Univox Hi-Flier

This guitar was made in Japan, probably around 71-72 (this is as much
as I can narrow it down, from checking out the Univox collector home page). It's got the standard Univox features (Jaguar/Jazzmaster style tailpiece, tune-amatic bridge, thin neck), with a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, and P-90's. With the scratches I've put on it through the years, the body seems to be plywood. I have no problem with this. Strong wood glue joints make for a strong wood bond, and makes for a sturdy axe (more on that later). Electronics are a 3 way toggle and 1 volume, 1 tone. Yay. It's a workingman's guitar, what can I say?

This guitar was my first, and when I first got it from my aunt in early 1994, I couldn't get it to sound right at all. I even bought a cheap-o plastic Ibanez distortion and ran it through my Gibson solid state. Pitiful. As I amassed more equipment and know-how, I eventually hooked this guitar up through a DOD Grunge, a Fender solid-state combo for high end, and my old Gibson amp for low end. This sounded wonderful with the EQ rolled off on the DOD. It may seem funny, the guitar being a "Nirvana" guitar and the pedal being a Grunge. But the tone wasn't Grungey at all. It was very articulate and ballsy, with a Black Flag-ish edge to it, a great alternative to the Marshall high-gain sound. The PU's fed back a bit, but that's to be expected for a 25+ year old budget guitar. It also sounds super when ran direct into my four track, clean or distorted. The lead pickup is your typical chunky, humbuckerish sound. The neck PU sounds somewhat generic, unless played through the Fender amp for a clean, meaty funk tone. This guitar is great for punk, demoing, and general rock and roll.

I had the guitar set up at the local shop after I got it (it sat in an attic for the better part of 15 or so years). I've since set it up with 11's, and it's the most comfortable guitar I've ever played. Rhythm work is a breeze, and leads are smooth and punchy. I normally don't like such thin necks, but the heavy string gauge seems to make a great compromise. I've played with the PU's since then, too, and I can't really yield much of a difference. The only flaws are wear on the neck, and a couple of weak spots on the high E string. These are due to age and general abuse from me. I cannot complain about the finish, either. A simple gloss black that has been stickered and unstickered without a mark of glue left. As opposed to newer Strat copies I've seen, that's incredible.

This guitar is a beater, built like a rock. Granted, it came with crappy locked up tuners. I replaced these with a $5 set of tuners made for acoustics that I bought at a guitar show, and the tuning problems are no longer a problem. Strap buttons had been a problem, but I simply drilled a new hole for them. I could use this guitar without a backup, I trust it since it's very good on strings (no sharpness on the saddles, they are round and smooth) unlike my Epiphone, and it could probably withstand fluids being sprayed on it since I spilled a can of pop all over it when I first got it.

The parts on this thing seem to be replacable with anything made by Fender or Gibson, which is great since Univox went under long ago. But truthfully, I would feel no need to contact the company if it were still around. This guitar is a rock, it needs no warranty for its price/performance ratio.

Makes a great first guitar, but unfortunately Kurt Cobain had to go and play them, making some places charge up to 500 bucks for them. Great guitar, but I'd rather buy one new at that price. I'm surprised that more guitarists haven't discovered this, it's an awesome guitar that with a good amp setup, you can just plug in and play.

This is a japanese copy of a mosrite ventures model. I believe it was made in the early 70's. It has two P-90 style pick-ups, a 3-way toggle, and master tone and volume pots. It also has a surf-approved trem. It has a plywood body and a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. The body has a pretty decent sunburst finish. I recently replaced the tuners, and also the rocker-style bridge with parts from stew-mac.

This guitar sounds really good for what it is! It especially sounds good for semi-to-zeppelin style distortion, although the clean sound is, IMHO, better than most humbucker equipped guitars. The pickups feedback easily, but in a good way.

This is where my hi-flyer falls kind of short. The bridge and trem were just bad ideas to begin with, the nut slots were misaligned, and the tuners were hopeless. For some reason the neck pickup was a lot hotter than the bridge, so I switched them. Although the frets are really tiny, they seem to have held up very well, especially considering that this axe is at least 25 years old! The neck to body joint is pretty flimsy, like another reviewer said, you can produce vibrato effects just by wiggling your left hand while playing!

