Almost Amazing: Soviet-Era Guitar Looks So Good, But... 

Tim I get an ad every 3 mins. I don't know if it's intentional or not but it seems a little excessive

That guitar looks like when animators who haven't ever played a guitar have to design a guitar for a show or movie

Honestly, those old Soviet guitars and the weirder Harmony/Teisco stuff out of Japan are some of my favourite guitars of all time, looks wise.

The original headstock was one of the best features of the guitar IMHO. It had the look of a mandolin about it.

This guitar (with effects built-in and working) is a noisecore monster. Shame you cut off the headstock

6:21 Fitting that you're listening to Rage and working on a Soviet guitar LOL

Instead of a symmetrical 'Gibson-style' headstock a bit of offset angle on the headstock would match better with the body style.

I used to own one back in the 80s. It looked so modern and cool so I bought it. The price was 245r or 275r a rough equivalent to 300usd back then. The guitar was a souless piece of junk even compared to other guitars made in USSR. Possibly the worst guitar ever. Good memories though )

About that 9 volt battery compartment: The industry standards for battery sizes are amazingly loose. I will assume the Soviet designers only had access to the cheap batteries and those tend to be on the small end of industry standard. Higher quality cells tend to be larger, so I'm not surprised that yours did not fit. How do I know? I design battery compartments for handheld scientific instruments. I have designed instruments that use AA, C, and several different Li-ion cells, and I have found that there is a huge tolerance allowed for variation in size. Our marketing department wants our instruments to as small as possible but they also want the largest battery packaged inside it. I

Your whole moding of this guitar is such a "Soviet" thing in itself.

Oh man. You should do a collab with Look Mum No Computer where you guys both get some guitar with built in effects and mod them to do different things.

If I had this guitar I'd spend more time to chose a tone than actually playing

Как гитара она не очень но в рукопашном бою незаменима ). А вообще играли на подобных и радовались.

In the Soviet Union, the instructions read «after assembly, process with a file» 😁

If it was a keyboard, that switch right under the strings that's impossible not to hit would be the DEMO button. Maybe you could mod it to play a recording of stairway to heaven when you hit it? I feel like the original creators of this guitar just didn't think of it or it would have been an original feature.

I can't believe this showed up in my recommendations! The lead guitar in my band bought one of these recently and we r waiting for it from a guitar shop

In my humble opinion, you should definitely strip out those old effects circuits and put in some new ones. A phaser is cool and all, but a reverb would be a better and more versatile effect. A fuzz cicuit is always a good choice. Man, that guitar does look unique. I love the vibe too. Awesome score.

Great video. What's crazy is that guitar was made in my hometown Borisov (Belarus) and the model is even named after the city (Borisov Solo II). I remember vividly that my father used to have one in cherry red color.

Man thanks for doing this, this is why I learned to work on guitars. Had an old Silvertone as a kid my local guitar store wouldn't fix because it "wasn't worth the time to fix it" and if I wanted it repaired I should "learn to do it myself" Fell in love with Tonika guitars later and here we are 🤷‍♂️

Selfishly I would like to see how you swap out the effects haha

The music selection on the backgroung was absolutely spot on ... RATM .. what else...!! and i loved the process of remodeniztion/renovation of the guitar .. well done Tim ..

Cut the headstock... NNNNOOOOOOOO!!! That headstock was so cool before.

Always appreciate some "Driver 8".

Make this guitar like real hippie psyhodelic rock guitar with crazy water purple-blue-yellow painting and crazy effects

Sweet guitar. I like what you did with it. Such a tough decision about whether to try to repair the effects and make them work or to go with your own stuff inside... Hmmm... Can't wait for the next video!

It seems like a lot of those Soviet guitar makers never left the late 60s in terms of design. It reminds me of a Mosrite or Supro from that time. The wiring looks really crazy too I’m sure some neat mods could be done to make it better, definitely a cool guitar!

It's nice to see different projects. Thank you!

I love your skill, enthusiasm and optimism, that's a very unusual but fascinating instrument, I like what you have done to it, I can certainly understand your interest in everything guitars, well done!😊

I am not sure that the original electronics would ever work as intended... It might be that every guitar was unique. At the beginning of the ninties I had swapped some resistors in my brother's guitar until he was pleased with the sound of it... I had ended reshaping the neck too, so your video brought back some good memories. 🙂 Greetings from Romania!

I really enjoy and respect your approach and appreciation to guitars. 🎸👊

Definitely an interesting style! I love the weird switches and the color of the pick guard. Inspiration for the future.

You could probably locate a Russian Cyrillic OCR app to convert the text on the schematic.

Cool project! Cruddy sounding fx. There are so many diy circuits available online to solder up that you might consider making your own. Heck, I've got a bunch of half-finished projects soldered up, I'd be happy to throw some your way.

yay! It's this series again!. Love the weirdness of these things.

yes! absolutely do your thing with the guitar effects! i mean, you already cut the headstock and shaped the neck, you might as well go all out imho

Cool, I, for one, hope you continue to document what you do with this guitar. Very interesting guitar. Personally, I'd've taken the lazy way out and placed the adapter inside the guitar body, permanently plugged in, with the quarter inch becoming the new visible jack.

