Tokai Jazz Sound

Fairly recent Japanese Tokai Jazz - features are pretty standard for Jazz-a-like. Pots are sturdy, bridge true to the original. No surprises but certainly no complaints.

I have played my fair share of basses, fretted and fretless jazzes especially. I can honestly say that in a direct A-B test with a brand new Fender jazz in a shop this Tokai was head and shoulders the better guitar. After I bought it I spent 2 weeks in a high grade residential studio (one of Britains finest, same place Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Editors etc recorded their award winning albums this year, 2005/6). I'm telling you this not to brag but to assure you of the quality control at work here! The producer and sound engineer (both veterans) were skeptical about an imported bass but I convinced them to listen and they agreed that it sounds better than the USA Fender Jazz with all the fancy switches they had as a standby in the studio. Can't fault it.

Great set up - from shop I think. Plays as well as I can! No flaws in finish, nice fast, stained maple neck. Neck is nicely stained but not the cheesy orange that some re-issues go for.

How unreliable can a Jazz be? It's two bits of solid wood held together very sturdily! Passive pickups remove threat of battery death, tuners are good quality. Should last a lifetime.

none needed as yet.

Spot on - whatever your budget this is a hell of a bass. After playing their SGs and 335s I would seriously consider a Japanese Tokai for any guitar / bass purchase. These are just as good, in this case better, than American made guitars without the greedy price tags. Until the Americans start making stuff this good for this price don't be conned into buying something just because it has a stars and stripes sticker on it! I'm not anti-American, as I see it the global economy is going to screw the West (entirely regardless of whether you think thats a good or a bad thing!) so you might as well get a good guitar out of it!

Made in Japan, not sure what year but newer ones have same less rounded head stock( see catalog 80's & 90's. 4-string fretted. I bought it as a package with hard case and tiny (10W) amp for $150 in early 90's. See other reviews for setup. I give it a 9 because of need of fret trimming, and it sounds thin like a real Fender. This was my first bass.

At low volume it sounds pretty good, and blends well with other instuments. My second bass, a Tony Nocero, with EMG active soapbars, showed me what a real bass could sound like. Playing the Tokai through a larger amp revealed its weakness also. I replaced the pups with SD Basslines, and the stock strings with LaBella Deep Talkin Bass. Phenomenal results. If I had done that in the first place I wouldn't have bought another bass. Not that my other basses aren't great, but I wouldn't have needed another.
This bass has a tonal range from trebley to piano bass strings. Not as punchy and warm as an Epiphone, but great definition.

This is a great first bass, and fair one for someone more experienced. The frets could use some filing. There are no other flaws.

I'm not a pro, so it probably won't be tested to any great degree. But, it's solid, heavy, and good looking.

N/A

I have been "playing" music since 1960( school band, etc.), guitar
since 1965( sort of), bass since 1990 or so. When they stole my Gibson 335 the Tokai was left behind. If it had been taken also I would have replaced it with something a little more expensive and perhaps better quality. I now have a fair number of basses but I would miss it. I play through an SWR LA 12, and a GK 400 115 combo. What I like about this bass is: 1. Cheap, 2. Upgradeable, 3. Sounds great with upgrades, and 4. has a bit of "Lawsuit" history and "Vintage".
If you find one, get it and upgrade it.

Made in Japan in the 1980s.

This one is fretted with a matching painted headstock and forward tuners.

Controls are standard jazz bass.

The sound is a little middly. The previous owner had the pickups rewound, with a slight overwind, so I am not sure if this is affecting the sound. The output level is about the same as my fretless Tokai.

Very well built, except that the neck needs light strings for it to be set very straight (I like basses with a pretty straight neck and an action of about 1.8mm at the 12th fret on the E string).

I replaced the bridge with a more substanstial direct drop in replacement that I had lying around.

Would be a 9 but for the slight neck issue (With Thom Jazz rounds or flats it is not an issue as these are low enough tension, and someone who likes less low action might not notice).

Seems pretty solid.

One issue on reliability is the tuners which are a little loose in their seatings. However I am not 100% convinced these are the originals (my other Tokai has reverse ones and most other Tokai Jazz sound owners seem to report them being reverse tuners). I am about to change to new tuners.

Unknown year of manufacture but bought in 1991. Has usual mid 60s jazz bass features including ridged bridge pieces and reverse tuners. However this is a lined fretless model with a rosewood board

Sound is typical for a good jazz bass - i.e. it is not cheap sounding. Plenty of mwah is available. Sounds great with roundwounds or upright like with Thomastik-Infeld flats. Output level is comparatively low (like my other Tokai jazz)

No issues apart from a slightly monophonic pickup audible with loud monitors on gigs. Potting the pickups in wax solved this.

Hardware is fine, but if you use roundwounds the rosewood fingerboard will need sanding periodically.

Very good bass for basic fretless jazz sounds, but offers no sounds outside this pallette.

