Gear confession – Tokai Goldstar Sound ST60

So I’ve had this Strat for twenty years now, and actually, it doesn’t really belong to me. It is on loan from my best mate Chris’s older brother, Tim, who wasn’t playing it. And so, to save it from sitting around gathering dust, Chris brought it up to Liverpool and I just haven’t quite got round to giving it back. And can you blame me?
Okay, okay, so it’s not actually a Strat. It’s better than that. It’s a 1984 Tokai Goldstar Sound ST60 with a fabulous sunburst finish.  The 1981 version of this guitar is the instrument that was so fabulous that it startled Fender out of their 1970’s malaise of poor quality and zero innovation. It is a perfect facsimile of a 1957 Fender Stratocaster, as close as they could get in every detail and the idea was that only a real geek would be able to tell the difference. They even came up with their own “Tokai” version of the famous Fender logo.
All good guitars mature with age, and this one is no different as it approaches its 27th birthday. The tone has loosened up as the grain of the wood has settled and the nickel plated hardware and plastic control knobs have acquired the pleasing patina of a life well lived.
I have to admit though that this maturing process has not been completely natural. Although the guitar looks totally original, under the skin things have been tweaked and fine tuned here and there to give me an extra level of versatility in tone and sound. If you are looking for the ideal guitar for worship, then this configuration might just be it. Read on!
It took about twelve years for me to totally wear out the frets to the place where it was getting hard to play, so I took it to a luthier in AIntree who re-fretted the guitar and dressed the neck. He refinished the maple in a satin coat which doesn’t stick to my palm (very important in a hot and sweaty climate like Egypt) but he did such a good job matching the finish on the neck to the untouched finish on the headstock that you would never know. Even the original decals are still on there, unmolested. The bridge is original, but has lost a couple of the screws over the years. I like my electric and acoustic guitars to feel similar so I play with 11 gauge strings, and to counter the extra tension I have added a fourth spring to the tremelo block around the back.
Things begin to get really interesting under the scratchplate. I started experimenting with pickups a few years ago when I wanted to get a bit more rock out of the single coils, and so replaced the bridge pickup with a twin blade hum-bucker from Kent Armstrong. This did well for a while, giving plenty of rock but it looked really ugly and didn’t really give out the vibe I was looking for. Wiring up that twin blade hum-bucker was an interesting challenge because following the instructions meant that I lost that fabulous Strat “in-between” sound where the pickups are out of phase in positions two and four. Well, I couldn’t live with that as it’s the sound that I use the most for both clean and blues tones, so I had to tinker about for a while, connecting different wires until I found the correct configuration by trial and error.
This experience set me up well for the most recent enhancements. The original Tokai single coil pickups are good, but I always found them a little thin-sounding, and very microphonic, which could cause a bit too much feedback of the wrong kind when using some hi-gain amps. So, after much thought and reading and web research I bought a set of Fender Custom Shop Fat 50’s replacement pickups and slung them into the scratchplate. At the same time I bought new volume and tone pots and a new switch because the old ones were wearing out and I wanted to get as clean and pristine a sound as possible.  When they arrived I remembered a pickup wiring article I had read in a guitar magazine that offered different tonal options for Strat-type guitars and decided I would give it a shot.
I replaced the second tone pot with a tone control that incorporates a push/pull switch and rewired the pickups to give me three new tone options. With the tone knob pushed in (the regular position) the guitar behaves completely normally. Switch positions one, three and five give you the neck, middle and bridge pickups as usual, and positions two and four give you the out-of-phase “in-between” sounds for that characteristic “quack”. But now, when you pull the tone knob out, you unleash a whole new palette of humbucker tones. Positions one and two both give the neck pickup on its own, position three combines the middle and neck pickups in series for a very rocky tone, and position five gives you the bridge and neck pickups in series. Again, the sound is louder, darker and grittier, but there is a subtle phasing to it, and more diffused than if it were a single humbucker on its own.  However, position four is the best of all because the bridge and middle positions are in parallel for the out-of-phase sound, but combined in series with the neck pickup to give it some extra beef and richness. I love it!
This new pickup wiring has opened up so much extra versatility for the guitar, especially when I’m leading worship. The new pickups are smoother and richer and give that wonderful full John Mayer Strat tone which is perfect for just about any worship music; clean, crunch, blues or ballad. But when I want the guitar to really sing or scream, I just pull that tone knob out and it starts to sound more like a Gibson Les Paul – rich and thick and smooth. You can roll back the volume control to loose a bit of the drive and clean the tone up if you like, while retaining the nuances of everything your fingers are doing on the strings.
So, Tim, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but thanks for the loan of this guitar. It’s a beauty, and I’m afraid there’s not much chance that you’ll ever see it again. I recommend learning the piano. Or something.

Mark-Jaffrey-Strat-GuitarSo I’ve had this Strat for twenty years now, and actually, it doesn’t really belong to me. It is on loan from my best mate Chris’s older brother, Tim, who wasn’t playing it. And so, to save it from sitting around gathering dust, Chris brought it up to Liverpool and I still haven’t quite got round to giving it back. And can you blame me?

