I have a 1979 Springy Sound ST80 in two tone burst with a rosewood fingerboard and a 1980 Springy Sound ST80 in black with a maple fingerboard. I absolutely love those two guitars!!
@@signal_to_noiseI regret not snagging a 1979 BreezySound TE80 that Cliff’s Guitar World had not too long ago. All original and was beautiful. I believe at one point he had lowered the price for $1,899 to $1,299. Shoulda jumped on it immediately at that price but hesitated and someone else did. 🙁
Very nice Ed. It reminds me of a halcyon time being able to listen to one of my favourite players, Jonny Whitehill, playing - I believe - his white Tokai strat in the King Snakes with the equally great Paul Lamb on harmonica.
Lovely guitar and great playing! I subscribed. I had one of these years ago, similar vintage, a black one, 50’s style. As a Strat player I’d always wanted one because they had such a great reputation and mystique. Mine was awful, it just seemed totally dead to me, I was so disappointed. I worked in a music shop at the time and a guy came in and asked if I had a Tokai for sale. I said I did, but he should play it because I didn’t think it was any good. He produced a white Fernandes lawsuit stat and said ‘try this’. He played mine and I played his. He said ‘Yours is great, want to swap?’. I’ll confess I didn’t consider the relative financial value of each, I didn’t care because the Fernandes played beautifully to me and it was a relief not to be left with my lemon. But he loved the Tokai, so we swapped. That Fernandes turned out to be one of the best strats I ever owned. It sounded so characteristically ‘stratty’, weighed nothing and even had a gorgeous flame on the neck. It was better than the two US Fenders I had at the time. I think if you get a good one of these Japanese lawsuit guitars from this era you’re getting a stellar guitar. But as my Tokai showed, they’re not all amazing so be careful of that mystique and pick a good one. JV Fenders from the early 80’s can also be exceptional.
Cheers Harry, that's a really good point. I haven't played any of the fernandes, burny, greco etc. And my experience with Tokai is limited to a few, this being the best I've played. It's funny how something you don't bond with for seemingly objective reasons can be so perfect for someone else isn't it?
...sounds great ...looks great ...I have an '86 Japanese Fender Stratocaster (50's style with round string holder E prefix) got it in about 2014 and honestly, it's replaced every other guitar I've ever had including a '95 Les Paul Standard and a 64 SG Junior (regret selling the latter, bought and sold for £850 in about 2009) ...it's remarkable in every way
Thanks for the Comment. I've got a 2000 Les Paul and a 97 335 so I do also love that era of gibsons production so I wouldn't let them go, but I've often thought about japanese 70s or 80s Les Paul since getting this. - Ed
Thanks for watching Fabien. I'm sure the firebird sounds amazing, I really like them when I see other people play them but I think I'm too small to play one without looking daft 😂
Nice video and nice playing. I spent some time with a springy sound a few years back and seriously contemplated buying it. Had a student who owned about 40 Stratocaster style guitars. Over the course of about four years he brought all of them over for me to try and the springy sound was easily in my top five of all of his strats along with a Vanzant, A really nice G&L from the early 90s, a Don Grosh retro classic and a Beautiful Melancon vintage artist that I eventually purchased from him as I just couldn’t stop thinking about that particular guitar. This guy had practically everything you could think of when it came to Strats except for vintage pre-CBS fenders, and that springy sound really left a mark on me. A couple years later I had a chance to try quite a few pre-CBS fenders, and have had a couple of chances to do so in the meantime as well. I’ve got to say that springy sound can hang with A lot of them in my humble opinion
Thanks Lucas, that's some really useful insight. I haven't been lucky enough to play quite so many really high end S types (I owned an iconic guitars Vintage 62s that's in one of our other videos and have played Bravewoods and custom shops) but in comparison to those I have, this stands out for me. And in comparison to what you could get for the same cost I don't think there's any competition. Thanks again. Ed
@@signal_to_noise absolutely. We’re talking a $500 guitar versus the other ones which usually cost about 2000 or so. Thankfully when I settled on that Melancon he gave me quite the steel when he let me purchase it for 1200 Canadian, but honestly the springy sound was very very tempting when I first tried it, so much so that he let me take it out to a gig. It performed very well in a live context. Really enjoyed the weight of the guitar, the neck and the sound of the pickups. Serious vintage vibe, and way way better than any Mexican Strat I’ve ever played personally. I’ve come to really enjoy the vintage spec though; 7 1/4 radius etc. etc.
