Tokai Vintage Series AJG-88

he Tokai Company has long been known for their high quality builds and collectability for some of the older models (SRV played an early Tokai Strat Style guitar and indeed was an endorsee).

Tokai's “Les Paul” style instruments have been catching my eye for a while with just their sheer quality. You'd be kind of hard-pressed to know really. So, this month I have one of Tokai's latest “vintage” style instruments, and it is something right up my alley… JAZZMASTER!

This instrument has that classic off-set body shape that hangs so nicely. It's finished in a very '60s-looking Lake Placid Blue and features a rosewood fingerboard, solid alder body, sturdy Gotoh hardware, two PAF-style humbuckers, one volume and one tone, a three-way toggle and a REAL Bigsby B5 Vibrato Unit. It brings the entire twang, chime and rock solid tone you'd expect from a custom instrument but without the hefty price tag.

The number of tones this instrument can produce almost makes it a “one-stop shop” for choices. You can get killer surf tones, lots of “shoegazer”-approved ambient stuff, throaty rock'n'roll tones a la Neil Young, some fairly good country twang and smoky jazz tones. All you really have to do is work the guitar a bit. I'll admit that I'm a fan of the Bigsby unit but… they really need to be set up right and worked in to get them smooth enough.

For testing this guitar I first ran it clean into my old Gretsch amp (Supro) 2x12 combo and the sound was very solid except for the fact that I think it needs heavier strings. The pickups pump out just enough juice to put the amp into the crunch zone whilst retaining string-to-string definition. The neck is a matt finish, which makes it super fast. The frets really need to be dressed better with some of them just being slightly too sharp for comfort. I also think the finish is just a little too thick… but I'm only picking.

Next thing I tried was a fuzz pedal. The tone was thick and stinky… but I was still able to clean it up with the use of the volume control.

Overall this is a versatile instrument that you should be able to manipulate to get whatever sound you'll be wanting and at priced at $1799 with a tweed case, I'd say it's a winner!