1980 LEFTY Tokai Jazz Sound Jazz Bass, MIJ. 20 frets, 4 strings, two jazz pups. I thought there would be two volumes and a tone, but this one is set up like a '62 Fender Jazz bass controls-wise. one volume and two tone. rosewood neck with a great feeling finish. the maple neck is slender and plays well. Alder body, great finish, hot red. Great contours. Great hardware. Tuners seem okay. 34 scale. came with no case.

It is much lighter (9 lbs) than my precision, which is (10.5). It is very comfortable to hold and play. The neck was quite bowed when i got it, so shame on the store that said the action was excellent! Cost me $50.00 to have it set up properly. Pick ups sound okay. not great. I will change them. alot of variety can be coaxed out of them though, with the wide range of tone control. i only use it for recording. i put it throught some very good pre amps and it sounds great. the pups are fairly low output, and i am used to EMG's, so i will probably change the pups. Changed the nut for a tusq. That is about it for changes.

Really good fit and finish, these guitars are flawless, better than Fender. only thing wrong was the neck adjustment, and that was not Tokai's fault. All joinery is perfect and finish is really nice.

you could surf with this thing.

nope.

own a precision that is set up with P/J EMG. Big chunky neck and sound. needed something a little more refined, and lighter. The jazz body is more comfortable to hold than the precision, in my opinion, so i will more than likely make this my prime bass once i change the pups and nut. You cannot buy a great lefty bass in Canada for $600.00 from the major manufacturers like Fender. Even their MExican pieces of crap cost more than that. This guitar at today's pricing from Fender is about $1100-1200.00. I will stick with the old Tokai's!!!

Japanese Jazz Sound '64 Fender Jazz Bass clone.
Made in ~1984 by Tokai.
Alder body (looks like 2 pieces) with factory fretless lined rosewood f'board on maple neck.
Standard pair of single coil JB pickups w/ two vol one tone control.
Pickups are original passive Tokai 'Vintage JB' with 250k pots.
Finish is a nice aged 3-tone sunburst (some kind of polyurethane varnish).
It's a Jazz Bass clone. Basically, a copy of Jaco's bass (he's still very popular in Japan among musos), with no pickguard.
Hardware is standard '60s Jazz bass configuration, with metal knobs. Tuners are reverse direction tulip head (nice attention to vintage detail!).
Neck is a typical thin 20 fret-length JB neck.

Nice warm JB sound for jazz. With flatwounds it can almost sound like a standup. I wouldn't like to play rock or reggae with this bass, but it's well suited to jazz/fusion.
Old Trace Elliot GP11 (Does anyone really use any other bass amp?). A bit of compressor, not much EQ is needed at all. A bit of a bass cut (!) because the lower registers tend to boom a bit on just the neck pickup. Practice through a Tom Sholtz Bass Rockman and it still sounds pretty good. The only effect I use is a '70s Electroharmonix SmallStone phaser.
Nice warm tone, not as much of that bright growl as a Fender, but plenty of fretless 'mwaaah'. Not much variety to the sound, you either like it or you don't (I do). Strings make a big difference - it had roundwounds on it when I bought it used (some scarring on the board because of that), but it sounds pretty smooth with flats.
It could be a bit louder, but it is a '60s replica. Might try some passive Lace Sensors (definitely wouldn't want to put active pickups in it), which wouldn't solve the volume issue but might liven up the sound a bit.

This bass is >20 years old and was bought used on ebay. Setup was horrible: intonation was way off, action was high, roundwound strings eating the fretboard, neck was badly bowed, nut was loose and lodged offcentre, metalwork was filthy and badly marked, fretboard wood was really dry. Pots were clean though with no crackle. It eventually cleaned up nice, and a few hours' tweaking brought it back to life. I really hate the way you have to take off the neck to get at the truss rod in vintage Fender-style instruments. I know it's authentic but it's a pain.
Finish is very good for an instrument this old. One or two small dings, but nothing major. Bit of lemon oil on the fretboard gave it a bit of life.
Finish on the body doesn't look like that of a 20+ yo bass, but the neck has yellowed nicely with age.

It's a workhorse! Once I fixed the intonation, it never seems to even go out of tune. Haven't tried it under hot lights though, so your mileage may vary. Strap buttons were replaced with locking ones, and they're solid. I've only adjusted the truss rod once when I swapped out the original roundwounds for flats. This is my only fretless bass, so yes it doesn't seem to need a backup. Electrics are great for a 20-year-old bass, no crackle, not much hum other than the little you would expect from single coil p/u in a vintage-style bass. I keep the machine heads well-oiled, and it hasn't let me down yet.

Company is long gone. Don't believe anyone who tells you Tokai are still around - it's just a name and the modern Korean-made Tokai guitars are trash cashing in on the good name of Tokai.
I have a bunch of old Tokai Strat clones and they all seem to be built to last.