It’s an incredible guitar. I have a lot of videos up on my channel with it. I have a video called “knock five times “in my series called shut up&pluck it” and a live stream performance from my band The LH Express at a place called the NAC. Great sounding, very stable and lightweight guitar. I pretty much never have to tune it :-)
At the time Japan were not great inventors but they were superb copiers. They used the guitars from the Golden Age as their models. I thank Japan for allowing us poor people to have great guitars.
Lovely guitar ! I have a 1978 ST50 BB and love it . U stamped pickups. Got a ST80 too , 1982 , but always trouble with intonation , while with theST50 everything is fine …
Hi Michael. Yes, it had the 42 stamped after the 21st fret. This one is also spot on for intonation but it did need a full pocket neck shim to be able to get the action where I wanted it (which is not super low) - glad you love yours too - Ed
Thanks Thiago! It will be from the Line 6 Hx stomp, we don't normally use anything that isn't listed or featured but we had it plugged in for the looper we used in the intro track. Thanks for watching 👍👍
Vintage Tokais are up there with the very best fenders, imo. I have an ST80, which blows away my American 80s strat. Also have an ST40, which sounds surprisingly great. On the video, nice review. Thanks. It would have been good to mention the lawsuit-era Tokais (of which that is one).
Hi mate, yeh there are a few more bits of back story we could have spoken about, we decided to keep it a bit snappier as a lot of folks prefer a bit more playing. That said, watching it back I don't think we actually mentioned that Tokai were a Japanese company which I'd have to admit was a bit of on oversight 😅 Ed
@@signal_to_noise I think the lawsuit issue IS important because it illustrates just how good these Tokais were, and just how worried Fender was by the competition. But hey, still a great video. Thanks for posting.
My understanding is the lawsuit was only ever actually against Ibanez for the headstock shape. But there's a lot of conjecture around stuff like that and nothing very clear which is another reason it didn't seem wise to bring it up. Thanks for watching.
That's great. I've since got another Strat, a Custom Shop in sherwood green (essentially British racing green) so I'm thinking about refinishing this guitar over the winter, the current refinish really isn't doing it justice. Is yours a maple board or rosewood? Ed
Hard to day isn't it. It could be a partscaster of sorts maybe, I think a bridge from a Japanese Fender of the same era would have the same screw spacing and stuff for the bridge so could probably just go straight in
It's SO white isn't it? I get the impression the finish was done not long before I go it in 2020 and as I said in the video, it wasn't done very well. It is a nitro finish hut over the original poly from what I can see in the cavities. I may re finish it myself at some point and try to do a better job. I fancy sonic blue or shoreline gold..
Actually the end of '77 is when the Springy sound first came out. I have a 1978 with the U stamp pickups. Earliest Springys had black bobbins unstamped single cols, very rare, I heard the the ST42 was made from up to 4 or 5 pieces of wood for the body but mine is 2 piece center seam. You can clearly see the grain at the end of the body. Not really a fan of the V neck shape but its really easy to bend notes on. I have a Grecp SE5 or 600 that has a fatter soft V shape that I love
Hi Malcolm, this one has been refinished fairly recently I think, so I'm not sure how many pieces it is. I'm considering refinishing it again and hopefully doing a better job, so if I do I'll let you know how many pieces it is 👍
recently sold a mim player 2018 tele,wasnt bad,decent workhorse,but not in same league as my 2010 mij tokai ate 70 breezysound tele,both bought used for a similar price/im keeping the breezysound,i also own a 84 tokai goldstar strat
Yeh, this has the U shape neck, it's bigger than I'm used to and I used to find it a bit uncomfortable until the new frets. I think the smaller frets were a bigger problem for me than the big neck. There are some of the higher priced models out there with a V shaped neck which might suit you more if you fancied trying another - Ed
If I remember right it was because Ibanez was copying Gibson in mid-70’s so they sued them. Hence lawsuit name, don’t think Fender ever really went after anyone. So, maybe copy is better nomenclature?
