from the original 2010 Japanese language blog entry of Jun Takano.

Z-DRY
It's been already 30 years since the birth of that humbucker. It is pretty well known that I had a close relationship with Greco at the time and is not a secret so I am going to tell it like it happened. 

At the time Greco guitars were made by Fujigen Gakki, now known as FUJIGEN. I was making regular business trips to Matsumoto for development and improvement as a non-regular employee.

I was younger and had a lot more stamina back then.:-)

The person who best understood my demands and offered his collaboration, while also matching my arrogance and self-centeredness, and with all the respect due to him as a top engineer, was the "hard-working genius" Ushimaru-san.

More than being limited to woodworking, Ushimaru-san had a deep knowledge of electronics and was second to none in skill, as shown by his development of the GR guitar synthesizer.

It was the summer of 1979 when Ushimaru-san and I started prototyping a new pickup. Even now the memory is fresh of the brilliant green of the rice fields of Matsumoto.

Fujigen factory (from http://www.fgnguitars.com/images/history/11.jpg)

We took this up during a one week business trip. At the end of so many meetings that it was getting to be too much, the pickup we made ended up looking from the outside like a regular humbucker.

We put the prototype we had made into in an original shape solid guitar and had it sent off to Kanda Shokai. That became unit #1.

That was the beginning of a very busy time in many different ways.

Part Two to follow.

New Momose LPs from Deviser at Guitar Planet

You could definitely do worse than getting one of these Momose MLS1-STD/NJ Les Paul-style guitars. Links here and here to Guitar Planet in Ochanomizu. Photos from Guitar Planet. No affiliation with the store, I just like the guitars.

Here is a link to the product page on the Deviser site.

Crews MANIAC SOUND and K&T Pickups

What about these CREWS MANIAC SOUND Les Pauls?

They are made in Japan and as far as I can tell and based on information from people at KEY Musicland the LPs at least have been made by Terada and Deviser (Bacchus). The list prices range from 98,000 yen to 520,000 yen for this brand.

Here are a couple of links to a video demos of Crews LPS. Enjoy!

First video:
From the youtube explanation: 

The first one is the KTR-LS01 with standard KTR (non-handwound) pickups. The guitar is made by Deviser and has a 2-piece African mahogany body, 1-piece African mahogany neck. 

The second one is a LTR LTD with K&T "Not For Sale" NFS Pickups. Gain is lower compared to the LS-01 pickups with extremely good definition. Guitar is Terada-made and has a 1-piece body, nitro finish, African mahogany back with South American mahogany neck. Asian rosewood board air-dried for 30 years.

Third is a Terada-made KTR STD. Very-low tension K&T NFS handwound pickups. More complex sound. 

Second Video:
From the youtube explanation: 

First is a KTR STD. Nitro finish with South American mahogany neck and African mahogany body. Very-low tension K&T NFS handwound pickups. Fat sound with good depth. 

The second one is a Terada-made KTR 59J. Brazilian fretboard. Sound has definition but with the maple top has a stickiness" to it. (粘り in Japanese). This has a set of first-lot "Not For Sale" NFS Pickups. 

The third guitar is another Terada-made KTR 59J but with a set of first-lot VL-wind "Not For Sale" NFS Pickups. Again, Terada-made guitar.

Last guitar is a Terada-made LED Premium with NOS TOPS K&T pickups which use NOS-wire. The guitar has a Honduran mahogany neck/back and Brazilian fretboard. Slightly relaxed tone with some compression.