In the May '85 IM I had a look at the Spectrum SX guitar and it's not usual for us to have a look at two guitars in what is such a closely styled range. However the FX, while physically similar, does have a couple of major differences and weighs in at the top of the range with a price of £299.

The basic difference between the FX and the rest of the Spectrum six-strings is that it features a glued in neck as opposed to a bolt-on. The joint follows the Gibson style and seems to be well fitted, although the satin black lacquer on the neck and central part of the body, back and front, hides what could be a multitude of sins. The body is identically shaped to the SX and made from Maple, as is the neck. The finish on this sample was gloss black with this matt black 'Graphics' stripe. It's obviously intended to give the impression of a straight-thro' neck and possibly a carbon graphite one at that. However while the satin finish to the neck gives it a good feel the matt strip on the body is a bit redundant.

Still the neck on this sample was a beauty with a characteristic flat curved profile, although the top end of the neck, near the body is a little bulky as a result of the glued joint but access to the top frets is not impaired.

The fingerboard is again Rosewood hidden with this black stain although on this guitar the sides of the board are also black and the same mini dots are used on the side and face. As with the bass the fret job is okay but the ends could be a little more polished. The board hasn't been cleaned properly after the frets were polished resulting in flecks of white polishing compound left in the grain of the Rosewood which is a bit amateurish.

Hardware

The FX is fitted with the same trem, locking nut and machines as the SX except instead of being chromed they are finished in matt black. The tremolo system works on the Strat principle except we have two pivot screws instead of six. We also have fine tuners but I still found the problem of when using these, the slightest pressure pushes the trem down and sharpens the pitch making tuning a mite tedious. However Mark Ray has already been in touch with the Japs on this one and has suggested placing a block of rubber in the assembly to stop upward pitch bends and improve this tuning pain. Well done Sir!

However, I found another problem that doesn't seem so easy to solve and again affects the return to pitch of the strings in trem use. When you bend the trem down the strings become so slack that they fall out of saddles, if you then let the trem jump back to pitch, the A and D strings do not always return to the groove of the saddle. In fact they tend to get caught on the top of the saddle, resulting in a sharpening of the said strings. A way to remedy this would be to enlarge the string grooves on the saddles or preferably add saddle clamps to hold the strings firmly in their grooves when bending. The former remedy might not totally cure the problem while the latter definitely would, although this would necessitate re-design.

In my review of the SX guitar I didn't spot this problem, but it could have been the reason why I was unsure of the tuning stability of the trem, as opposed to the 'new-string' syndrome.

Pickups and Electronics

The same type of pickups are used on this guitar except we have a different configuration. On the SX we had a single humbucker in the bridge position, with two single coils in the middle and neck position. Here we have a humbucker in the neck and bridge positions, a single coil in the centre. This is more like a Gibson set up whereas the SX was more Fenderish. Likewise in the SX, we have a 5-position pickup selector (Fender), whereas here we have a three position pickup selector mounted on the top horn (à la Gibson). A conservative bunch, the Japs.

The control configuration is different too. Here we have three knobs — a master volume which doubles as a coil-tap for both humbuckers via a push/pull facility, neck tone control also a push/pull, which introduces the centre pickup and the bridge volume again a push/pull which activates a phase reversal. Well that's certainly making good use of the dual control functions, although you cannot have the centre pickup on alone.

The phase reversal seems to be on the back humbucker so although you can have the middle and back pickups out of phase you can't have the middle and neck pickups out of phase. Still, the simple switching is quite logical (when you've worked it out) and probably more 'user-friendly' than it would be if there were extra mini-toggle switches.

Sounds and Playability

Well it took me quite a while to put this one through its paces as you have a lot of switching possibilities, I make it eighteen different permutations in all. Obviously some of these work better than others and while the individual humbuckers sound good it's when you introduce the middle pickup that things become very interesting. With the option of coil-tap and phase on the back pickup some excellent thin Funk sounds can be obtained while the pickups themselves seem of a high enough level to kick out quite a rich and raunchy Rock'n'Roll tone as well. My only criticism would be that the straight humbucker sound lacks a bit of character, neither really raw or really smooth — a bit of a compromise.

The action was set well and the overall feel of the guitar is good, in fact playing it was a real pleasure only being spoilt by the random instability of the trem system.

Conclusions

Potentially a brilliant guitar in all respects but this sample at least has a few problems still to be ironed out. It certainly scores highly on the construction and looks front, and one can only think that when the trem system is sussed the FX could be astonishingly good value for money.

FX GUITAR
For: Style and looks, wide range of sound possibilities, great neck.
Against: Tremolo unit seems unstable.

WESTONE SPECTRUM FX GUITAR - RRP: £299