Thanks Gene, not sure if you meant this comment to show on this video or our other video with the Bravewood, iconic and the custom shop? Thanks for watching either way - Ed
It's certainly close in specs to an early Fender but very different from the guitars Fender were making at the time. There was eventually a link between the two when Tokai got involved with fenders japanese production, but not until 1997, 19 years after this was built. Thanks for watching
I've been looking at a really affordable fernandes here recently, metallic green with a matching headstock and rosewood board but with the fret dots replaced with some oversized Led lights 😭 I can't quite get over those so I don't think you'll be seeing it on the channel 😂 - Ed
it is actually more difficult to make a firewood guitar than a decent player..i believe this is a metric machine all round.....also, a decent guitarist can achieve a decent sound....even from firewood-at least for a few moments...this here is a proper guitar, but will never demand a pretty penny..because no one truly cares to fork out real coin
I have a 1979 Springy Sound ST80 in two tone burst with a rosewood fingerboard and a 1980 Springy Sound ST80 in black with a maple fingerboard. I absolutely love those two guitars!!
I nearly bought an st60 with a rosewood board the other day, that guitar looked amazing. I'm sure your two are amazing.
@@signal_to_noiseI don’t think one can go wrong with any 78-82 Springy Sound. Enjoyed your video btw! 👊🏻
I'll keep an eye out in case another comes up. I'm also always on the look out for a breezy sound 😂
@@signal_to_noiseI regret not snagging a 1979 BreezySound TE80 that Cliff’s Guitar World had not too long ago. All original and was beautiful. I believe at one point he had lowered the price for $1,899 to $1,299. Shoulda jumped on it immediately at that price but hesitated and someone else did. 🙁
Ah no. You don't see as many Breezys here, I think maybe the distributors just didn't order as many at the time.
Very nice Ed. It reminds me of a halcyon time being able to listen to one of my favourite players, Jonny Whitehill, playing - I believe - his white Tokai strat in the King Snakes with the equally great Paul Lamb on harmonica.
Lovely guitar and great playing! I subscribed. I had one of these years ago, similar vintage, a black one, 50’s style. As a Strat player I’d always wanted one because they had such a great reputation and mystique. Mine was awful, it just seemed totally dead to me, I was so disappointed. I worked in a music shop at the time and a guy came in and asked if I had a Tokai for sale. I said I did, but he should play it because I didn’t think it was any good. He produced a white Fernandes lawsuit stat and said ‘try this’. He played mine and I played his. He said ‘Yours is great, want to swap?’. I’ll confess I didn’t consider the relative financial value of each, I didn’t care because the Fernandes played beautifully to me and it was a relief not to be left with my lemon. But he loved the Tokai, so we swapped. That Fernandes turned out to be one of the best strats I ever owned. It sounded so characteristically ‘stratty’, weighed nothing and even had a gorgeous flame on the neck. It was better than the two US Fenders I had at the time. I think if you get a good one of these Japanese lawsuit guitars from this era you’re getting a stellar guitar. But as my Tokai showed, they’re not all amazing so be careful of that mystique and pick a good one. JV Fenders from the early 80’s can also be exceptional.
Cheers Harry, that's a really good point. I haven't played any of the fernandes, burny, greco etc. And my experience with Tokai is limited to a few, this being the best I've played. It's funny how something you don't bond with for seemingly objective reasons can be so perfect for someone else isn't it?
tokai actually made fernandes/burny for a while
Awesome tones, can’t believe how good that guitar sounds! Great vid :)
Thanks Sam! We do our best to replicate the sound in the room and I'd say this is pretty close. Cheers for watching.
...sounds great ...looks great ...I have an '86 Japanese Fender Stratocaster (50's style with round string holder E prefix) got it in about 2014 and honestly, it's replaced every other guitar I've ever had including a '95 Les Paul Standard and a 64 SG Junior (regret selling the latter, bought and sold for £850 in about 2009) ...it's remarkable in every way
Thanks for the Comment. I've got a 2000 Les Paul and a 97 335 so I do also love that era of gibsons production so I wouldn't let them go, but I've often thought about japanese 70s or 80s Les Paul since getting this. - Ed
Lovely vocal-style lead lines in the intro song.
Cheers mate. Thanks for watching 👍👍👍👍
Tokia sounds great ! I have a firebird three mini hum buckers , I think it’s the Best sounding guitar I’ve ever heard ! Really love them.
