This ?Traditional Series? Violin Finish, Made in China ALS43 found me disappointed and, perhaps a little bit frustrated.
It came to me with a ?seized truss rod? as the main problem. The guitar had been restrung from the original 10 ~ 46 gauge strings to a heavier 11 ~ 52 gauge. It was buzzing badly on the first 4 frets on all the strings and the G string wouldn?t play clean anywhere on the neck.
The low E would not play above the 12th fret, because the neck pickup polepiece was hitting the string. By the 22nd fret, you cold get the string to hold on to the magnet. The neck pickup was about 10 mm below the strings. The neck pup was standing way proud out of the ring and the neck pup was almost flush. The bridge was jacked up, about 8 mm higher than it should be.
Just another dead, toneless shiny piece of wood that you are likely to find in at ?Cashies?. A diamond, in the rough for someone with a keen eye and the ability to set the guitar up so that it is playable. You would have some pretty good leverage in getting the price down, with all the playing issues it had.
So, I sat it up on the bench, switched the lights on and started to have a look, and see if I could diagnose and rectify all the playing issues. I capo?d the first fret, and ran across each strings? relief. Ther was none, The neck was back bowed, like a Spanish Archers bow. OK, I think to myself, I will have to check out the ?siezed ? rod.
Truss rod cover off, fit the 4mm Allen key, supplied with the guitar into the hex. The internal hex on the adjusting nut was slightly burred, presumably from earlier adjustments. So after fitting the key in properly, I gave it a twist, to back off the neck. Nothing. Maybe it has seized. Second twist, this time with some more torque and ?CRACK?, a bit of a jar through the fingers, but its turning, with a lot of tension through the rod still. It?s pretty tight.
So it is not seized. OK. There is hope.
Before I was going any further, I tightened the nut, back in to where it was. The last quarter tun that was left on the truss rod thread. The truss rod had been adjusted all the way, there was no thread left, completely bottomed out.
I backed the nut all the way off, and to my surprise found the neck letting in some relief , evenly across the neck. I stopped and wound it back in, and the neck responded, correcly and straightened the neck and took the relief out. OK cool, we have some success here.
I took the nut off and lubed the thread with some Vaseline. I also, just in case someone wants to put something like 12?s or 13?s on it, added an extra washer to the adjuster. It will really have some adjustment left, even against obscenely heavy strings, I?m sure.
With .010? relief, adjusted into the neck, the action was now miles too high at the dusty end of the neck. I lowered the bridge until the strings were set at 5/64 and 3/64. Adjusted the pups so that they were closer to where they should be, like not hitting the strings and tuned it.
It still doesn?t play all strings cleanly on the first couple of frets. Every where else is clean, although it is a highish action for a Love Rock. I rechecked the neck for relief and found that with the bridge lowered down, the angle of pull on the strings, at the nut, has decreased and the rod needs to be backed off again, just a little. Less than a ? turn nudge had the relief back up to a nice safe .010?
Readjusted the bridge and had the strings at 4/64 and 3/64, a nice action for a Love Rock. Now, it plays all the notes, on all the frets cleanly, but the open notes lack definition in attack and are dull, especially the G, still.
When the 11~52 set were fitted, some work had been done on the nut slots. They are definitely wider and definitely deeper than they should be. So, new that the nut needed replacing, rather than do the super glue and powder bandaid. Luckily, I had a bone nut on the shelf, and thought that is a job for later.
The intonation is close enough, at the moment, except for the A string which is flat at the 12th. Close enough though, for now.
Retuned, and set the pups at 4/64 from the strings. Plugged into a Reynolds~Valveart APR501, a very nice Aussie made amp. Had a play, it sounded OK, and played reasonably.
This took me a bit more than 20minutes, because I was a bit wary of the ?seized truss rod? issue.
You could take it straight to a gig, if the nut was sorted.
I am not a ?player? so, I thought I would surprise a mate of mine, who is a player that gigs on a regular basis, with a visit and a guitar. He has tone.
He was playing one of his own creations, a bolt on model with Kinman pups, Tele style, but with another Kinman on the middle and a 5 way sitch. It has Qld Maple in it somewhere, its 100% Aussie and sounded good through his setup. Fast lead lines sound great and he does bends that remind me of Gilmour, he has tone.
He was plugged into a Boss Me50, using the space pan. One channel was plugged into a stock Epi Valve Junior, set at about 10 o?clock. The other, delayed signal, was into a little Vox combo. There was a slow phaser and a Fuzz Face in there too. A bit too overdriven/ distorted for what I can get away with, usually.
So, I pass him the ALS43. He looks at it gives it a few strums, plays some blistering notes at the dusty end. And shrugs, then gives me a little nod.
