Vintage RARE 1977 Japan Fresher Strat Style Electric Guitar On-board Drum Machine Pro Setup New Gigbag

Fresher Straighter Drum Machine 1977

Today, Lawman Guitars is Presenting…..

A very cool and unusual Made in Japan Guitar. It’s a Fresher Straighter with a built in Drum Machine. That’s right, a guitar that keeps the beat for you! Comes with a new gigbag…

Our research tells us these Fresher guitars with this Headstock design were made in 1977 and 1978. No dates to identify this one. We are calling it a 1977.

These guitars are very cool. I have to say upfront that we were not able to get all the sounds working. We have the bass drum and the claves working. We could not figure out how to get the other sounds working. All the beats work, the tempo and volume works as well as the start and stop button. Just not all the sounds. The guitar also has lighted 12th fret markers…Yes, you can see the beat as it goes by watching the lighted dots facing the guitar player. Not the audience… See pic 6!

Here's some info on these cool Fresher guitars…

Fresher is hardly a household name in most American guitar collecting families, with good reason. Basically, these were primarily made for domestic use in Japan, although at least some were briefly exported at least to the United Kingdom. Despite the fact that examples occasionally show up, as of now there is no evidence that Fresher guitars were ever officially imported into the United States.

The Fresher story begins back in 1973 when Fresher guitars were introduced by the Kyowa Company, Ltd., of Nagoya. Nagoya, you’ll recall, is one of the principal guitar-making regions in Japan. Kyowa was primarily a trading company, importing products and developing some musical instruments. The company is still in operation, importing Charvel/Jackson, Takamine and Dean Markley products, among others.

Fresher guitars were built by the Matsumoto Musical Instrument Manufacturers’ Association, a consortium of suppliers in the Matsumoto region. This organization, by the way, did not include either Fujigen Gakki or Matsumoku, the area’s more famous manufacturers.

We cleaned this guitar up a lot and set it up with a new set of 10 gauge strings. It plays great and sounds wonderful. The five way switch works just like your standard newer Strat Guitars. The guitar has two input jacks. One for the guitar only, and one for the drum machine. Cool if you have two amps or two channels on your amp. You can use the drum machine input to get both the guitar and the sounds if you only have one channel.

The solid ash body is just beautiful. It’s a heavier wood so the guitar weighs 7 lbs 11 ozs. The flamey Maple neck is a 25 ½ inch scale and the nut measures a narrower 1 9/16 inches. Smaller hands will like this one. Truss rod works and everything is original but the whammy bar and the gigbag.

Very cool and unusual guitar but its vintage and used so its sold as is, no returns. Thanks for respecting that.

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Thanks a lot! Lawman Mike at Lawman Guitars