Musicvox Spaceranger prototype handmade in the USA

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Whilst all Musicvox's production guitars have been made in Korea, a handful of prototype Spacerangers were produced for the 1997 and 1998 NAMM shows in Anaheim, California, and initially so as to give the factory in Korea something tangible to work from.

This Musicvox Spaceranger prototype dates from 1997 and features a yellow/gold/cream swirl "mother of toilet seat" top and a black acrylic veneer on the back of the body. It has a maple neck with lacquer finish, rosewood finger board and rosewood bridge, new old stock KAY (USA) trapeze tailpiece, Kent Armstrong neck-mounted Jazz humbucker and Kent Armstrong mini humbucker in the bridge position, and Kluson Keystone machine heads.

This guitar is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $3,600.

Thanks to Jim Hevesy for bringing this to my attention.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

New guitars from the resurrected Musicvox company include the (soon to be renamed) Strataspear guitar and bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I'm so pleased to see that Musicvox guitars are back. They were ... are (I should say) one of the few companies producing original innovative guitar designs and not content to endlessly re-hash the tried and tested designs of 50 years ago like some companies and copyists we could mention.

We recently looked at a "New Old Stock" Musicvox Space Cadet 12-string bass but today I want to focus on a couple of their new models.

As you can see in the above photo, this new Musicvox is a slim arrow-shaped - or spear-shaped - beastie called, appropriately enough, the "Strataspear". EXCEPT, Musicvox are going to have to change the name because of the objections of a certain American guitar giant. That is, the same company who in the 1980s objected to some forward thinking headless, graphite-constructed guitars and basses going by the name of "Strata", and who forced that company to change their name to "Status". So, forget the name "Strataspear", for these guitars will soon be renamed (but don't forget the name Musicvox!).

The S*****spear guitar is of through-neck construction with an easy-access full two octave fingerboard. The guitar is strung through the body for enhanced sustain and has locking tuners for tuning stability. It is equipped with three pickups: hum-cancelling single coils in bridge and neck positions and mini-humbucker in the middle. (It's interesting that after I was questioning why more guitars don't adopt the S/H/S pickup configuration last week, along comes another guitar with that exact pickup layout!)

The controls are simple: 5-position pickup selector and a stacked pot for volume and tone. That's about as uncluttered as you can get without dispensing with controls altogether, and I do like this no-nonsense approach. Sure, with some guitars you have individual volumes and tones for each pickup, but there's so much fiddling around involved in such a set-up. You can spend days searching the precise positions to give you that optimum tone, but isn't it better to keep it simple and let your fingers and your playing dictate the tone you achieve?

And bass players don't miss out either, for there is also the Musicvox S*****spear Bass with 2-octave through-neck, powerful 8-pole MusicMan-esque bass pickup, 3-position switch for pole switching, stacked pot for volume and tone...

Both guitar and bass are available via the Musicvox website priced at $849 and $899 respectively. Alternatively you might like to bid on either the S*****spear guitar or bass currently listed on eBay. There is a reserve on each auction, but who knows, you could end up with a bargain.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Musicvox Space Cadet 12-string bass - NOS from 2000

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I had previously reported - in 2008 - that Musicvox guitars were no longer being made. Well, I'm happy to tell you that Musicvox are back with a new range of guitars and basses plus new editions of older designs such as the Space Ranger and Space Cadet.

Meanwhile, here is a NOS (new old stock) Musicvox Space Cadet 12-string bass from 2000. Apparently this actual instrument was the last white 12-string bass made, the model no longer being offered by the re-launched company.

The bass features four courses of tripled strings (root plus two octave strings) and other attributes include neck through body construction, twin double truss rods, brass nut, custom cast 12 string bass bridge and tail, locking tuners, dual output jacks (not sure if this means the bass is wired for stereo?), passive and active electronics, and a rosewood fingerboard with block pearloid inlay markers.

The 12-string bass was an instrument originally created in 1978 by Hamer Guitars' Jol Dantzig at the request of Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick who wanted "a huge sound". You can read more about "The Creation of the 12-String Bass" on 12stringbass.net.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Musicvox Spaceranger with P90s

Yes, I know we've looked at a Musicvox Spaceranger on this blog already, but I think the design is so completely bonkers that it withstands looking at again. The eBay auction for the Spaceranger pictured here ends tomorrow night. By all accounts they are very fine players, so for the guitarist who wants something that looks that little bit different, why not go for it? And don't you think the yellow volume and tone knobs make it look even madder?

I still reckon these are destined to become collectors items, the cheesy guitars of the future, so it could well be an investment. In years to come, some company like Eastwood Guitars could well be making replicas of these.

Edit: I'm told that - because of the presence of the P90 pickups - this is a Space Cadet, apparently. However, if you click through to the auction page and check the close-up of the (huge) headstock, then you'll see the name "Spaceranger".