I would never recommend playing live without a backup! Temperature changes seem to affect this guitar pretty easily. As long as you don't drop it off the stage, run it over with the band vehicle etc., it should do o.k.

Univox folded long ago.

This guitar is funky in a very cool way. Although it wasn't manufactured with strict quality control, or even very good parts, it sounds very good. It is definitely off of the beaten path, which makes it even more desirable to someone like me who is slightly left of center!

This is an early to mid 70's Hi-Flyer I purchased used. 21 frets, thin plywood body with a "german carve" like the Mosrite. Headstock is the "Bart Simpson" look with the Univox decal, not the plastic logo. 2 original stock humbuckers, 3 way toggle, 1 volume, one tone. The guitar is an off-white with a 3 ply white pick guard, rosewood fretboard. The bridge and trem are original (I had to find a bar to fit it, not an easy task!) The neck is thin and very playable. I replaced the original junky tuners with Schalers and this took care of tuning problems. No case came with the guitar.

The stock pickups are amazing! The sound of the bass strings is fat and chunky while the high strings really cut. Very unique! The guitar sounds best fully distorted ala Ramones or The Misfits, but the clean sound is also very nice.

I have all my guitars set up by my guy. After we replaced the tuners, it was great. I also replaced the volume and tone knobs with some chrome ones........looks pretty cool. Action is excellent. It can be a struggle to get to the 20th and 21st frets though.

This guitar begs to be abused. A "player" you don't have to worry about.

N/A

I've been playing 20 years and have owned just about everything. This is a great guitar, mainly because of it's unique tone, and light-weight body.

This is (maybe) a Phase III. It has 2 really awesome humbuckers and a sunburst finish. Entire guitar is fashioned after a Mosrite Ventures. Neck pickup angled downward towards left. White pickguard, 22 frets, rosewood fingerboard, Kluson tuners(replacements, not mine) and a tune-o-matic bridge with a Jazzmaster/Jaguar-style tailpiece; i didn't get a bar. Came with original cheap case and Univox Superfuzz pedal.

It suits my music style, which is Verbena, some early Nirvana (anything from Bleach or Incesticide) and Mudhoney. It's great for Mudhoney sounds, but I think this is because of the Univox Superfuzz pedal I'm using with it. It's awesome for all my other sounds. It has a rich,full tone for the bottom 3 strings, and a bright, slightly distorted tone for the top 3 strings. It makes 3 different sounds (bridge, bridge and neck, neck) selectable via a 3-way toggle switch. Global volume and tone pots. It's not great for everything, but it certainly is great for everything I play.

The guitar was purchased second-hand, so the previous owner was a luthier and set up the guitar himself. I purchased it in as good condition as any brand new Strat or SG. The bridge and tuners are replacements, and are profesionally installed and intonated. The body wood is plywood, which gives a really unique sound. The neck is thin and fast, just amazingly comfortable, and the body is about an inch thick(great).

This guitar will withstand live playing without a backup, although I never do that. I have a backup, but never have to use it. I use a Fender re-issue Jaguar as a backup. Good finish, one crack due to guitar's age, strap buttons are Schaller Straplocks, so I've never dropped it. This is an extremely durable guitar for the price it was originally sold for. The only stock hardware are the pickup switch and tailpiece, and will last forever. The tuning stability is great.

Univox are out of business, but the guy who fixed this guitar up and sold it for me will service it anytime it has a mishap.

I also own a Fender re-issue Jaguar with Seymour Duncan pickups, one antiquity Jaguar pickup and one JB Junior hotrail. I also own a stock Gibson SG and a '65 Fender Jazzmaster with 2 Schaller Humbuckers, eventually the bridge humbucker was changed to a DiMarzio Super Distortion. I use the Hi-Flyer most of the time, and the only other guitar I gig with is the Jaguar. Now, look at the good guitars I just listed... the Hi-Flyer is the best.