Definitely a cool looking guitar! No shame in modding that guitar! I'm sure it's an improvement! Thanks for sharing!!

"THE COLOR OF FUZZ, You have to use that

i remember a very simillar piece at my school back then. It was in somewhat gnarly shape as generations of school bands were abusing it, but that variant had buttons instead of switches, not sure originally or someone has modded it. Our music teacher was beatlomaniac and sometimes he used that guitar to play - i guess only at those moments it was tuned and sounded pleasant. School band usually didn't last long enough to properly tame this instrument, but punk-rock was always possible to hammer-out :) I remember that neck too, it was painful to play.

This guitar touches on an idea I have been mulling over for the last few weeks. I have learned through playing that I prefer the strat neck, the tele body, the less Paul pickup switch location and playing comfort (not a lot of important controls to hit when I strum), the bigsby style tremolo, and the option of having a humbucker or single coil (split coil) like many other guitars today offer. I think I want to try and build it, but I'm debating over how to wire it. HSS is the way I want to do the pickups, but if I split coil, I don't think the standard 5 position switch from the strat would work. Maybe if I went with the Soviet style 3 on off switches for each pickup. Anyways, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Keep up the great work on this channel. It's fast becoming a favorite of mine.

Awesome guitar Tim and nice product placement! 👍🏼

It's cool that you found a Solo with that pickguard,usually there's different colored boxes around the dials. Also yeah the baseball bat neck is interesting 😂

The green on black looks awesome. Add whatever effects you like so long as the pickguard stays.

Yep. I got a shirt with that mix of colours. A gift from my best friend, Loli. It's a cool, cool wear. And it has a lot of buttons, too.

I think make the switches to buttons keep the same pickguard layout abs and replace the effects with the same effects but with ones that work

Some old Jolana guitars (czechoslovakia) have the same type of bridge.. And even the neck is shaped like that on Galaxis model for example

Oh man I've been looking at getting one of those super funky looking ural basses. It's good to know that you can just swap the 5 pin with a normal jack. I might finally pull the trigger on one finally

I need one. That's perfect for the band I play guitar in given that my main getup for that one is gonna involve a mask with a Soviet themed paint job and stuff. It honestly seems like a sorta modern guitar that'd be made today

I always see old Soviet guitars pop up on eBay and Reverb and always wondered what they were all about.

Loving these old Soviet era guitars! Get the original effects working. I would love to hear how they sound!

I love the look of the guitar. I'd like you to build one with a similar look ... from scratch. I think , unless it's a copy right thing, would have a cool sell-able guitar line.

Oh, I played on the same guitar (but its bass version) in school band. Made in Belarusian SSR, in city Borisov. It was called "BASS-I VC 253-BL". Neck is uncomfortable, with rounded square shape profile. Absolute log, but, what the memories)

You should try to get a hold of the Orpheus 12 string, they're not that expensive or rare either in europe. They do have that weird output jack but man those are cool looking!

The first 3 notes sound like the intro of let’s get it on by Marvin Gaye XD

Since the controls are so huger for the Distortion and Phaser, I was thinking to incorporate some Jazmaster style controls. You'll need a new pickguard of course, but just a small two way switch in place of that giant lightswitch, and a couple of roller pots to replace the chunky knobs. Same functionality, be it would recess the controls a bit to get out of the way of your strumming hand. Maybe even replaced those pickup selector switches, but those didn't seem to be in the way. Controls would end up looking like double Jazzmaster mashed with a Jaguar. 😋

cool man! I actually have this exact guitar (but then silver colored) lying around already for 8 years or something (flea market find, 5 bucks) waiting to be fixed, the guts were so confusing that i never took the time to figure it out, didn't get the 9V to work but that's obviously because 2 pins in the DIN need to be connected :') Maybe soon i'll take the time for it this vid will be very helpful! Cheers man!

The switches look like they might be the same size as a rocker switch. If so, you could keep them as switches, but not have to worry about accidentally flipping them.

The whole video I was like wow this bridge is so creative, it brings so much ideas as a instrument maker, then you go “dont get me wrong, this bridge is a piece of garbage” lol

That song you were playing during fret work and after Rage was wicked industrial!

Playing a little “Rage” in the background. Awesome!!

You should work with Milos Popovich, he makes some great FX's and he's in Serbia (I have a few of his handmade stomp boxes)

Just make a second pickguard without the effects that you can swap out whenever you want.

Cool video and guitar. Love the color combo. Another Sehat collab? Mahalo for sharing! 🙂🐒

this guitar looks wicked!! normally videos don’t do a guitar’s neck profile justice but goodness that neck’s Heavy D shape is preposterous

I like the awkward look. Maybe because I like weird things. Looks fun. I'm going to get into building more guitars to sell and I'll be watching more of your videos. I'm highly interested in the routing machines you have used. Doing it by hand is nerve racking. Especially without templates 🤣

If the guitar should have effects on board, then i would take the self amplified guitar ElectroPhonic Model One. It's more modern and extra amp is optional.