Been playing for almost 30 years. My main fretted bass is a late 70s Aria Pro II SB700, which is a completely different animal.
The worst thing about this bass is the fretboard wear caused by roundwound strings, and I wish I'd thought to ask about that. (I know Jaco used roundwounds but (a) he was a nut and (b) he was Jaco). If I lost this bass, I'd definitely hunt down another - or maybe a JV Squier. I've A/B'ed it against modern US/Jp Fenders; it blows away the Jps and easily matches/surpasses the US, which I think is dueto the age of the wood. We'll be kind and not even mention Korean Squier/MIM Fenders. Never compared it with a real vintage or even 70's/80's US Fender though.
I love the way it feels, solid, well made, indestructible, and its warm woody tone. Hate the truss rod, with access from the body end, but as the neck doesn't seem to need much adjusting that's not really a problem. I've also never liked Fender-style bass bridges, and this one, like all Tokai basses I've ever played, has these awful ridged saddles that I swear saw into the strings. Nasty.
I wish it had a case dammit! And a BadAss bridge and truss rod access from the head end. Case and bridge can be fixed easily enough.
This is a great fretless Jazz Bass - not surprised Fender sued.

I don't know the exact year this was made but I think it is from the 80s. (Maybe 84/85?). I think these were (and are) made in Japan.

This is a replica of a vintage (maybe '64) Fender Jazz Bass. Mine is a fretless version, which is configured pretty much like Jaco's Fender. It doesn't have the pick guard and the pot knobs are metal instead of the normal plastic.

I'm not quite sure of the wood used, but I would guess it's the same wood Fender used in 60s, since these Tokais tend to be pretty exact replicas.

Reviewing the pickups isn't quite the thing to put in here, since the pickups have been replaced with Seymour Duncan ones. The pickup configuration is two J-style pickups.

I don't know if it's the replaced pickups or the instrument but the sound is _unbelievable_. We recorded at the studio one day and we didn't have to use EQ with this bass at all.. The raw sound was almost perfect.

With passive electronics the sound doesn't have much variety but the sound this bass emits is pretty all-around. Like with all Jazz Basses, the tone can be varied a bit with the pickup volume controls. The attack of the sound is wonderful.

Briefly said, I Like It!

I bought this used so I had to set it up myself. The action was horrible and I had to mess with the truss rod quite a bit. The pickups were fine. Since the bass is quite old, it did have some minor flaws in body finish but nothing too noticeable. Only real flaw was that some _idiot_ had used roundwound string with this beauty so there were marks of them on the fingerboard but they were not big.

Of course, because I bought this used, I don't really know about factory configuration or anything, so don't count on me on this.

This bass will most definitely withstand live playing if treated well. I haven't had any problems with the hardware or anything. The finish is solid, although it has a few almost invisible cracks due to temperature changes. The strap buttons were pretty solid but first thing I did was to change them for strap locks.

I haven't had to adjust the truss rod after I set it up after I had bought this. Even if I had money to buy a back-up, I would go for a gig with this without one.

I haven't dealt with Tokai corp... I don't think they even provide support with instruments this old..

If this bass was stolen, I would most definitely get another one of these should I find one. After I set it up, I found out it is a very easy to play bass. Because it's fretless one needs to pay special attention when playing to keep in tune but it's a great bass. I haven't seen nor played a better fretless bass than this...

Made 1984/85, I would guess.
Japanese-made replica of vintage (1964?) Fender Jazz Bass.
20-fret neck, rosewood fingerboard, dot markers, two passive J-bass pickups, two volumes, one tone. Bright 3-tone sunburst finish.
I bought it for #165 (GB Pounds) in 1985 from Peter Cook's (no, not THAT one) Guitar World in West London. It was reduced considerably as it was shop-soiled - has a chunk missing from the finish on the top edge.

I used it extensively with subversive indie pop masters Hard Bunty in the mid eighties. It sounded great. Big, full, classic Fender bass sound. Not especially versatile by modern standards, but I love it.
These days I mainly play guitar, but this bass still sounds great on my portastudio ramblings.

I am really a guitar player, who has occasionally turned to bass. I don't have very big hands. However, despite the 34" scale length I always found this bass easy to play. It has a slim, narrow neck and an easy action. It was set up pretty well when I bought it, and I have never had to make any major adjustments.

This question about backups always amuses me. Most of us can't afford them! Anyway, I have had this bass 16 years, man and boy. It hasn't really deteriorated at all (unlike the owner). It's solid. Maybe I should change the strings one day.... :o)

I've been playing guitar since 1974 and bass (on and off) since 1976. This bass was an absolute bargain. I've never regretted buying it. It's a basic but tried and trusted design and sounds excellent. The great thing about these Tokai's was that they were replicas rather than copies. This bass is every bit as good as any Fender I have ever played. There must be some knocking about second-hand for bargain prices. If you're thinking about buying one I say "Go for it!". It could last a lifetime.