Product: Tokai Precision Custom Edition
Price Paid: $600 ($NZ) used
Submitted
01/20/2005
at
08:59pm
by
Anonymous
Features
:
9
I picked this up off an auction site here in NZ about 6 months ago. It was made in 1984 and has been stored for about 15yrs.
It's a standard precision with 'custom edition' on the headstock, which they only did a limited run of in '84.
This thing has a neck like a baseball bat, nice deep U shape maple with a skunk stripe and rosewood fretboard.
The body is not too heavy and the finish is excellent, it's Black with a 3-ply Black scatch plate.........very cool!
Standard precision hardware.
Quite a hot pickup.
Sound
:
10
From the moment I plugged this thing in I knew I was onto a winner.
fantastic precision sound, in my opinion better than alot of fenders.
Best way to describe it would be FAT. Plenty of top and bottom with a fantastic midrange punch.
Not a huge amount of variety from the one pickup, (no out of phase sounds), but the tone control is smooth and tasteful, which means you can cover pretty much anything stylistically. I use a little compression through a Laney RGB500 15" combo with an extension 15" as well.
I have been gigging this non-stop 2-3 nights a week and have found nothing to dislike.
I used a 1967 (?) Fender P that belongs to a mate of mine for about 18 months prior to getting this , and I think that this has a better tone, action and overall feel about it. Found the Fender a battle at times, although it was still bloody good.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
10
Good action. Not so low that it will stuff your tone, but not too high either.
I gave the neck a tweek when I got it to reduce the relief a little, which has improved the action.
Pickups are spot on.
Solid as a Rock when it comes hardware. Very clean.
Really does hold its tuning well.
Reliability/Durability
:
10
This will be here well after I've gone.
A true example of Japanese craftmanship.
I'll never need another P Bass.
Simple Really.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Not likely to ever need it.
Overall Rating
:
10
I've been playing Bass professionally for about 10-11yrs, Guitar professionally for about 25yrs.
I have a Japanese SQ Strat, Marshall 30th Anniversary Guitar Amp and Duo Bin, a 1989 Ibanez SDGR 1200 5-String Bass, various other equipment.
If stolen, I dont think I would ever find another and would be forced to spend literally thousands to get anything close to as good an instrument.
Love Everything about it, from the look to the tone to the action to the finish.
I'd just like to add that people are right when they say that the earlier Tokai instruments are of exceptional quality .
My brother plays a very early 'fokai' strat, which again is a beautiful instrument, the stuff of legends.
