The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Hello

I have had a VA 900 for nearly thirty years and was wondering if anyone has a wiring diagram for the active electronics.
when I got this guitar the wiring had been altered and the third pot had a six position rotary switch fitted.
also the jack plug had damaged the top of the guitar and another type was routed in.
I an just not sure the actives are wired correctly although they do make a huge difference to output.
I also had to change the bridge pickup as this had no output and tester seemed to indicate that the coils were short circuited.
I put in a Seymour JB which sounds a bit better than the original however thats just personal taste.
My guitar also has a very deep and highly polished finish all over and is luckily free from any blemishes or marks.
its been in the loft for many years and has only come down in the last couple of years.
I have cream surrounds which although not original look okay with the rest of the finish.
I think mines is 1980 as serial number is 6 digits beginning with 0050
I have only found this site today despite many searches for Vantage information.
nice to see a healthy appreciation of these fine instruments and thanks to all for all the historic information, very facinating.
I remember buying a brand new Ibanez MC300 musician limited edition when they were first introduced and can see some common elements with the Vantage.
I cant remember what I did with the Ibanez and many guitars were store at my parents home and got lost and damaged during a removal.
does anyone know how many VA900 were made during the short production run.

Hi Johnro,

Great story! Would love to see pictures of you 900...

For a diagram, go here:

http://www.hiboox.fr/go/images/musique/ ... 1.jpg.html

P.

_________________
MAA Member since June 29th 2009, taking one baby step at a time..... and failing miserably!

Hello Frenchy

thanks for the schematic.
from memory and I will check later I have many more output cables from the main board, which I always believed was just a 12db booster.
the other thing about my guitar is that the LED is on as soon as the jack is plugged in and the LED remains on all the time.

I will try to draw or describe the connections however I would like to take this back to stock although I like the pickups I have been tempted to fir zebra coils or gold covers.
I would not generally do anything that can not be reversed and only the jack plug input is not reversable as this was routed in to remove the damage that was done by a cable being caught or something.

I think that the guitar deserves the best pickups and I found the MMK quite microphonic ie if you touched the guitar or tapped it the MMK`s amplified this sound.
I have also noted a cable that goes to the underside of the sustain block and this is not the earth as this is below the tailpiece.

I can`t remove the sustain block as it seems to be totally stuck in place. I disconnected this cable as it was wired through the six position switch which I removed and substituted with a pot. I suspect this could be a piezo pickup under the bridge???

this must have been done prior to my ownership but must be early eighties work.

I like the guitar very much and always seem to pick it up now in prefference to other I have.
I will add some pics but I tried and my files were too big. I will possibly add these to members gallery.
Thanks for your prompt details much appreciated.

cheers

Hmmmm... sounds very much like it had been well tampered with before you got it; these never had a 6 way; just the standard volume/tone/boost gain pots and 3 micro switches under the knobs for coil split/phase reverse/boost on-off, with the pickup selector on the upper bout.

Interesting that you found the OEM pickups microphonic; I found the opposite; it was very hard to actually make the bugger squeal, however, like all pickups, wax potting will always improve them!!

I'd like to see some pix as well...

Hello Corsair

thanks for your response.
as a guitar player that doesnt gig I bow to your experience with this guitar in gigging situations.
I prefer the SD on a personal preference and found the originals a bit noisey however I believe that the bridge pickup was damaged during an attempt to modify the electronics.
I have tried various pickups over the last couple of years and my judgement is only based on the limited house playing that I do.
I am sure that an original Gibson PAF will not match the quietness of some modern pickups but we would all fit these if we could get our mits on them.
as noted it is always subjective and sometimes when you buy a new pickup you tell yourself it is better due to the hype that surrounds the particular brand.
I have tried most of them and always rated Reflex pickups which were made in the UK years ago. I have guitars with EMG`s and they sound okay but lack something.
I have tried to download a picture of my guitar however will have to down size the image.

thanks for the feedback

John

Hi

I have attatched picture of my non standard VA 900.
I like the way this looks apart from the control Knobs. I have the originals but can`t fing the bloody things.

cheers

Hi

another picture of the finish on this guitar.

this does not look resprayed in any way. the brass control cover is not missing I was just looking at the wiring and had not fitted it back on.

interesting that Vantage altered the 3 position switch sometimes fitting this on a small oval brass plate. I have seen this on Aria`s before and on some VA900`s

cheers

Hi Johnro,

Nice guitar....!



You are right! this is the 4th VA-900 that I see with this little variation plus a French magazine had that VA-900 variation also in a advertisement... I noticed that when a plate is present, the Vantage logo on the headstock is dark brownish compared to all the other VA-900.

Would it be possible for you to post pictures of the electronics cavity? I am curious to see the mods that you mentioned... That 6 rotary switch is very different.

P.

_________________
MAA Member since June 29th 2009, taking one baby step at a time..... and failing miserably!

Hi Frenchy

as I noted before the six position switch has been removed and a standard pot fitted.
this seems to now control the amount of gain when the pre-amp is switched on.
from memory this switch had resistors and capacitors and seemed to offer stepped tones.
a thick steel braided cable also came from this and goes to the bridge even although the earth is on the tailpiece.
I will be looking through all the wiring with your schematic and will try to take some close up pics.
I have had three of these guitars through my hands since the early eighties and a friend bought one from a very established music shop in glasgow at the time for £45.00
we could not believe the asking price and as we were shopping for a guitar for him we snapped this up. I do not know what he done with this one.
the second was another VA-900 which was lost in Manchester during a music show where a friend had a stall, this would be early 1984.
the one I have was bought by myself in 1982 ish and was very cheap at the time.
I have not come across any since that and have been trying to aquire an Ibanez musician to replace the one I bought new possibly 1979 or so.
as an example I paid £375.00 new for the Ibanez so you can imagine the comparison with the Vantage at £45.00.

cheers

Hi

a few pics of the headstock, does the colour match with the others Frenchy?

cheers