Thanks for watching Fabien. I'm sure the firebird sounds amazing, I really like them when I see other people play them but I think I'm too small to play one without looking daft 😂
@@signal_to_noise you’re the firebird is big and heavy , but sounds great! Like you a lighter guitar would be nice. Keep Rocking
Nice video and nice playing. I spent some time with a springy sound a few years back and seriously contemplated buying it. Had a student who owned about 40 Stratocaster style guitars. Over the course of about four years he brought all of them over for me to try and the springy sound was easily in my top five of all of his strats along with a Vanzant, A really nice G&L from the early 90s, a Don Grosh retro classic and a Beautiful Melancon vintage artist that I eventually purchased from him as I just couldn’t stop thinking about that particular guitar. This guy had practically everything you could think of when it came to Strats except for vintage pre-CBS fenders, and that springy sound really left a mark on me. A couple years later I had a chance to try quite a few pre-CBS fenders, and have had a couple of chances to do so in the meantime as well. I’ve got to say that springy sound can hang with A lot of them in my humble opinion
Thanks Lucas, that's some really useful insight. I haven't been lucky enough to play quite so many really high end S types (I owned an iconic guitars Vintage 62s that's in one of our other videos and have played Bravewoods and custom shops) but in comparison to those I have, this stands out for me. And in comparison to what you could get for the same cost I don't think there's any competition. Thanks again. Ed
@@signal_to_noise absolutely. We’re talking a $500 guitar versus the other ones which usually cost about 2000 or so. Thankfully when I settled on that Melancon he gave me quite the steel when he let me purchase it for 1200 Canadian, but honestly the springy sound was very very tempting when I first tried it, so much so that he let me take it out to a gig. It performed very well in a live context. Really enjoyed the weight of the guitar, the neck and the sound of the pickups. Serious vintage vibe, and way way better than any Mexican Strat I’ve ever played personally. I’ve come to really enjoy the vintage spec though; 7 1/4 radius etc. etc.
I'm glad you like the Melancon, I had a look as I hadn't heard of them. They look like lovely guitars.
It’s an incredible guitar. I have a lot of videos up on my channel with it. I have a video called “knock five times “in my series called shut up&pluck it” and a live stream performance from my band The LH Express at a place called the NAC. Great sounding, very stable and lightweight guitar. I pretty much never have to tune it :-)
damn that guitar sounds unreal!
Thanks! It's certainly. A good one. Ed
At the time Japan were not great inventors but they were superb copiers. They used the guitars from the Golden Age as their models. I thank Japan for allowing us poor people to have great guitars.
only one hundred years of making guitars....and autos, too...but who cares or respects them, right?!
I loved your playing man...those are awesome guitars. I have a black one.
Cheers Nick, yeh it's a great guitar. Is yours a similar age?
Lovely guitar ! I have a 1978 ST50 BB and love it . U stamped pickups. Got a ST80 too , 1982 , but always trouble with intonation , while with theST50 everything is fine …
Hi Michael. Yes, it had the 42 stamped after the 21st fret. This one is also spot on for intonation but it did need a full pocket neck shim to be able to get the action where I wanted it (which is not super low) - glad you love yours too - Ed
That one sounds vintage, keeper!
Thanks, yeh it's definitely a keeper. I may do something about the refinish (by way of another, better, refinish) but won't change anything else.
Awesome demo! Where does the slap back at 7:30 comes from? Some delay specific pedal?
Thanks Thiago! It will be from the Line 6 Hx stomp, we don't normally use anything that isn't listed or featured but we had it plugged in for the looper we used in the intro track. Thanks for watching 👍👍
Das it have the neck stamp , just asking ..?
Vintage Tokais are up there with the very best fenders, imo. I have an ST80, which blows away my American 80s strat. Also have an ST40, which sounds surprisingly great.
On the video, nice review. Thanks. It would have been good to mention the lawsuit-era Tokais (of which that is one).
Hi mate, yeh there are a few more bits of back story we could have spoken about, we decided to keep it a bit snappier as a lot of folks prefer a bit more playing. That said, watching it back I don't think we actually mentioned that Tokai were a Japanese company which I'd have to admit was a bit of on oversight 😅 Ed
@@signal_to_noise I think the lawsuit issue IS important because it illustrates just how good these Tokais were, and just how worried Fender was by the competition. But hey, still a great video. Thanks for posting.
My understanding is the lawsuit was only ever actually against Ibanez for the headstock shape. But there's a lot of conjecture around stuff like that and nothing very clear which is another reason it didn't seem wise to bring it up. Thanks for watching.
Lovely stuff 👏👏👏
Cheers mate - thanks for watching - Ed
Just got one from CC, in BR green, beautiful guitar, it's a keeper. 💚🎸.
That's great. I've since got another Strat, a Custom Shop in sherwood green (essentially British racing green) so I'm thinking about refinishing this guitar over the winter, the current refinish really isn't doing it justice. Is yours a maple board or rosewood? Ed
@@signal_to_noise hi there, it's a rosewood neck. ❤️🎸.
