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NGD - Robin RV-1


Keoghpjk

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I happened to stumble across this interestingly modded Robin RV-1 from (what I believe to be) the early the '80s for just under $500 at DGS, and was lucky enough to snag it. It arrived on the coldest morning so far this year, so after patiently waiting for it to acclimate I was able to unbox it, give it a bit of a clean, do a setup and get to unraveling what's been done to it over the last few decades.

The guitar has clearly been played a lot over the years, but has been very well looked after. There's a lot of honest wear from years of being used, and it's my belief it was played so much because it's a hell of a good feeling, and sounding guitar. Unplugged, it resonates as well as any tremolo equipped bolt-on I've played, and the neck has been played-in beautifully. It's a rather chunky neck, something on the fat side of a typical '60s Strat carve (round-lam board and all). This was both unsurprising due to the fact that it's basically a Tokai Springy Sound neck (outside of the headstock), and slightly unexpected because with that headstock and body my eyes told me it should have something more towards the shredder end of the spectrum. That being said, the neck feels quite comfortable. The frets are in good shape, and I'd hazard a guess that they've been dressed in the not too distant past. At one point it seems to have had a Kahler-style locking mechanism above the nut long enough to make an impression in the finish. Someone did a fairly decent job removing that, and adding what looks (and smells) to me like a well cut bone nut. I'm not so nuts about the installation of the Schaller tuners. The shafts are significantly taller than the vintage units it would have originally had, and the buttons are a bit too close together. The guitar weighs in around 7lbs, and the body has few nicks and dings for it's age. There's the requisite buckle-rash on the back, and on the front what looks to me like faint marks left by string-lock screws from some sort of quasi Floyd-ish type bridge. I see no indication it ever had anything other than a six-screw mount tremolo, however. Something close to the original bridge is currently on it, but a huge brass block has been affixed to it. The block is so big it's effectively blocking the trem quite nicely. Outside of the tuners, I'm not seeing anything I'll likely be doing to the hardware anytime soon.

The electronics are interesting. I've not sussed it all out quite yet, but there seems to be a Bill Lawrence L-100 (with the metal surround crammed into the pickup ring so tight that height adjustment will take some elbow grease) running to added coil-split and some sort of series/parallel switch and then to an unidentified preamp using the original switch location. Without the preamp engaged there's more tonal variety than I was expecting with those additional switches. The volume and tone pots are decent units that are fairly expressive as well. I've never had the chance to try out a L-100 before, and I'm liking it quite a bit. With the preamp engaged, full-on Armageddon level things occur. The switches cease to do anything other than make barely perceptible changes to what sounds to me like an all-out dimed Boss HM-2 stuffed into the guitar. I've not messed with the three trim pots on the preamp's circuit board, they all seem to be close to fully cranked and I'm not even close to done being amused by it as-is. I plan on getting a better grasp of what's going on under the hood eventually, but at this point I'm enjoying this too much to worry about the how, what and why's of it all.

I am happy as hell with this one.

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35 minutes ago, Boomerang~Junkie said:

Great write-up and equally cool guitar.  Although modded, they appear to be well done and not hacked.

Great get.

What he said. Congrats!

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                                                                     Great  review of the guitar,I REALLY like it!....................Robin made some great guitars, [I think it was Kiz that said they are making them again,not sure] I love their Avalon's with the beautiful tops. Great score enjoy that guitar, a lot of bang for the buck!

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Looks awesome, and I liked.your description of a L-100 through that preamp :D. Exactly what I had envisioned.

The tap/phase switches are a great with a hot pickup like that.  I have a Charvel prepro-esque clone with a single DP100 and single push/pull volume pot for series/parallel. Unlocks a great tonal option.

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