Murray | soldguitars

1990 Fender Floyded 'Hot Rodded' Stratocaster (MIJ)

"Murray"

You know, I'm REALLY starting to 'get' the Strat thing. The simplicity, the straightforwardness ... all they REALLY need to shine would be a decent powerful pickup at the bridge and maybe a Floyd. What's this? A strat with a decent powerful pickup at the bridge and a Floyd? One of these has been on my wish-list for a while ... the idea of a Strat with a proper Floyd Rose double-locker gets me quite excited. Perhaps just as important is that the other Strats on the racks in "Narnia" (my guitar storage/racking area) are American, so I'm happy (... genuinely) to report that this one is Japanese. Now, that is taken by many to automatically mean that it will be inferior to the American ones ... well, my retort to that has always been 'BOLLOCKS'. This came from the FujiGen Gakki factory in the glory-days .. this one was made in 1990 (... perhaps 1991, not easy to confirm), which is when they were making ACHINGLY good stuff. If I really need to remind you, that’s the same factory that made the £2,000 Ibanez JEM's, and indeed all of my Ibanez guitars. Look at the photo below, which shows racks of old JEM's at the FujiGen factory back in the day. Truly fantastic build quality, although rumours persist that FujiGen used to simply bolt together parts made by Fender USA anyway. Whatever. The point IS that this is an excellent guitar, and one that I would value in the same ball-park as an equivalent American Strat any day.

This one is completely bone stock, with no modifications whatsoever ... it is very unusual to find a 25 year old guitar that has not gone under the knife at some stage in its life, and bear in mind that these are pretty rare anyway, so I count myself very lucky to have found an unmolested one. I paid WAY more than I probably should have for this, but, when you NEED something, sometimes you've just got to dig deep and smile, you know?

The electronics are nice too ... the singles are stock USA items, and the bridge hum is a DiMarzio. Not sure what model it is, but I'll rip off the scratchplate (sorry to the Yanks ... I mean the 'pickguard') to find out next time I throw some strings on it. The middle tone knob is a push-pull coil split, so none of the lovely Strat quackiness is lost ... my USA Deluxe Strat (Chapstick) doesn't have that luxury, and suffers as a result. The second tone knob is a 'TBX' control ('T' = treble, 'B' = bass, 'C' = cut), which works with a crafty combination of 'ganged' 250k pot and 1M pot, which operates as a low pass filter in one direction and a high pass filter in the other. Apparently. Whatever, the result is that, at 5 (the detented mid-point) it is flat, with either treble or bass being cut depending on which direction you turn it. Cool, but I'm starting to confuse myself now. Whatever, all we need to worry about is that Mr Clapton used one on his signature Strat, so ... you know ... his tone is kinda ok isn't it?! Good enough for HIM, so good enough for me.

More later.