Guitar Info

Who can think of former East-Germany as a place and time of stern and dull design? Look at this  Migma doubleneck bass/guitar (it sports no brand but its look and finish cry Migma - there were some models shared with twin brand Musima but Migma was into wild post-accordion finishes) and praise whoever could have conceived and built this delightful monster.

Its fierce horns exceed their Burns model to reach an almost Wandre extravagance that allows the mother-of-toilet-seat-from-hell finish to escape Mitteleuropean kitsch to rocket to the crepuscular twirls of psychedelic heaven! I would love to listen to the music for which it was conceived... And I wish this guitar was mine!

This guitar is too crazy to be a series one - its seller on eBay.de (the excellent e-shop Vintage*Guitar*Collection) says that it's unique, so it must be a custom job... I don't know about Migma, but it seems that in Markneukirchen where most of the GDR music instrument companies were established, more or less everybody was a luthier, and people would easily have an atelier at home and make some extra instruments upgrading company models - their version of nowadays custom shops. 

This is not a GDR guitar but its baby sister, a beautiful vintage Musima mandolin. I'm not a specialist but I've never seen one like this, with its wide german carve and wooden pickguard. Remember that Musima was not just a guitar company but produced all kind of music instruments, and you can still find accordions, zithers and violins auctioned online.

Usually when one thinks of GDR electric guitars, what comes to mind are superb and very German hollow-body jazz guitars, or these later through-the-looking-glass designs, both familiar and  askew, sometimes radically and wildly beautiful (have you seen the sublime Marma in the Guitarz 2012 calendar? what, you don't have it yet?), sometimes rough and uninspired, but all well rooted in the Continental European guitar flourishing of the 1960s that happened mostly in Italy and Germany...

Well that's what I thought so far - until I discovered this Lead Star guitar by Musima, the perfect 1980s Japanese-style superstrat with the long pointy horns, the bridge humbucker and the fancy finish - though it doesn't have a Floyd Rose trem but a classic strat one, probably a patent issue, if not a budget one...

It's one of the latest Musima electric guitar models before the post-reunification progressive collapse of the famous company. Online information starts to be a little more solid, there is now a good page on Schlaggitarren.de - in German but the Google instant translation isn't too bad!

I've shown already a bass version of this Migma violin guitar, but not only a violin guitar is a much rarer instrument, but this one has astounding soundholes, in addition to its very cool violin shape, and its crazy pickguard...

Time for another East-German guitar! Here is a Migma Elektra Deluxe - and like usually for this kind of guitar, there is little to know about it. It is from the 70s, and there was also a Musima version of it (regular followers of this blog know about this, otherwise click on the Musima /Migma label below), with a slightly different body shape, and a more sober finish.

Because the finish of this one is quite astonishing, and at first I thought it was a recent and eccentric retrofit, but I found out that some Migma guitars had this kind of accordion plastic finish that you find also on Hagström or Eko guitars of the 60s, when the whole music world switched from accordion hell to the beautiful guitar era. This finish is actually more tasteful than the usual blue sparkle, mother-of-toilet-seat or faux-wood, and makes this guitar quite a looker. 

I would consider adding it to my budding communist guitars collection, if its mislead eBay seller didn't ridiculously overprice it. I hope that the guitar won't sell and that these instruments can still be bought by musicians and not only vintage speculators. 

Dear readers,

that will be the question that all true guitar lovers will ask themselves henceforth: is this unbranded vintage East-german guitar a Musima, a Migma or a Marma (the three leading electric guitar brands in GDR, that - according to a comment about the previous Marma post - used to subcontract parts making to each others since they didn't have to compete, thus making some models almost impossible to differen-tiate)?

bertram (thanx to David B and Karl)

A semi-hollow violin-shaped made in DDR vintage bass, this Migma jewel has everything to be loved (at least by me). On the top on that, the moon crescent sound-holes are beautiful and the guan dao shaped pickguard is terrific.

it's a pity that its eBay seller pretends that it's an exceptional bass. As much I do love this kind of instruments and would be delighted to add it to my collection, as much I know being a Musima bass and guitar player (Migma was a sub-brand of Musima) that they don't have the best sound. They are extremely cool but they are not at the level of the acoustic instruments built at the same time by the same companies - it's a question of culture, electrified pop music wasn't a priority in communist countries! 

