Westone SW35

With the Antoria, i had really sparked something. I got to thinking about originals, rather than rebrand imports, and took my research from there; domestic models that were never really sold to the West. This fascinated me, considering how familiar we are with almost all the commonly known Western brands shops stock; as a budding collector it was a revelation. The number of different brands is quite astounding - there really were dozens of quality guitar factories each making their own take on famous American acoustics, a lot of which are completely, or little known to the West.

The first of these i obtained was this Westone SW35.

Westone was the brand name used by Matsumoku of Japan for their own line of stringed instruments; a name well known in the West - not so much for their acoustic line but rather their electric and bass line they manufactured in the early 80's on through to the later 80's. The acoustic line is quite rare, and was manufactured in the mid 70's, with very few making it outside of Japan. Matsumoku itself is a well known name, not primarily for it's own Westone brand, but rather for who they made guitars for: Japanese Epiphones, Aria Pro and Pro II, Washburn electrics, and some Greco electrics. It is an impressive list and variety of models, and these are held in very high regard these days - try and get ahold of a 70's Washburn semi-acoustic and you are looking at quite a sum of money, let alone an Epiphone Sheraton or a Greco Supersound. In regards to the Westone brand, it was a chance for Matsumoku to put some new original designs and technology into their craft on both the electic and acoustic guitar lines. One of the areas for originality was the neck. Matsumoku must of felt a dislike toward the convential glued neck joint, or bolt on neck joint; a lack of resonance, sustain and tone perhaps, or perhaps just the feeling of a slightly disjointed whole. Whilst on the electric line it is easy to see the neck-thru designs employed first on the Westone electrics, and then on Aria and Grecos; with the acoustic line, this neck joint is much less noticable without inspection of the soundhole. What you find is Matsumoku designed a 5-piece neck, that fuses into the body of the guitar, coming into the body of the guitar inplace of the traditional neck block. What it creates is a more complete resonating peice of wood, and an exceptionally strong neck. A strum of this SW35 and the response is outstanding. Very alive, very characterful, full of tone and bass response. D45 tone is not a million miles away. So pleased with what i heard that i searched out a second one and bought it as well.


Now the specification of the guitar; I might mention just now, but models made for the Japanese market largely follow a simple model name - price relationship. For example, this model, the SW35, originially cost 35,000Y in 1974-1975. Additionally, the W stands for Western, largely meaning it's American sounding/modelled. The S is still a bit of an unknown to me, i have read that it means Strong, in relation to the bracing of the top, which lends itself to being louder and brighter. It could also mean Solid, as this model does have a solid spruce top, and it shares model names with an Aria range of mid 70's acoustics - Aria had an LW range which were laminate, and an SW range, which were solid top. In regard to the Westone, i will take the S to mean both Strong and Solid. About the SW35; it's a simple looking guitar modelled after a Martin D41, with quite simple abalone rings around the soundhole and purfling around the body. The top is solid spruce, whilst the sides are rosewood, and the back is 2-peice rosewood with an attractive mosaic down its centre. The neck is adorned with simple dot markers, a squared headstock, and gotoh tuners which are excellent. Considering it's quality of tone, it is quite something to learn that this SW sits in the middle of Westones acoustic range, with the SW80 being the top of the SW range at 80,000Y. I have yet to come across any of those!



Full set of images: here