Tokai Springy Sound

Mark Wein said:
yeah. The Suhr just has a different sound (and has a humbucker in the bridge). I have a hard time thinking of the Tokai as a vintage guitar in spite of the fact that its 31 years old. I do get a kick out of being the only owner (other than Fender Musical Instruments) of the guitar and that I bought it new 25 years ago. :)
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i was more thinking that it's an accurate clone of a vintage Strat, where as the Suhr clearly has a modern slant.
 
That's a lovely Strat for sure. The guy who runs the recording studio we sometimes use has a similar Tokai..and whenever I'm in there, I just can't put it down..he won't sell it to me though :cry:
 
I agree with you that these guitars are really great...
You can still probably find the ones from your era to be affordable.
 
I've seen several Tokais, and the quality is quite high. I thought of getting one myself. I have a Fender Japan Tele in a beautiful transparent blue that I found on EBay about six years ago. I'd also love to have an (ESP) Edwards Les Paul with the super circuit (two coil splitters, series/parallel switch, and phase switch), if I can find one that's not a "relic model." I'd rather have one that looks fairly new and break it in myself.
 
I've always wanted to try one of those just to compare with Fender. I understand that SRV used one of those extensively before he became better known.

You say difficult to play though? Radius or fretwear, tight string spacing or neck shape?
 
Those Tokai's are VERY sought after due to their association with Stevie Ray Vaughan - he was a Tokai endorser before he got in with Fender. I remember seeing an ad with both Stevie Ray and Tommy Shannon with Tokai instruments (Stevie with the Springy Sound and Tommy with the P-Bass equivalent). I remember the ad in guitar player from the early 80s before a lot of people even knew who SRV was at the time.
 
I think ASB's TARDIS landed in the wrong year.

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aliensporebomb said:
Those Tokai's are VERY sought after due to their association with Stevie Ray Vaughan - he was a Tokai endorser before he got in with Fender. I remember seeing an ad with both Stevie Ray and Tommy Shannon with Tokai instruments (Stevie with the Springy Sound and Tommy with the P-Bass equivalent). I remember the ad in guitar player from the early 80s before a lot of people even knew who SRV was at the time.
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Interesting. This is the first I've heard of his association with Tokai. And I used to read a lot about him.
 
aliensporebomb said:
Those Tokai's are VERY sought after due to their association with Stevie Ray Vaughan - he was a Tokai endorser before he got in with Fender. I remember seeing an ad with both Stevie Ray and Tommy Shannon with Tokai instruments (Stevie with the Springy Sound and Tommy with the P-Bass equivalent). I remember the ad in guitar player from the early 80s before a lot of people even knew who SRV was at the time.
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That ad was what my then guitar teacher used to convince me to buy this one. :)

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The guitar on the cover of "Couldn't Stand the Weather" was also a Tokai that they had airbrushed out the logo on:

srv.jpg
 
Yep. That's my only real claim to fame. I have stupid amounts of unecessary knowledge about the former instruments of famous guitarists.

I actually had heard the story when Double Trouble went to Japan they got those guitars free of charge and really liked them and had to basically go back to playing Fenders when they were stateside.

But some of the guitars on the records are Tokais. But then he found that beat up Fender and the rest is history.
 
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