Greco Mockingbird

1980 Greco Mockingbird

ESP Strat Japan

Fernandes JS-100 

Fernandes the revival strat

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Burny Randy Rhoads

A beautiful Burny Randy Rhoads!

Fernandes Stratocaster

Fernandes stratocaster: Upgrade pickups

The Fernandes revival series strats are great guitars. The stock pickups (and this is true of any guitar), may not be to every ones taste. With this in mind, and add in that I have been hearing great things about tonerider pickups, I decided to give them a try in my 1982 Fernandes revival strat. 

I will expand on this post in the near future, but for now her is the bridge single coil bashing out some AC/DC in splendid fashion. In short, I was highly impressed !

Greco AP-1000

Greco AP-1000 / Greco AP-850

A video of me playing some Jimi Hendrix on my Greco AP 850 /  AP 1000. Pictures and information below.

Greco AP-1000 Acrylic Guitar (Click to enlarge)

This is my Greco AP-1000 / AP-850. I use both AP-1000 and 850 designations as based on my current understanding 1000 and 850 relate to the price the guitar cost in Japanese Yen at the time the guitar was produced. So in 1990 if you paid 100,000 yen you bought yourself an AP-1000 and in 1992 the list price was 850000 yen, you were the proud owner of an AP-850; I'm pulling these years and prices out of the clear blue sky just to illustrate an example.

The AP-1000 as it appeared in the Greco 1994 instrument catalog

Well, you don't have to be much of a guitar expert to know where Greco has taken its lead from with this guitar as it is a dead ringer for the guitar designed by Dan Armstrong and subsequently made famous by Keith Richards. The photo below shows a certain James Marshall Hendrix examining Keith Richards original Armstrong acrylic guitar.

However there are some differences:The original Armstrong designed guitar featured a slot so that it was possible to use interchangeable pickups. Also, the bridges on the Armstrong were of a different design and did not feature individually adjustable saddles.  The pickups were also visually different. 

The Greco AP-1000 features five individually adjustable saddles

                                           

Bridge on an original Dan Armstrong acrylic guitar

Rinton Atlas guitar Thailand

Rinton / Atlas Guitar Thailand

( CLICK TO ENLARGE )

Atlas / Rinton Guitars in a Japanese Guitar Blog???

Ok, ok, ok ! This is not a Japanese guitar, I'll grant you that ! But I'll also beg your indulgence to let me explain why it's appearing in a Japanese guitar blog. Well the rational is that anyone who can appreciate the delights of Greco, Tokai, Burny etc. will be interested and appreciate the beauty of this guitar. Not convinced? read on and be converted !

What????? Thailand produce masterfully built guitars??????  - 

The guitar you are looking at is an Atlas / Rinton Star Sapphire guitar. It was made by Rinton musical products, who are based in Bangkok Thailand? Now, some of you may be tempted to discount this guitar maker as they are not at all well known. Well, do so at your own peril; there are excellently and meticulously built hand crafted guitars. That's right - hand crafted, with no C.N.C machines. 

Whats more, Rinton will build you a one of a kind, bespoke guitar. Want an ebony board - no problem, book matched maple top - you got it ! Your choice of pickups and hardware- not a problem, your own design mother of pearl / abalone inlays - just say when ! And sure, there are no shortage of custom builders who will do the same, but not at what you will pay Rinton. You'll probably pay more for the raw unfinished wood from a custom builder than you will Rinton guitars. And, if your happy with off the shelf guitars, that is available too, and they are non the less hand crafted with great attention to detail.

My off the shelf guitar

I got this back in about 2007 whilst visiting Bangkok, Thailand. I had not heard of this guitar manufacturer but once I took it down off the shelf and played it, I knew I had something special in my hands; beautiful ebony fret board, thick maple cap, one piece mahogany body, and a very elegantly carved top. Trem system by Wilkerson with a push in bar.    

And the stock pickups.....? Absolutely awesome! Vintage voiced, and just perfect for my style of music - early blues breakers - woman tone all day long! Also great for classic rock and back off the gain and you can comp those Jazz cords with a big grin on your face ! Action was low, and so effortless to play. No sharp fret edges and man, this thing was built to last and be rocked hard !