My guess is that it was built in the mid to late 70's by looking at the features compared to other Univox guitars. It has 21 Frets, 1 volume, 1 tone, and a 3 way toggle. It has dual humbuckers. I believe it has a plywood body, not sure what the neck is made out of, feels rather cheap though. It has a beautiful Mosrite shape to it, it's solid black with a white pickguard. Tuners are VERY cheap, and it has a missing tremolo.

Well...this is a tough one. The electronics are pretty much junk, the guitar will only play if the volume knob is turned completely up, and unless the toggle is set in the center, it buzzes terribly! But...with this configuration mentioned, it has a pretty good sound. As long as the toggle is in the center, and the volume is cranked on the guitar, it gives a decent sound, any other settings of the the toggle or volume knob sound pretty bad.

Well, this was a used guitar, so I can't judge what it was like new, but it's pretty awful now. The tuners are cheap plastic, and don't work well. I believe the neck is warped, the action is very high low on the fretboard, almost unplayable below the 10th fret. The pickup covers are loose, and rattle while playing. The toggle switch is very cheap, looks like something you'd buy for $.99 at K-Mart. The neck is set very poorly, you can used it as a tremolo by pressing on it while playing, not good!

As far as reliabilty...it works, just not like it suppose too! As far as durability, I've been playing it pretty hard for the last few years and it's held up without any major problems...besides the fit and finish problems mentioned above...well, I guess they are kinda big problems though!

Company is no longer in business. No wonder when they were building guitars like this1

This was my first guitar. At the time I bought it, I didn't know a thing about guitars, and this one fit my price range. I really wish it was a better built guitar, I love the looks of it, and I really like the feel of the guitar, it has a very thin body, and a comfortable neck. With all the problems this guitar has, I still enjoy it, probably because it was my first I guess. Sometime soon I would like to take it to a pro and have everything redone on the guitar ie: tuners, bridge, neck, etc. I like the fact that it is an "oddball" guitar, one that you don't see everyday, that is why I'd like to get it fixed up. I think this guitar has potential...it's just going to take a lot of cash to get it!

Unknown year of manufacture. Japanese. 21 frets. I bought it from a friend in 1989 for 30 bucks. It was off-white, with a white pickguard, and trem bar missing which is extremely difficult to find due to metric threads. I have not bothered to fashion a trem bar myself. Nice dual humbucking pickups with chrome plate holders around them, also off-white. Regular volume and tone controls, with a Radio Shack-looking three way toggle switch. Thin body with distinctive indented lip around edges. Tuners were worn and the plastic knobs turned without tuning the string. I easily replaced them with a nice cheap set of chrome tuners.

I like the sound a lot. It is bright and almost tinny sounding at times. I have regrettably replaced the pickups with a DiMarzio and one of my own manufacture, losing the vintage sound. My own pickup hardly works at all, the DiMarzio on the bridge works great.

This guitar was well used when I bought it. Some frets were worn down to the board close to the neck. I liked this guitar so much that I had it refretted by a luthier, using ultra-hard fretwire that will last a very long time. I regrettably repainted this guitar and will never repaint an electic guitar again no matter how many scratches it has!

This is actually a very sturdy guitar, except for those old stock tuners. I would use it anywhere, but my scope of playing experience seldom leaves my living room.

Univox is long gone, I hear.

I would not mind replacing this with another Hi Flyer, actually. I would swap the neck with my current one.

I have a Univox Hi-flyer from god knows what year. It's old, because it has the nailed-on logo instead of the decal. It's sunburst with a red tortise-shell pickguard, so I think it's a custom, because Kurt Cobain's Hi-Flyer custom was the same. It has one volume, one tone, and a huge 2-way pickup toggle. It looks like an amp's power switch. It has 22 frets on a rosewood fingerboard. When I got this guitar, it didn't have pickups, tuners, or a bridge, because the guy who sold it to me was in need of spare guitar parts for his project guitar. I put in a Dimarzio PAF Pro(neck) and a Seymour Duncan JB(bridge). I did this to sound like Kurt Cobain, because his custom was fitted with a JB, but the JB sounded too thin, so I put in a DiMarzio Super Distortion(like on his Jaguar). The original red tortise-shell pickguard was cracking, so I bought a red tortise-shell 3-ply plastic sheet from Stewart MacDonald and cut a new one with a Dremel tool. Along with the plastic, I also ordered a set of Kluson Vintage tuners(my favorite.)