Nice video :) I have a Soviet Aelita 2 guitar with old Japanese style pick-ups.

Mod the design of the switches and get them to do something else! Excellent work once again!

Since the guitar has been physically altered already it seems like getting the guitar to work properly would be the best route. Restoring a clunker to its original design seems like it would be a wasted effort. If I ever bought something like this, and because of my limited skills at fixing guitars, it would likely go on a wall as a conversation piece.

It’ll be interesting to see what you end up doing with the built-in effects.

Apart from the body shape, this is totally original and so cool Maybee check the output of those IC's I would love to hear those effects working

Never played anything with one of those covers over the bridge. But I've always imagined them making palm muting a bit of a struggle.

I'd say keep the idea, but do it your way. It's not that these effects are the holy grail of tone - so I'd buy some great sounding pedals and put that in the guitar to maintain the spirit of having a small FX-loop inside. This will even give you the freedom to move all knobs and switches to places you prefer.

Man if I was local to you I'd take a crack at those electronics, you should see who's in your area doing vintage electronics (maybe you already know someone) we electronics tecs love weirdness like that lol. Also on the switch something I've done on many guitars is to just chop em short, that thing is in a bad spot. Also also thanks now I'm looking for a reason to buy a bass version of this. 😁

I used to have an Electra brand guitar that looked very similar to this. I love all the switches! Very cool! I also have an old 60’s Welson guitar from Italy that has a bunch of crazy switches. But half of them don’t work.. It kinda looks like a Fender Jaguar. It’s called a Welson Primate.

Never did I think I’d find a video where someone works on an Post soviet union guitar interesting, lol. I guess this was suggested after my old bass electronics stopped working and was considering working on it myself. Great interesting video, the guitar was definitely unique.

Keep the effects and pickgaurd color, ditch the switches for buttons. Even pedal foot switch buttons would be better than turning the effects off accidentally while playing.

I used to think that sound engineers had the best job in the world, and then luthiers entered the chat.

That's a cool guitar. I picked up a Russian Orfeus P bass with the laminated body. It looks so unique and it sounds so good. It does have that chunky C neck, brass frets and a big blade pickup. Which I don't mind. But it has that old P sound. Which is great. I don't have to spend thousands of dollars on a classic Fender P when I can get it with this old Orfeus. I want to commend you for recycling an old guitar that is still playable and just a little tweaking to make it easier to play. Kudos to you sir.

I'd get them working just to make sure you if you like them or not. I've heard other ones with the fuzz and they sounded really good. Not sure about the phaser but I'd love to hear it

YEEEzES!!! I've been waiting for this one Do your thing with the efects! It'll be awesome P I C K S

Man imagine saying you own a Soviet Era guitar. Most badass thing.

The guitar player in my band from High School had a Sears LP style guitar that had different effects on it slide switches , like Brian May s guitar Always Cool Stuff you do

Very cool!! I have a custom bass by Area51 guitars and my bridge has them same string spacing wheels it’s so cool!!! That headstock is almost like a Ken smith and a Carl Thompson You are the definition of work smart not hard!! Not saying you don’t work hard on your stuff but you definitely but the smarts into it!

Definitely replace the electronics with preset levels. How about cutting down the ‘flip’ switches so they’re still easily useable but low enough to miss hitting them? Simple fix and keeps the aesthetics.

I'm all for whatever solution is weirder.

The electronic board was probably designed for the Soyutz 11! The previous ones were with thermionic tubes and did not fit in them also due to the size of the Transformer and the weight. :) :) :)

An interesting guitar..I like what you did to the headstock.👍

Была такая гитара у меня,фигня полная...хорошо,что сейчас,можно купить дешевле намного и лучше!!!

The Russian version of Teisco...

I like Guitars with the zero Fret, it takes alot of presure off of the Nut. My Burns Marquee and Cobra both have then along with a rare vintage EKO Parlor i have. You have a cool Guitar there Tim. Thanks for sharing.

I once had a guitar like that. Thank you very much for the kind words about Soviet guitars (although they were not very good), and for your video.

Никогда не слышал чтоб эти эфекты работали в этих говно гитарах. Это ужас из прошлого.

Русские, вы где?)

Great ideas and great job. Headstock might look even better by cutting off the top corners like an Epiphone.

Naw i see that I was scarried to do with my mom's guitar, I was played on in 1995. Thank you for doing this video, glad to see haw old USSR program works through the time and distanse, indeed!

Зачем заморачиваться с переделкой головы грифа? Нормальная же форма была! А вообще, если хотите настоящий хардкор, то советую обратить внимание на гитару "Элгава Уника - 2"

I say ditch the electronics and do your own thing. But keep it looking weird retro.

9:20 caption on scheme is "Borisov Solo two". Borisov is actually the last name. "Solo two" is guitar model.

Well there you go! I actually have a Soviet era mandolin, with a similarly odd neck shape, made out of the same wood. I think it would be worth it to at least attempt to get the electronics working. I completely agree with you about those switches- they would really bother me, I would constantly be hitting them.