The quality of tone woods used is exceptional (Click To Enlarge) 

I rarely buy a guitar on impulse, but needless to say I left the store that day a very happy man indeed ! Please check out the video at the bottom of this page where I talk about and showcase this guitar (if your connection can handle it set to HD 720). Also under that video is another video showing me playing this very guitar through a clean amp. I will update this post with some over driven sounds also. 

Beautiful eagle inlay (Click to enlarge)

Fernandes revival strat unplugged tone

The importance of testing your guitar unplugged as well as amplified 

Well there a lot of videos online featuring the Fernandes revival.  However, I have not been able to find any demonstrating the unplugged tone. This may not seem very important but it is. A guitar that has good acoustic properties such as a natural ringing sustain, is a guitar you'll want to get your hands on. Why? Well if a guitar sounds good unplugged, then those qualities will carry on over into the amplified sound.

So, the next time you are trying out a guitar make sure you spend some time playing it unplugged, and pay attention to its natural acoustic properties. Sure, you can add all the gain you want onto an acoustically dead instrument, however this will not sound or respond like an instrument which has these qualities in its unplugged condition.

With that in mind here is a video I just shot showing the acoustic properties of my Fernandes revival strat. When you get into the habit of doing this, you might be amazed at the difference between different strats, even those of the same model and year.

1982 Fernandes Revival '64 left handed strat

The lesser spotted left handed Fernandes Revival 

Back in the early 1980's Fernandes had what was then a very novel idea:- recreate the vintage characteristics of the early strats, and boy,  did they go out of their way  to accomplish that ----

I could go on with such images but in short - they were very thorough !

So the guys and girls at Fernandes meant business, and I am so happy they did because their efforts back at a time when I was only 3 and not yet old enough to appreciate the merits of a fine vintage speck strat, produced such gems and the one pictured below - one of my first ever Fernandes the revival strats and a left handed version at that, which trilled me no end !

This '64 version just oozes class !

This happens to be a very early version of a Fernandes revival. And how do we know that?? -- The early versions of this guitar had no lacquer sprayed over the top of the decal on the headstock. The result of this that many of these early versions are missing their decals, and sadly I have seen many, many examples of this. Thankfully though, this revival has managed to survive for the last 34 years with its unprotected decals intact. 

Notice the wear around "original custom body" and other parts of the decal

Compare the above unprotected headstock above with the protected one below (lacquered version came in around '84) which is taken from one of my right handed revivals:

Later version of the revival series strats had lacquered decals

There are some other ways to get an approximate date on your revival. The first is to examine the neck plate of the guitar. Now, this is not a hard and fast rule, but a 'stone logo' neck plate generally indicates an earlier Revival. These 'stone logo' neck plates were left over from Fernandes strats of the 70's, and unused ones found their way onto the new Revival line of guitars. The first picture below shows the stone logo on my lefty and an 'L series' neck plate from the mid 80's, again from one of my right handed revivals:

Fernandes 'Stone Logo' neck plate

Fernandes Revival 'L' series neck plate

Another way to gauge the age of your guitar is to look at the number that's stamped on the heel of the neck- the first digit of which indicates the year of manufacture. However, while not everyone may agree with this method, I use it until more weightier evidence is put forward. The picture below shows the neck heel stamp from this left handed version. Although somewhat blurry, the first digit is a 2, signaling that this guitar is from 1982. 

A 2 at the beginning of this neck code indicates a 1982 year of manufacture

 As mentioned in a previous revival review on this blog, I have compared these guitars to an original '64 strat and Fernandes does a highly commendable job, and realistically, there is little between the two at least as far as this blogger is concerned !

Below are two videos demonstrating the sound of this guitar. It's worth noting that the amp in question has a valve preamp and a solid state output section, and an all valve unit improves sound by multiple factors. I will update these videos when I acquire a low wattage all valve amp, but for now these examples provide a hit of whats to come.