He just let loose on it. I can tell if he likes a guitar, and I can tell, by his playing, if a guitar is good or bad. I can also tell, by how long he plays it, and what he plays, how much he likes it.
He played it for a while, went through Free, Clapton, Led Zep, a Zappa song, and some other nice boogy style stuff, that he plays. All the tones were there. To my ears, open chords, all the inversions he played were in tune. The cranked tone and feedback OK, but I do prefer Alnico tone over Ceramic. He even has the switch flicking, feedback control sounding good.
He passed it over, and even I could pull some nice tones out of it, albiet limited by way of comparison. But it had me playing as well as I can, reasonably comfortably.
We played it, on and off, for about 2 hours. It stayed in tune really well and had no issues as far as playability is concerned. Even though it was still a bit rough, still because of the nut.
I fitted a bone nut. While the strings were off, I noticed that the frets had been filed a little bit, in an effort to reduce the buzzing, I suspect. So while the strings were off, I gave the neck a Lemon oil treatment. I let this soak in. I also recrowned all the frets. This wasn?t done after the fret file. I polished up the frets, gave the board another dose and got ready to restring it.
10~46 are the standard strings for the ALS43, so I restrung it with that gauge. The guitar had a newly cut bone nut, was restrung, tuned, had the neck relief adjusted again to let some relief in after the tension of 11?s, reset the action at 4/64 and 3/64, checked intonation and moved the pickups to 5/64, to maybe help take a bit of the brashness out of them.
It played every note cleanly, everywhere. The bone nut seems to liven the guitar up no end. Acoustically, a huge improvement over the original. The almost straight neck is super slinky now with the fret crowns nice and shiny. It is now a fantastic player, like it should be.
Later, I dialled up similar setting through my Me50 plugged into the APR501 (kinda sound wise between a Bassman and a Twin). A lie detector for tone. Yep it is still there, this guitar is good to go.
About 2hours work in total, but an interesting day, nonetheless.
Guitar shops should have all the tools to work on guitars. It should be a prerequisite, and at least one person there should be competent enough to be able to carry out setup, maintanence and repairs. Then there would less guitars like the sad little ALS43 that frustrate the unknowing player and give the brand, known for fit, finish, playability and tone an unworthy reputation.
To sum the guitar up, as far as a review is concerned:-
The Basswood body and Maple neck/ Rosewood board combine to give a slightly brighter tone, than the Mahogany/Maple body, Mahogany/Rosewood neck. The neck is a ?slim 60?s profile? and the frets are a medium jumbo. There is a scarf joint, to give the headstock the desired angle. The bone nut improved the overall resonance through the neck, you can feel it. The acoustic volume is louder and clearer, also.
The 3 piece Basswood body has a flamed sycamore veneer with a Poly finish. There are a few scratches on the back from the small amount of playing it has had. The hardware is chrome and the Tune o Matic bridge has enough adjustment to intonate 10~46 strings and has the screwdriver slot adjustment for string height. Finish on hardware is chrome.
Volume and tone controls are 500k. When used in the traditional way, rather than having on ?10?, the pickups will clean up when turned down, not as much as Alnico seems to , but the response is typical, and you can control your tone and feedback from the amp by simply turning up or down.
The tuners keep the guitar in tune nicely. Turning the greenish vintage styled tuners and tuning up offers mixed feelings. There is a little more backlash in one or 2 of the tuners than I?d like. For me, the Vintage series with the Japanese tuners are smoother and more accurate to use. Possibly, an upgrade to these would help complete the overall feeling of quality.
The 3 way switch, is wired so that you have, bridge, bridge neck, neck. No surprises there and it works. The tip is the aged white colour.
The pick guard fits nicely and does not rattle or vibrate, the strap buttons are nicely finished with felt washers. The lead goes in and out of the jack without any hitches, so that works too.
Overall, a vey honest, affordable, well playing, nice coloured, tuneful piece of kit.
If you pick up a Tokai in a shop in Oz, and you are not happy with the way it plays, because it should play well, show the staff. They should be able to make minor adjustments while you wait.
A professional musician should be able to walk into a Tokai dealer, in Oz, and ask himself ?which colour do I want??, buy it and use it to go straight to a performance and not suffer having to play a sad little ALS43.
I didn?t mean to make a review, when I started this, but I hope it helps people have an idea of a specific guitar model and a better understanding of them, as well.
ALS43VF
BODY ： Flamed Sycamore Laminated Top
Basswood Back
NECK ： Maple
Set-Neck
FINGERBOARD ： Rosewood
FRETS ： 22F
BRIDGE ： LS-VBK Bridge
LS-VTK Tailpiece
INLAY ： Dish
PICKUPS ： PAF-Vintage MK4?2
CONTROLS ： 2V.,2T.,
3way Toggle SW
