Riverhead Stratocaster Copy

This is the 2nd Guitar I have purchased and again, I'm very happy with it. Made in the 80s by headway in japan. 22 frets, solid top, one volume and one tone controls, 3 way selector switch and humbucker at the bridge and two double coil pickups . Body is smooth and thin, , neck is made of fine wood, finish is a beautiful pitchblack. Absolutely beautiful guitar. Stratocaster body style, black pickguard and stainless pick-up sides. Headstock is inverted custom like-stratocaster shaped. Standard Stratocaster Tremelo, string through body, very nice stinless gotoh style tuners, thin neck, standard frets, rosewood fretboard, very small nice dot inlays . The quality is EXCELLENT and I am a very critical person when it comes to guitars. I absolutely love this guitar.

I play blues,rock,metal - especially classic rock from the 70's as well as southern rock. I'm using a Marshall MG10CD in the bedroom . It isn't noisy at . Bright beefy twang on the bridge just like you would expect from a strat with a humbucker, and the neck pickup has one of the sweetest blues sounds I've ever heard. I use the bridge pickup for hard rock riffs and metal leads. This is the first strat I've owned that actually has a worthwhile pickup. I love everything about this guitar and it is only the second guitar I've ever owned that I've said that aboute.

Its made in the late 80's ,but up until now. The quality remains,sound, staight neck,and durable fretbard.

I've been playing for nearly 10 years and I've got way to much gear to list here.I always play for my passion in music. Im not into branded guitars ,but im into the quality of sound that my guitar can make. I will not lose this guitar and I would kill and dismemeber the fucker that steals it. I love everything about it and I compared it to a lot of different branded and signature guitars. I choose my guitars carefully. I am very impressed with riverhead Guitars.

Yet another Stratocaster copy (what Americans call ?overseas? copies) and not exactly one of the reasonable ones. If you don?t have enough money to afford a Squier (yes I said Squier) this one might be good enough as your first electric guitar, but you?ll outgrow it in less than a year. To pinpoint the origin of this one is an impossible task, probably being one more of the usual Korean pretzels megamusicmalls are used to offer. Did get this one as part of a large trade-in, and was with me ever since.

This Riverhead model was made in the late '80s, definitively in Japan. No info in catalog. Features of this guitar are as classic as it gets, with the classic basic frame most players are familiar with: Alder offset bolted-on body, 22 frets fretboard made out of light rosewood with trapezoid inlays (in turn made out of plastic ?as all others from Riverhead-). Two single coils and one cheapo humbucker on the bridge position (unbranded, even while some Riverhead models used ?Select?), all and each one noisy as hell. 1 volume control, 1 tone control and three way switch. Finish is all black, roughly painted like a toy. Stock hardware (including a modest, double locking BIZARRE tremolo unit) is of a very, very low quality, and the casted enclosed machine heads are clear proof of that.

Please do note that, due to the extremely low quality and poor features of this guitar, I used it as the ?frame? for a personal project, the ?Psitarcosis? .

If you wan to check pictures of this one, the Psitarcosis or any other of my 40 guitars (including a Chrome Boy, Jem 777FP, Washburn EC 36, HM 20V, Kramer Ferrington and Graphic?) get the full story at my homepage, http://electricguitar.50megs.com.

What I?m enjoying today is indeed not what I did get from the manufacturer. It was obvious that, due to some obscure manufacturing/cost reducing strategy, this guitar was useless. The electronics are modest but only effective using the guitar as a learning tool. What I later on did with this baby may seem odd to many people, but the guitar in its stock state was useless anyway, so I finally performed a slaughter on it and the results are amazing, awesome, wild?

If you plan the use the guitar stock, you?ll immediately notice drops in volume and funny tone slips when toggling switches or while just playing. Tonallywise, this is one of the most dumb instruments I ever played, thin and weak. In a nutshell, what you can expect from this guitar is a non-professional guitar, roughly sounding like a Squier, but well below acceptable standards. To figure out how this baby sounds without being annoyingly erratic or too subjective from my side, we should start analyzing how it reacts to the two most standard environments. Plugged into a full stack Marshall, cranked up to obscene extremes to get some juice, the guitar buzzes like a massive giant bee attack, producing non musical feedback, wild and out of control. Please consider that in this case the basic Alder frame is responsive to a Di Marzio pickup and not to the original pickup, so my comment is only valid if you use the stock electronics. Both single coils pickups are opaque and weak, basically what you might expect from an instrument within this price range. Clean sounds are substandard, unarticulated and thin. In this connection, please do note that not all Riverhead guitars are this bad, some models (including the ?Exceed?) differ notably in every detail.

For the record, I checked this one out with several rigs during more than 9 years (of course not in gigs, from where it was constantly barred, even as backup guitar). During all these years, I did play this one through many amps, including any Marshall you can imagine (including Plexi dual stacks, Valvestate 80 (old model), 1981 full stack, 1987 half stack, 25th anniversary full stack) as well as countless others, including a Mesa/Boogie combo, my ADA MP2 with an ADA MicroTube 100, both through Crate and ADA Cabinets ?mono and stereo-; Pignose; Korg PX3; Roland JC 120? you name it. Before the modifications were made, sounded terrible each and every time.

Likes: Nothing. Dislikes: Every single bit of it (at the end of the day Ash wood is Ash!)

Disastrous. The guitar came with the guitar contain any flaw you might think of (misaligned bracing, poorly filed fretwire,
finish flaws, poor quality wood, rusted or oxidized hardware, loose tuning pegs, poorly cut nut, poorly fit saddle, noisy pickup selector, loose controls) and I'm just starting to warm up...

This guitar is of a very, very, very low quality. Scratching appeared within days, but since it was disastrous already, I ripped the crap out of the guitar, disposed all parts in the trash (exception made by the wood) and problem solved forever. Other than that, if you?re worried about reliability of this guitar, be so. Badly.

I don't think anyone will show up up (EVER) taking responsibility for this one.

I've been playing for more than 20 years now, and own roughly 40 guitars, including this one. If you keep it stock (dumb choice indeed) you?ll rate this guitar ?at the most- at ?0?. Anyway, if you?re after the most inexpensive Strat copy and want to learn a few beginners? licks, this might do the job for a while. If you?re interested in pictures, original wiring diagrams, parts debriefing or just further details on what I did to this babe, be welcomed to my homepage at HTTP://ELECTRICGUITAR.50MEGS.COM