Hagstrom Futurama II

A very strange guitar, by modern standards. Superficially based on a strat- the shape is where the similarities begin and end. The body is made of an unfinished pale solid wood (later examples are laminate), the back has red lino type material stretched over it, whilst the front is a moulded piece of see through plastic, sprayed red on the inside- cunning! The two pickups are moulded into the top, so you can't adjust the height (more on that later). The electrical layout is unusual- an on/off switch for the neck and bridge pickup, plus a couple of weird tone switches, that basically just muffle the sound. This was made in sweden, probably '62, as it has an early 'tremar' trem system that utilizes pins to hold the strings in place. Note that on these early examples, the neck is FAT...apparently these guitars later became famed for low action and slim necks, yet judging by this one, the early ones are the total opposite of that!

Acoustically this guitar doesn't sustain so well, but sounds pretty good. I have a feeling the sustain thing may be 'cos I put 12s on it, in an attempt to capture that early sixties vibe. They may be a little heavy even for me though, so I'll probably change them for 10s or 11s at some point. The pickups produce a good sound- the bridge pickup alone on these instruments is often criticised as being too bright, but if you're making modern music that doesn't aspire to sound like old smoothy Eric Clapton, that can be a very cool sound. I've used it for both 'Smog' type country/stax sounds and art rockish four to the floor indie dance, and it works great. Neck+ bridge and Neck alone sound good- warmer and very strattish. Suprisingly the two tone switches can be very useful.

This guitar feels solid like a tank! extremely well made instrument. The tuners are rugged, and you don't have to give it any welly to turn them, as on some 'freaky/old' instruments I have played. My only complaint is that the pickups are not height adjustable on this one (this was changed on later models)- which means the action has to be set fairly high, so the strings don't hit the pickups higher up the neck. I suppose I could shim the neck at some point. After 45 years, the lino is starting to pull away from the contours, but its no big deal, just a sympton of the materials used. I've seen some guys on the internet heat this up with a hairdryer and pull it back, but this is a relic now, right? ;)

This guitar is great played at home, but the tuning didn't hold up so well when I rehearsed with it. I expect its an easily rectifiable problem, cos, like I said, its built like a tank. Probably the strings slipping on the tuners a bit.

ha! There is a new 'Hagstrom' company, but all their gear is made in china now.

you can get new old stock bits and pieces from various guys on the net, but I'm too broke at the moment to pay for the one missing tuner, trem arm and volume knob. As I only paid 34 quid for the guitar, it kinda rankles to have to pay that again for a little lump of metal!

Great guitar- I paid thirty four uk pounds for it, with selmer hard case, at midday at a busy car boot sale. I think the reason no one else snapped it up is cos of the plastic topped body- makes it look like a toy to the untrained eye, but it is NO TOY.

If it got nicked, I'd like another one, but 'proper' prices of any guitar from the sixties is just getting ridiculous now- NO WAY should you pay the ??700 I heard of one guy paying from M*sic Ground. Its cool, but not THAT cool! Just say no folks...

Apparently this is a '62 futurama, it has Futurama rather than Hagstrom on the headstock but in the back of the neck is the Hagstrom crown and it has the infamous tremar tremelo apparatus. Supposedly these were made in England from Swedish parts but I have no idea how true that is. It's made from some extremely thin but fairly hard body with a very thin neck with a lovely rosewood fret board. Two excellent sound ing single coils with on off switches and two tone switched one seems to cut treble (called mute) and one seems to muffle the tone by boosting bass so they are kind of the same oh and it has a volume knob that is either on or off. The bridge is not original some kind of dodgily installed tunomatic with plastic bridge pieces that need replacing. The style is kind of stratish it's sort of a cross between the Kent and the II if you've seen the other hags. Finish is a brilliant bright red same colour as David Bowies on the Aladin Sane pictures (this is the model he used). It's cracked to hell with big bits coming off but I think it just looks used not beaten. The pickups sound great though and the trem keeps tune (although it's a bit stiff needs an oil I think), the switches are quite useful as well.

I play lo fi sonic youth/ pavement/ mogwai noisey pop music this guitar is basically similar to the ones used by Mudhoney to get there totally trashy fuzz sound and that's what I use it for. It's very bright I tend to use the neck pickup and it's still way brighter than my other guitars (a dearmond jetstar and an es 335 copy). The pickup sdon't squeal though which is impressive for a 30 year old guitar and it's no noisier thatn my band mates MIJ jag in fact it's less noisy. I use it with an Old Selmer 100watt head through a vox ac30 cab with a marshall bbii into a big muff into a small stone (both reissues) into a crybaby obviously with all teh effects on it's not quiet but it's quiet enough. Sustain is surprisingly good clean it being so thin and everything

no idea how it came in 62 but when I got it it was pretty fucked looking but eminently playable I need to sort out the bridge and raise the action a little so that it feels more comfy with my heavier choice of strings on but the rest was as good as I wanted it to be (i'm not that anal about these things though)

I don't know about this the bridge has a nasty habit of popping the low e saddle which is disturbing but amazingly doesn't seem to throw it ot of tune that much you could get through a song on it (and indeed I have) I've only had it a month but it's already taken about 7 hours a week playing with a band and more at home and not cut out or fallen off me. Although the strap buttons are small you can't do the old grolsch bottle sealer trick on them which I tend to do to my guitars and basses. I play with at least three or four guitars cos all our songs are in different tunings. The hardware looks solid enough the guitar is more than ten years older than me so I figure it may need some care an attention but what do you expect I will then too.

na

I've been playing (bass then guitar) for ten years in bands and noodling since I was about 12. I only started playing and writing on the guitar seriously about two years ago. I have a whole bunch of gear, fender music master bass, a futurama III (not a hagstrom) crappy acoustic, dearmond jetstar, es 335 copy, etc etc. I needed another electric to be able to play all our songs without lengthy retuning breaks, this one looked so cool when I went to see it that I gave up the idea of buying a new Burns Marquee (which had been my idea initially) and got this t was a 100 pound cheaper and much more comfortable the neck is extremly thin and the whole guitar is very light. The burns is a very solid and heavy feeling guitar, just didn't feel comfortable (although if I do get the desire for another guitar I woudl think about it again). I also tried a gordon smith gs 1, which played well and was light but was a bit of a one trick pony, even with the coil splitting, a dearmond starfire special which was nice but too expensive and a danelectro hodad which was nice but the trem was uncomfortable and (shallowly) only came in horrible sparkly colours. So I save a load of cash by buying this one instead. I have this tuned to dac*f*ac* which is the main tuning I use for our songs it sounds great through the big muff and the bluesbreaker I use and even better when I turn the amp up and play with the natural overdrive. i was concerned when I bought it that I would have to replace the electronics etc, the futurama III I bought is unplayably squealy and needs alot of attention. I think if I switch the saddles on this for the ones on my es 335 then I shall be able to fix the intonation and hopefully the saddle popping out problem and have one cool guitar.