Hatsubai « Very rare but not that special »
Published on 08/01/11 at 18:37I've only seen one of these come through the shop in my lifetime, and it's really nothing that special. I think it was only made for a year or two before they decided to discontinue it. The guitar features a mahogany body with (I believe?) a maple top, mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, dot inlays, pickguard, hard tail bridge, two humbuckers, two volumes, two tones and a three way switch.
UTILIZATION
I noticed that these guitars tend to have some fretwork and nut issues. The frets can sometimes have level issues which will cause issues with you start to lower the action. If you notice some fretting out on certain frets, this is probably a good indicator that you need to get your frets leveled. The edges can sometimes be sharp, too. The nuts can also be problematic at times. If you ever tune your guitar and notice some odd sort of ping, then the guitar goes sharp, your nut is binding. You'll need to get your nut recut if that's the case.
SOUNDS
This guitar actually had EMGs installed in it, so I'll be going by those instead of the standard pickups. The guitar had an EMG 81 in the bridge and an EMG 85 in the neck. The 81 in the bridge sounded thick, but it had enough bite to cut through without a problem. It worked awesome for metal tones; in fact, it was crushing. I was really surprised how nice it sounded. The 85 in the neck was super thick and worked awesome for those legato and shred leads. The clean tones were pretty awful on these, but that's fairly typical with EMGs. However, since it's geared towards metal, the clean tone doesn't really matter that much.
OVERALL OPINION
These are pretty rare, and you don't see them often. However, there's a reason why you don't see them often. It's because they're not exactly the best thing that Gibson has ever offered. They're solid for the price, but I find that you can get a newer, better version of this guitar for just as much money as these things go for on the used market.
UTILIZATION
I noticed that these guitars tend to have some fretwork and nut issues. The frets can sometimes have level issues which will cause issues with you start to lower the action. If you notice some fretting out on certain frets, this is probably a good indicator that you need to get your frets leveled. The edges can sometimes be sharp, too. The nuts can also be problematic at times. If you ever tune your guitar and notice some odd sort of ping, then the guitar goes sharp, your nut is binding. You'll need to get your nut recut if that's the case.
SOUNDS
This guitar actually had EMGs installed in it, so I'll be going by those instead of the standard pickups. The guitar had an EMG 81 in the bridge and an EMG 85 in the neck. The 81 in the bridge sounded thick, but it had enough bite to cut through without a problem. It worked awesome for metal tones; in fact, it was crushing. I was really surprised how nice it sounded. The 85 in the neck was super thick and worked awesome for those legato and shred leads. The clean tones were pretty awful on these, but that's fairly typical with EMGs. However, since it's geared towards metal, the clean tone doesn't really matter that much.
OVERALL OPINION
These are pretty rare, and you don't see them often. However, there's a reason why you don't see them often. It's because they're not exactly the best thing that Gibson has ever offered. They're solid for the price, but I find that you can get a newer, better version of this guitar for just as much money as these things go for on the used market.