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Hatsubai « A real hidden gem »
Published on 11/18/11 at 14:18This is an old school Fender CIJ guitar that made its way into our store. It's not often that you see these guitars as they tend to be only for the Japanese market, but in the past, you could buy them from stores like Ikebe-Gakki and Ishibashi without much of a problem. I'm not sure if they still sell directly like they used to, but you can still get them through various shipping companies. The guitar had an alder body, a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, 21 frets, dot inlays, a Schaller floyd rose, three single coils, one volume, two tones and a five way switch.
UTILIZATION
This guitar had been modded for a Schaller Floyd Rose. This is just a guess, but I almost think this guitar was bought directly from a Japanese auction site. I seem to recall seeing this exact same guitar being sold awhile back with the same floyd equipped on it. The Japanese really like their floyds on their strats, and you see a lot of them with this modification. The Schaller floyd is a very high quality floyd. This was the lower profile kind of model with the shorter screws that Jackson in Japan and Caparison utilize. The fretwork on the guitar was good, but there was some fairly strong wear going on. The rest of the guitar was pretty good, though.
SOUNDS
This had three Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders installed in it, and they were pretty noisy. The guitar almost had a Ritchie Blackmore vibe going on, so I think the guy was a fan of him. Anyway, the bridge was very high output, and you could get a pretty cool metal tone with this. It wasn't super tight, but it handled high gain well enough. The middle pickup was pretty useless to me, and I didn't even care for it that much when it came to mixing it with the neck or bridge. The neck was great for leads, as it was very powerful. I could get a pretty cool legato sound going on without too much effort. Cleans were a bit bland, though.
OVERALL OPINION
This guitar had a lot of mods done to it, so it's hard to say exactly how good these guitars are, but judging from my previous experience with the MIJ/CIJ guitars, I'd say you shouldn't have too much of an issue if you decide to buy blind. They're high quality guitars for the price.
UTILIZATION
This guitar had been modded for a Schaller Floyd Rose. This is just a guess, but I almost think this guitar was bought directly from a Japanese auction site. I seem to recall seeing this exact same guitar being sold awhile back with the same floyd equipped on it. The Japanese really like their floyds on their strats, and you see a lot of them with this modification. The Schaller floyd is a very high quality floyd. This was the lower profile kind of model with the shorter screws that Jackson in Japan and Caparison utilize. The fretwork on the guitar was good, but there was some fairly strong wear going on. The rest of the guitar was pretty good, though.
SOUNDS
This had three Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders installed in it, and they were pretty noisy. The guitar almost had a Ritchie Blackmore vibe going on, so I think the guy was a fan of him. Anyway, the bridge was very high output, and you could get a pretty cool metal tone with this. It wasn't super tight, but it handled high gain well enough. The middle pickup was pretty useless to me, and I didn't even care for it that much when it came to mixing it with the neck or bridge. The neck was great for leads, as it was very powerful. I could get a pretty cool legato sound going on without too much effort. Cleans were a bit bland, though.
OVERALL OPINION
This guitar had a lot of mods done to it, so it's hard to say exactly how good these guitars are, but judging from my previous experience with the MIJ/CIJ guitars, I'd say you shouldn't have too much of an issue if you decide to buy blind. They're high quality guitars for the price.