@@signal_to_noise hi Ed. I also have a tokai strat in red, but it has a Fender bridge, do you know what is going on with it.? Thanks. Is it a fake.?.
Hard to day isn't it. It could be a partscaster of sorts maybe, I think a bridge from a Japanese Fender of the same era would have the same screw spacing and stuff for the bridge so could probably just go straight in
@@signal_to_noise thank you Ed. 🎼.
Great playing Ed on probably the whitest guitar I’ve ever seen. Great to see a good exploration of the underrated fender alternatives like Tokai 👍
It's SO white isn't it? I get the impression the finish was done not long before I go it in 2020 and as I said in the video, it wasn't done very well. It is a nitro finish hut over the original poly from what I can see in the cavities. I may re finish it myself at some point and try to do a better job. I fancy sonic blue or shoreline gold..
Awesome!!
Thanks! It's a super cool guitar for sure. Ed
Actually the end of '77 is when the Springy sound first came out. I have a 1978 with the U stamp pickups. Earliest Springys had black bobbins unstamped single cols, very rare, I heard the the ST42 was made from up to 4 or 5 pieces of wood for the body but mine is 2 piece center seam. You can clearly see the grain at the end of the body. Not really a fan of the V neck shape but its really easy to bend notes on. I have a Grecp SE5 or 600 that has a fatter soft V shape that I love
Hi Malcolm, this one has been refinished fairly recently I think, so I'm not sure how many pieces it is. I'm considering refinishing it again and hopefully doing a better job, so if I do I'll let you know how many pieces it is 👍
recently sold a mim player 2018 tele,wasnt bad,decent workhorse,but not in same league as my 2010 mij tokai ate 70 breezysound tele,both bought used for a similar price/im keeping the breezysound,i also own a 84 tokai goldstar strat
I haven't played any "modern" Tokais, how would you say they compare to your old goldstar?
@@signal_to_noise i prefer the 2010 breezysound
Do you remember Joe Walsh, Rick Nielsen, Nile Rodgers, Ronnie Wood, SRV etc who played Tokai around 1980?
me thinks Walsh played Gibson...
@@MarcoAlessandro-z3r Oh,me luckey! Check out the "Tokai Catalog 1982 Joe".Joe plays Tokai's white ST and red LP during his Japan tour.
I had one of these as a kid I remember the neck being really thick. Not my cup of tea but a well made guitar nonetheless .
Yeh, this has the U shape neck, it's bigger than I'm used to and I used to find it a bit uncomfortable until the new frets. I think the smaller frets were a bigger problem for me than the big neck.
There are some of the higher priced models out there with a V shaped neck which might suit you more if you fancied trying another - Ed
My ST80 has the v shaped neck , I guess .A lot of meat compared to the U neck of my ST50 , I’d say .
If I remember right it was because Ibanez was copying Gibson in mid-70’s so they sued them. Hence lawsuit name, don’t think Fender ever really went after anyone. So, maybe copy is better nomenclature?
The Fender sounded slightly better on the middle pickups but overall they are very close
Thanks Gene, not sure if you meant this comment to show on this video or our other video with the Bravewood, iconic and the custom shop? Thanks for watching either way - Ed
It is essentially a fender.
It's certainly close in specs to an early Fender but very different from the guitars Fender were making at the time. There was eventually a link between the two when Tokai got involved with fenders japanese production, but not until 1997, 19 years after this was built. Thanks for watching
Lightweight Sen ash , not a boat anchor that my MIM Classic player 60 has been 😅
If you can't afford Springy Sound, just buy Fernandes MIJ. It's the same guitar built by Tokai in Tokai factory, only different sticker.
I've been looking at a really affordable fernandes here recently, metallic green with a matching headstock and rosewood board but with the fret dots replaced with some oversized Led lights 😭 I can't quite get over those so I don't think you'll be seeing it on the channel 😂 - Ed
I hear the 1976 Greco strats made by Tokia are as good as 57 Fender Strats of the era.
it's a 'my wife better than yours' judgement...just play the bleedin' thing!
it is actually more difficult to make a firewood guitar than a decent player..i believe this is a metric machine all round.....also, a decent guitarist can achieve a decent sound....even from firewood-at least for a few moments...this here is a proper guitar, but will never demand a pretty penny..because no one truly cares to fork out real coin