Classic Bacchus Strat

Matching Headstock

I found this one for sale on Yahoo Japan in a modded state. It had just a single P-90 in the bridge position and no singles. I thought that might sound pretty nice in a LP Jr type of way. When it arrived it was pretty clear that the standard P-90 polepiece pitch was not wide enough to be centred under each string on the guitar. The result was that the high e and low e strings noticeably lacked output compared to the rest. Too bad as the routing and mounting was done professionally. In the end, I took out the P-90 and put in a set of Yutas that were from a Momose strat with a new pickguard. 

I think a mini-humbucker with the wider magnetic field would be great as a future possibility but for now it is back to a standard strat.

This has a nice thick neck and great frets. It has nice rounded fret ends that you usually see on more expensive guitars.

A few bumps and dents

Is this Inca Silver finish?

In a Stratocaster Super Reverb Mood

I love the way this guy from Fat Guitars plays. Very nice tone and recording. I think that is a custom partscaster that appears to be for sale now on Yahoo Japan for a reasonable price.



There are some nice guitars over there in that shop these days.

Dead Stock Greco SE-500 "Spacey Sound"

Sometimes a 2 year old guitar can look 30 years old, and other times it is the opposite. This 1981 Spacey Sound Greco SE-500 looks like it just came out of the factory and has been on the display rack at Guitar Centre for just a little while. The nickel parts have almost no oxidation and the finish on the body is very shiny with only a couple of small scratches and dents.

Deluxe Kluson-style tuner.

This is a later 1981 Greco which has the vintage Kluson tuners with the simple bushing. Earlier Grecos had Kluson-style tuners with a larger threaded bushing and a retainer nut. I am not sure if there is much difference in tone but it takes a 100 g or so off the weight.

Smaller tuner post bushings with shameless homage to a real Fender headstock decal

Thin poly finish on a three-piece Sen-ash body?

The benefits of nitro over poly finish are not much of an issue with this guitar. It is so thin you can see the growth rings of the body and the neck feels very nice. The poly is not at all like the candy-apple poly sheaths some guitars have. Greco-stamped steel saddles are a classy touch too.

Vintage size frets, bone nut.

The neck is a very comfortable shallow C-shape. I had a 1980 SE-800 Super Real Strat and could not get along very well with the extreme V shape. This one is my ideal neck shape. There is a bit of oxidation on the frets but no fret wear visible.

November 1981 serial number

I have a black pickguard that will match up with the holes perfectly.  I'd need to drill a few more holes into the body but this would be a great guitar to change into a D. Gilmour look.

Shiny

I love these pickups. The 2 and 4 positions have that classic strat "quack" that can be hard to get with other pickups. The middle pickup is not reverse-wound as far as I can hear so maybe that is a key point. But it IS just a lower-level Greco after all so I had to play the VanZandt side by side to see if I was being overly generous to the Greco on the sound and playability front. Result? The VanZandt is a better guitar to MY preference for the sound of the pickups but they both play about the same. The VanZandt has a lighter body and nitro finish but for the price the Greco wins by around 5 to 1.

Greco and VanZandt Japanese 57 strat copies

Tokai LC-100

Nice pair

Not much to write here. I have had Grecos, Burnys, ObGs, and a Navigator but the top of the heap has been the Tokai LC-100. Beautiful top carves with all-mahogany construction.

Here are some pics of the couple I had. The black beauty is still with me and shouldn't be going anywhere soon.

Distinct ebony with lots of pores. Mop inlays,  fret-edge binding

Yellowed lacquer with a couple of chips

Thin lacquer finish showing the pores

Nice mahogany grain

Waffleback USA Klusons

1982 Greco Strat : part 2

The oddball guitar arrived a couple of weeks ago in rough shape as expected. Super dry fretboard, volume pot that was stuck and needed replacement, and several years of accumulated gunk on the body and metal parts. The frets were heavily oxidized and needed some polishing. Thankfully fretwear was just noticeable on the first few frets and since the frets are vintage size anyway it looked worse than it was.

Greco logo, brass nut.

The neck is almost "Super Real" size and is wide at the nut at 42.5 mm which was unexpected. It is very comfortable to play and has no neck issues. The pickup looked to have a ceramic magnet and has resistance in the 7.5 k range which is very nice in a strat guitar. Rolling off the volume and changing the tone setting gives a pretty wide range of sounds. 