I have a Fender Jaguar, a Fender Jag-Stang, and an Epiphone G-400, but this guitar has the best sound. None of my guitars are stock, because the perfect guitar for me just isn't out there, so I have to modify them all, but this one came out great. The sound suits my music style, and this guitar is my number one guitar. It's got a distorted quality to the treble humbucker that I like all my guitars to have, and I think this is the Super Distortion. The guitar's sound is now considerably deeper than when I had the JB in it. It suits my band's sound, and all my bandmates love it too.

I like vintage guitars' finish, because they didn't agonize as much, and didn't get the finish all shiny and new all the time. I like it when my guitars look a little beat up. The guitar is made of plywood, but can stand a lot of abuse, and the 2-tone sunburst is done well, although some of the plywood grain grooves are visible through the finish on the back of the guitar. (Who cares?)

This guitar can stand a lot of abuse, suprisingly. From it's description, It sound's like it wouldn't be all that reliable, but it is. (If one can withstand 8 years of Kurt Cobain's possesion, it can withstand being with me forever!) I got this guitar to sound like Kurt Cobain, because I wanted to capture the BLEACH era sound. It's pretty close, even with diferent pickups. I use this at gigs with my home-made Univox copy as my only back-up. It has Dunlop straplocks. I only had to use the back-up once, when my Duncan JB fizzled out in my Univox. I was so pissed at that damn pickup I slammed my home-made guitar on the stage and broke the headstock. That's okay, when I feel like smashing a guitar on stage, I put the Univox away and bring out my Univox copy and slam it down headstock-first, because I keep a small stash of necks at home for it.

This company is out of business, which is a damn shame because I want another Hi-Flyer. I'm going to try to find one with P-90's in it, or any one with any pickup and put P-90's in it. I just want another one. It's my favorite guitar in the world.

This was the first electric guitar I ever owned, bought brand new in 1975 for $179. My parents gave me the choice of going on the 7th grade trip to Washington DC or buying an electric guitar that cost the same amount of money. I chose the guitar.
It had 2 humbucking pickups with a 3 way selector switch. Maple neck with rosewood fingerboard and big UNIVOX decal. Finish was gloss black on a Moserite Ventures style body made of unknown material (could have been plastic for all I know). Cheap tuners & roller bridge. The tailpiece had a flimsy whammy bar which made for frequent tuning breaks.
It came with one of those cheap black cardboard-like cases and the dealer threw in a strap and extra strings and picks.

Again, I was 13 years old and this was my first electric, so to me every sound it made was literally magic. I was playing through an old Fender Bassman Amp and remember it having lots of problems with ground noise.

The action seemed good, but at the time I had really only played acoustic so I didn't have anything to compare it to.

The strap buttons on this guitar were replaced because the short screws kept ripping out. The other weak link were the tuners which I also would have replaced if I hadn't traded it in first.

I never had any problems that warrented any type of support, but I believe at the time these were sold, any customer support issues were addressed to the retail dealers.

I actually picked this guitar out of a catalog at a very small music store where I had been taking lessons. I got it withought ever seeing or playing one like it ahead of time (come on, I was 13; I didn't know any better) and I guess I was lucky because it was very playable. A couple of years later, I traded it in on an LP copy and then up to a Gibson SG.
Over the past few years, I have come to love cheap guitars like old Mustangs and Epis (which unfortunately have become somewhat collectible and are no longer cheap). If I ran across another Hi-Flyer I would probably buy it if only to hang on the wall; although I can't say I'd be willing to pay more than the original $179...