Okay, okay, so it’s not actually a Strat. It’s better than that. It’s a 1984 Tokai Goldstar Sound ST60 with a fabulous sunburst finish.  The 1981 version of this guitar is the instrument that was so fabulous that it startled Fender out of their 1970’s malaise of poor quality and zero innovation. It is a perfect facsimile of a 1957 Fender Stratocaster, as close as they could get in every detail and the idea was that only a real geek would be able to tell the difference. They even came up with their own “Tokai” version of the famous Fender logo.

All good guitars mature with age, and this one is no different as it approaches its 27th birthday. The tone has loosened up as the grain of the wood has settled and the nickel plated hardware and plastic control knobs have acquired the pleasing patina of a life well lived.

I have to admit though that this maturing process has not been completely natural. Although the guitar looks totally original, under the skin things have been tweaked and fine tuned here and there to give me an extra level of versatility in tone and sound. If you are looking for the ideal guitar for worship, then this configuration might just be it. Read on!

It took about twelve years for me to totally wear out the frets to the place where it was getting hard to play, so I took the guitar to a luthier in Aintree who re-fretted the fingerboard and dressed the neck. He refinished the maple in a satin coat which doesn’t stick to my palm (very important in a hot and sweaty climate like Egypt) and he did such a good job matching the finish on the neck to the untouched finish on the headstock that you would never know. Even the original decals are still on there, unmolested. The bridge is original, but has lost a couple of the screws over the years. I like my electric and acoustic guitars to feel similar so I play with 11 gauge strings and to counter the extra tension I have added a fourth spring to the tremelo block around the back.

Things begin to get really interesting under the scratchplate. I started experimenting with pickups a few years ago when I wanted to get a bit more rock out of the single coils, and so I replaced the bridge pickup with a twin blade humbucker from Kent Armstrong. This did well for a while, giving plenty of rock but it looked really ugly and didn’t really give out the vibe I was looking for. Wiring up that twin blade humbucker was an interesting challenge because diligently following the instructions meant that I lost that fabulous Strat “in-between” sound where the pickups are out of phase in positions two and four. Well, I couldn’t live with that as it’s the sound that I use the most for both clean and blues tones, so I had to tinker about for a while, connecting different wires until I found the correct configuration by trial and error.

This experience set me up well for the most recent enhancements. The original Tokai single coil pickups are good, but I always found them a little thin-sounding, and very microphonic, which could cause a bit too much feedback of the wrong kind when using some hi-gain amps. So, after much thought and reading and web research I bought a set of Fender Custom Shop Fat 50’s replacement pickups and slung them into the scratchplate. At the same time I bought new volume and tone pots and a new switch because the old ones were wearing out and I wanted to get as clean and pristine a sound as possible.  When they arrived I remembered a pickup wiring article I had read in a guitar magazine that offered different tonal options for Strat-type guitars and decided I would give it a shot.

I replaced the second tone pot with a tone control that incorporates a push/pull switch and rewired the pickups to give me three new tone options. With the tone knob pushed in (the regular position) the guitar behaves completely normally. Switch positions one, three and five give you the neck, middle and bridge pickups as usual, and positions two and four give you the out-of-phase “in-between” sounds for that characteristic “quack”. But now, when you pull the tone knob out, you unleash a whole new palette of humbucker love. Positions one and two both give you the neck pickup on its own, position three combines the middle and neck pickups in series for a very rocky tone, and position five gives you the bridge and neck pickups in series. Again, the sound is louder, darker and grittier, but there is a subtle phasing to it, and more diffused than if it were a single humbucker on its own.  However, position four is the best of all because the bridge and middle positions are in parallel for the out-of-phase sound, but combined in series with the neck pickup to give it some extra beef and richness. I love it!

This new pickup wiring has opened up so much extra versatility for the guitar, especially when I am leading worship. The new pickups are smoother and richer and give that wonderful full John Mayer Strat tone which is perfect for just about any worship music; clean, crunch, blues or ballad. But when I want the guitar to really sing or scream, I just pull that tone knob out and it starts to sound more like a Gibson Les Paul – rich and thick and smooth. You can roll back the volume control to loose a bit of the drive and clean the sound up if you like, while retaining the nuances of everything your fingers are doing on the strings.

So, Tim, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but thanks for the loan of this guitar. It’s a beauty, and I’m afraid there’s not much chance that you’ll ever see it again. I recommend that you take up learning the piano. Or something.

Mark-JaffreyMark Jaffrey is a Brit living in Egypt as the Worship Pastor for Maadi Community Church in Cairo. Luckily his wife and two daughters don’t share his  love for coffee or Sushi, and so he’s not as destitute as he might be.

Mark leads worship most weekends, playing electric guitar in an eclectic international worship band with a fluid and flexible line-up. They often have eight to ten different nations represented on stage. Church takes place in a tent in the middle of Maadi, a pleasant suburb in the south of Cairo, and the congregation is made up of people from forty countries and from fifty different denominations. With the current political revolutionary roller coaster in full flight, you never quite know what the day will bring.

They see their primary calling as to help build the altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt that the Bible describes in Isaiah 19:19.

Click through to Mark’s blog, his Twitter profile and the church website.

Thanks to Mark for this article. We’d love to publish more gear confessions – guitars, keyboards, pedals and amps. Just drop us an email ([email protected]) with your article and a photo.