On the other hand, I have no idea of how good the 60s Italian guitars were - maybe one should make a comparative test one day!

Anyway, this bass is definitely cool, if every reader of this blog would send me 1€, I would buy it right away!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm proud and delighted to introduce you to my very own Musima Eterna, a guitar I bought a few days ago and received this morning! I've been trying for a while to acquire an East-German vintage guitar, and I finally succeeded, with the best model I could dream of - you may remember that I actually posted here about this guitar last summer.

I'm really not disappointed, and firstly, contrary to things I could read here and there, the sound is pretty cool. I've never played a guitar with 3 single coils (no, I've never played a strat!), so the sound is very new for me. The output is actually too high, and I think that sooner or later I'll slightly modify the electronics (I have no problem with upgrading a vintage guitar, I also already plan to change the tuner heads that are made of cheap plastic) to make it playable on modern amps.

The neck is big and round, but comfortable for me since I've been a classical guitar player and still play a nylon strings guitar, and it's quite good for soulful blues. There are two volume knobs and two rotating switches, I still have to figure how it works but two positions give nice bass sounds. Actually, without effects, the sound is really clear and balanced, when a distortion bring more confusion, but I still have to play it with my regular amp to be sure.

There is one of these huge old school tremolo, but unfortunately I don't have the arm, that looks like a Jaguar one, I think that I can manage to find one. There is a strange device that is probably a mute system, but it's not set and a little bit rusted, i'll have to soak it and the whole bridge in coca-cola (that's how we use it in Europe, also to heal stomac flu) to clean it and see how it really works.

The fretboard inlays are simple and original, and there is a pearloid binding on the neck and headstock. The chrome parts look their age, I intend to clean them intensively and rejuvenate the guitar as much as possible, and to put it on stage very soon!

I swear, I'm not fixated on these guitars, I don't owe shares in the company (they didn't had that in GDR, did they?) and I'm not even German, but when I browse the web for interesting guitars, the best I can see is most of the time one these Migma/Musima. Everybody agrees about the Italian guitar genius but I more and more believe in something similar but unsuspected for German ones (remember the Jazzgitarren website).

This one seems unsophisticated, but it has a very special shape, whose originality comes from simplicity - the best way!

You'll notice the tremolo, an interesting solution for an archtop hollow-body, also the 3 pickups, not so common for this type of guitars (and all their knobs and switches!).

Ach ja, my GAS is all titillated!

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Another guitar that is just a picture and no sound (until I finally manage to get one and post a track). But I can't imagine that someone would build such a beautiful and sophisticated machine if not to provide a good music instrument!

But this post is not only about the guitar itself, but about the website where I found it - sovietguitars.com on which you can see a superb series of pictures of it. It was hard not to hack their whole Musima Eterna page and show most of these pictures, so you must go there and check particularly the trem and the bridge.

DDR is often associated with rough and depressive design, but Musima guitars prove how untrue this is!

BTW, the Soviet Guitars website is in Russian so most of readers will have to navigate blind, but that's worth, and you will see some nice Jolana, Ural and this kind of stuff, all beautifully photographed.

Bertram

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My host here at Guitarz stated several times how much he appreciates semi-hollow body bass, and so do I. And even better if it's some East-european vintage beauty like this incredibly elegant Musima/Migma bass from the sixties (from he same eBay shop than on my previous post).

Couldn't find any information about it on Cheesy Guitars, the reference site for communist era electric guitars. I can just precise that Musima was the main guitar company in DDR - and one of the best in East-europe - and Migma being a sub-brand that used many similar parts, it's difficult to identify the precise brand on early instruments. It's still always good to have a check on Cheesy Guitars though.

Usually I don't like the idea that a specific design is supposed to fit to a musical style (remember that Gibson's Flying V and Explorer where designed in the 50s and then used by bluesmen like Albert King), but I can't help imagining what music should be made on this bass. I propose No Wave (don't remember No Wave?), I can see it in the hands of some elegant experimental jazz punk player with a raw sound in a smoky underground club in New York in 1980...

Bertram