Asama Guitars.......

This is the last effect guitar of my collection up today. Asama was an ubiquitous Japanese brand, present in almost every instruments field. Besides lame guitars and stuttering basses, they made famous incursions in anaemic drums and obtuse stepwrite prehistoric drum machines. The brand name Asama , Japanese for "fat bottom" (in the sentence: my girlfriend has such an asama) , was not famous for quality. This rare effect guitar is quite an exception.

While the luthery is not D'Angelico, the overall looks are nice. Watch for example these imitation Grover tuners from hell. But let's face it: if it was only for its luthery , this guitar would never make it to a website. Follow me and jump to the effect deck, Mr.Zulu.

Well this is quite a different story: at last a no-nonsense effect arrangement on an effect guitar. I don't know why but when it comes to effect guitars, makers has all the same obsession: to be the weirdest possible. Recent Danelectro still feature the same attitude with their only-usable-for-'50s-sci-fi-movies-soundtracks distortion. Here we get a normal , useful layout. Not only this, but these 3 effects, boost, distortion and phasing, are among the best sounding in their categories. I have yet to hear a better phasing+squealing-distortion mix than the one you can obtain with this wonder guitar, and with a single 9v battery please.

In this setting, it becomes quite suspicious that the "humbuckers" are just cheap single coils in disguise, as occurring feedback is too savage to be true. In conclusion , an incredible instrument for post-modern noise maker.

Only forget the treble/bass switch which just cut off the bass frequencies for an ugly, vain and weak tone. Incorrigible guitar engineers: they had to do at least one weird little thing!

Eagle eyed stompbox fans may have noticed the LED indicator, which unfortunately does not pulsate with the phasing rate and simply indicates your battery fitness.

Note the colour coded switches: black for the forgettable treble switch, white for the booster/distortion and blue for the phasing, while I doubt these wee colour codes could have any use on a dark stage.

This article was written by Jacque of Fuse Blower fame! Check his site www.ts808.com for some cool articles and pics!