Matsumoku Ibi JKL No.1

Price

£2,750 GBP

The whole idea of DreamBuilds started here. I am fortunate enough to be very good friends with a fascinating professional musician who has an incredible imagination and passion for guitars. I recall the initial conversation: "I'm into short scale - like a Junior, but better. Like that Swinger I had ages ago, but not that short. Like a Mustang but not an offset. But different. And make it sound amazing. Do a couple because I'm putting thick strings on one of them. Let's go nuts on these." A fair few accomplished players spot one of the Concords that I keep here, they pick it up and reminisce. "Wish I still had mine" is often heard. OK, let's see how good they can be.

After some careful routing, two 1953 Häussel P-90 pick-ups were fitted with a dummy coil hiding between them. A 5-way switch and a push-push tone pot engage the pick-ups to get traditional and more interesting tones. A set of light gauge acoustic guitar strings complete the unusual specification. Gotoh locking SGS510 machine heads are the perfect size and feel for this "shorty" and the sustain and intonation is enhanced by the remarkable FX6 bridge. This is a very purposeful build - it delivers a very specific set of tones, some ideal clean and some especially good and useful when amps are driven. It's a guitar that had a nuts brief, a nuts approach to specification, a nuts donor instrument and the result is perfectly nuts. This is a guitar built with fun in mind. It will likely take your playing and imagination in very different directions. The guitar in the pictures is still in regular studio use, but can be found here at the Hall between shifts. Any scratchplate wearing Westone / Vantage / other Matsumoku built guitar from the era can be recreated like this. Is this one for sale? Sure, as long as I build another one quickly! This one comes with decent provenance.

Details

The Look

This guitar retains the original finish complete with 40 years of parking knocks. The same shape scratchplate is used, but cut to accommodate the new electronics. The output jack has made its way to the bottom edge. The headstock is now black

Headstock

The tuners are upgraded to Gotoh SGS510 in black - the highest quality locking tuners suiting the look and feel of the guitar, and allowing fast string changes.

Neck

This is the original neck with the original skinny frets - just tidied up.

Pick-ups

2 x 1953 Häussel P-90 with Häussel dummy coil. The 1953 is slightly underwound and the lightness and brightness suits this application perfectly

Bridge

A Gotoh FX6 in Chrome gives this guitar stability, great intonation and more sustain than the original.

Controls

the 3 way toggle vol/tone arrangement has been entirely replaced with a 5 way blade, full size 250k volume and tone pots; the latter being a push push arrangement to put the dummy coil in series or parallel with the P-90 in positions 2 and 4.