I thought this might be something that I pass on quickly but it ranks among the most comfortable strats I have played and has very nice sustain. Could it be the brass bridge? In any case, here are some pictures of mystery model Greco from April 1982.

5-piece body, single humbucker routing

Brass bridge

Cleaned up

April 1982 serial number

Lost dog: April 1982 Greco Strat

I saw this lost dog Greco on Yahoo Japan and was able to get it for a decent price all things considered (missing volume knobs and a bone-dry fretboard are not great sales points!). It is based on 70's model SE-700 Super Real strat model that was in the catalogs in 1980-1981 but there was never (99% sure) any production 70's model with gold parts so it really does look like a one-off non-production late Greco. 

Interestingly, the neck plate has D825279 which means it was completed in April 1982 and by that date is likely to be among the last bunch of Greco strats made.  Fender Japan was established in March 1982 and Fujigen started making Fender Japan guitars shortly thereafter. Kanda Shokai owns the Greco brand and when it became a co-owner of Fender Japan guitar along with Yamano Gakki production of the Greco Fender copies ended.

The pickup could be one of many different models from Fujigen at the time.  I am hoping it is routed to allow a second humbucker or a traditional 3-single coil configuration. I should see this here after a few weeks and then see how well it cleans up. It should be a fun guitar to play and mod.

All-black finish with a single humbucker and gold parts

D825279

Greco-branded tuners

More practical bottom corner input jack

Thirsty board - rusty strings - thin frets

BLS-59 Bacchus "Live Road" into a North Effects 22/7 Violet Ram Fuzz

This is a short video of my favorite Bacchus LP with a North Effects 22/7 Violet Ram. 

Recently someone lent me a Z-Vex Fuzz Factory.  It is a pretty involved unit with lots of possibilities and gave me a good taste of what a real fuzz can be. I owned a Danelectro Cool Cat fuzz for a couple of years but never managed to get anything fat and musically pleasing out of it - I suppose you do get what you pay for sometimes. 

After the Fuzz Factory experience I started looking for something to meet my new FUZZ needs. After a few failed attempts at Yahoo Auctions to get a Noah's Ark Purple FUZZ I spied this unpainted "22/7" unit on Yahoo Japan. After a quick trip to the North Effect's website I threw in a bid and landed it for around $50 total. After I got it in my hands and I plugged it in the LED worked but I had no output. Fortunately, after I opened it up and monkeyed around inside it came to life. It was probably just a loose wire or a temporary short. 

This one seems to work well at around 2 o'clock on all the knobs. This video is one improvised take using a Zoom Q4 with all of the flagrantly crappy bits edited out or course. Excuse the repetitive pentatonic playing. I really need to use some backing tracks for rhythm.

In any case, the Violet Ram is highly recommended.




From the North Effects page for the "22/7 Violet Ram (http://north-effects.co.uk/violet)":

The History

What has become known amongst Muff connoisseurs as the "Violet Ram's Head" was a variant of the early 70s V2 Muff that typically had unusual violet graphics rather than the more common red, and a distinctly different set of components to those associated with the more common red Ram (to make matters especially confusing, there are a few red-graphic Rams out there that sport the same or very similar components and sonic qualities as the violet ones - esp. David Gilmour's red Ram). Apparently produced for a period during 1975, it is one of the more rare and desirable Muffs and tend to go for big money.

The 22/7 Violet

Produced from a tracing of an outstanding sounding original pedal of '75 vintage, the 22/7 take features a set of carefully selected NOS 2N5133 transistors and metal film coupling capacitors, just like the real thing. It also features North's usual high build quality and brand-name components (Neutrik jacks/Alpha pots and quality 3PDT footswitch), true bypass switching and a standard 2.1mm 9V DC jack (battery power is also there for the purists). Oh, and that's a superbright blue LED on there.

The Sound

The fabled "violet sound" falls somewhere between the "regular" Ram's Head and the earlier Triangle, combining the high gain of the former with a touch more mid-range and finesse that's commonly associated with the latter. In short, it has a deserved reputation for being a good all-rounder. Major Muff-head and massive Pink Floyd fan, Kit Rae, reckons that the violet comes closest to David Gilmour's mid-late 70s Ram sound (note: please don't ask me about specific Floyd stuff, my knowledge of them extends only to an old cassette of Relics, and I can only refer you to Mr. Rae's excellent writings on the subject).