This is a copy of a Mosrite Ventures model. It sort of looks like a upside down strat with the edges flared inward. Everything is origional on this guitar except the tail piece/bridge. Its a very thin, solid body guitar. The body is made out of ply wood which makes it very, very light(It's a dream when it comes to playing standing up). The color is 3 tone sunburst. The neck is maple and has a rosewood fretboard with 21 medium sized frets.The neck joint plate has a really cool "U" on it. The headstock is the 3 tuners per side type and the tuners are not that bad. The logo on the top is the decal type. The very first Hi Fliers had nail on logos. The pickguard has 3 plys(Black/White/Black) and to my personal knowledge it is kinda rare, because I don't see many Hi Fliers with these pickguards. You mostly see white. The thruss rod cover is also the same. When I first got this guitar it had the origional Les Paul Jr type bridge/tail piece, but the action was way to high and there was no way to adjust it. So, I took it off and put on a Gibson Tune o Matic bridge and a Gibson Stopbar Tail Piece and it played so so excellent. What I really like on this guitar is its stock humbucker pickups. They have a metal piece going around the sides and about 2 cm on the top of the pickup like a Gibson P94 except it has one adjustable screw on one side and two on the other and they sound oh so sweet. It has a tone and volume knob and a 3 way toggle switch.

This guitar seems like it was made just for me. It plays the three styles that I love the most which is old punk rock(not this new crappy punk), kinda sad and moody rock, and obsure rock. What makes this guitar play all these styles is the stock pickups. They are some of the best pickups I have ever played. You really need to experiment with the toggle switch and tone knob. My favorite setting is the toggle switch in the treble position, volume all the way up and the tone knob at zero. It really makes a good punky sound. Another good setting is the volume and tone all the way up and switching the toggle to the middle or rythme position. It makes a really rich sound.

I can't tell you how the factory set up was because its 20 some odd years old so only the first owner would know but I can tell you the only thing I didn't like about this guitar was the action and that was due to the Les Paul Jr bridge/tail piece. It made the action way too high and there was no way to adjust it. So I took it off and put a Tune O Matic bridge and a stop bar tail piece on and that worked great. It plays so well now. After that I adjusted the pickups to be raised more towards the High E string. The finish is cracking alittle bit but I don't really care. Its 3 tone sunburst(Black/Red/Orange). If I kept the origional bridge/tail piece, I would give this a 6 but since I made my modifications to it I give it a 9

Most people say their Hi Fliers don't stay in tune but I haven't had any trouble with the guitar not staying in tune. I wouldn't really count on this guitar 100% because its made out of ply wood and it could brake very easily if I work it to hard, which I tend to do, but I really like playing with it in my band and I would definately use this guitar giging as my main guitar. The only thing thats wrong with it is the strap buttons. Their getting loosier and loosier every time I play standing up. So thats the next thing I got to fix.

Univox went out of buisiness is the late 70's. So theres no warranty or customer support.

I've been playing for a little over 7 years now and I have grown to love cheap, odd shaped, bargain bin guitars and this one fit right in on the top of that category. Its a superb guitar. Not only does it play well but it looks pretty cool. If it were stolen, I definately would buy another one but most likely I wouldn't find one.
I would like to ad - Don't buy this guitar just because someone you like has one. Buy it because you saw someone with it and you just couldn't get over how cool it is and take it from me. If you like punk and really thrash like kinda stuff. Then you'll love this guitar.

i bought this guitar used at a thoroughbred music store and i love it. the thin body is awesome and its one of the newer ones with stock humbuckers, and the stop tailpiece,it is natural color and has a maple neck that plays great. i think it was the last kind that univox made. it sounds great and it is in pretty good shape considering how old it is

i play alot of punk music so the sound is great for me but alot of people probably wouldnt like it. it also has trouble stayin in tune i have to tune it at least 3 times a day. but other than that its great.

i just bought this guitar this year (98) and it was set up good i had to change the strings and i might get a new nut and have it re-fretted. i love the stock humbuckers they sound great and the thin body and maple neck make it very fun and easy to play.

this guitar so far has been very dependable and durable for its light weight, (i think the neck weighs more than the body) i think i could probably play it at a gig without backup as long as i had my tuner.and the finish is great it is a very good looking guitar its is natural with a black pickguard.

ive been playing for about 2 years now and ive had a few guitars and this is definetly one of my favorit along with my jag-stang.if this guitar was stolen i would definetly try to find another one to buy but they are hard to find and when you do the price is usually rediculous