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A forum search returned no threads on this Japanese brand, Fujigen, what's their rep? They make solid-bodies and archtops.
Their Website (Their hollow-body guitars are not sold in the U.S. but some of their solid-bodies are.)
Masterfield / FGN Guitars
FUJIGEN MFA-F Hollow-body guitar - Reverb.com
Fujigen NTE100MAHT T-Style guitar - Reverb.com
P.S. - I found these forum threads on these guitars via a Google search, they didn't come up on the forum search engine (which is lousy).
FGN Guitars - Heard of them?
Fujigen (FGN) Masterfield MFA-FP
Last edited by Mick-7; 12-19-2024 at 06:11 PM.
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12-19-2024 03:38 PM
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According to a Wikipedia article, Fujigen started operating in 1960, has three factories in Japan and has made guitars for Epiphone and others. Their current solid-body brand is FGN.
Last edited by Gitterbug; 12-19-2024 at 04:58 PM.
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Yes, some of the old 1970's Ibanez guitars were built in the Fujigen or Matsumoku factory, under many brand names.
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Their current range of guitars seem to get consistently strong reviews, both in terms of quality and value for price.
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When the best Japanese brands built their reputations on their brand names, many were in fact built by Fujigen. Ibanez Prestige and endorsed guitars (Scofield's, Joe Pass, George Benson) are Fujigen's handiwork.
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I have a Fujigen MFA-HH, a two humbucker 16" hollow body. It's an excellent jazz guitar and I am quite happy with it. It is an ES-175 like guitar.
The MFA-HH seems to be pretty similar to the Ibanez AF200 in shape, size and tone. Both are MIJ.
The Ibanez GB-200 looks quite similar too.
The pickups of the Fujigen are a little hotter than the AF200.
I got it on Reverb, shipped from Japan.
I demoed a Fujigen 335 type guitar, but I wasn't crazy about the tone. Tone was good but not great, especially for jazz.
Although I'm quite happy with the guitar, I kind of wish I had held out for the Ibanez AF-2000, as I like those a little more.
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Fujigen has been building top line Ibanez guitars for many years. My ‘97 AF207 is a typical FujiGen-built Ibby. Quality is very high and it’s still in excellent shape after 27 years of gigs with nothing but a refresh setup every 5 years or so and one fret L/C/P. It will soon benefit from another L/C/P, but I think it’s at least a few years from needing new frets. And it looks pretty much like it did the day my dealer got it from Hoshino.
Originally Posted by GuyBoden
I’ve never seen a bad one from FujiGen.
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Thank you all.... this spiel (below) on their website, do you think it's hype? They did not say whether it is an innovation (if it is one) specific to their brand or something they've been doing for a long time.
"Circle Fretting System (C.F.S.) - All FGN guitars and basses come with a unique Circle Fretting System (C.F.S.). It was created by FGN based on an idea to offer better pitch and articulation than conventional guitars and basses. All frets are installed on fingerboard in slightly curved shape, so that every string crosses all the frets in 90 degrees, i.e. to offer a minimum contact of string on a fret, and it makes the scale length of every string even while it actually varies on conventional fretting. The C.F.S. is a solution of fretting on a traditional guitar and bass and it offers clearer articulation and tones which give dimension when you play a chord and also cut through the mix when you play single notes."
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That’s been around for a while. Like (for example) the Buzz Feiten tuning system, some consider a solution in need of a problem while others absolutely swear by it. And like most such innovations, it never became mainstream, guitarists being purists and all that. Personally I’m hypersensitive to pitch, touch and tone (I wish I wasn’t) and I can certainly and easily detect the difference when I play one of their guitars. But I don’t care much for it because to me it seems to make the guitar brighter and I don’t need that. Originally Posted by Mick-7
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I have both a 335-style (Masterfield) and Les Paul model (LS-10) and they are both very well crafted, good-sounding and comfortable to play guitars. The attention to detail is first-rate.
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I don’t recall ever seeing a system that curves the frets uniformly like this. The premise is that because the nut is narrower than the bridge from E1 to E6, the strings diverge a bit in their path to the bridge. So they cross each fret at a slight angle to perpendicular, and this puts their fret contact points on a very slight arc over the crown. This causes the distance from each string’s contact with any fret to its point of contact with the bridge to be slightly different. Originally Posted by Oscar67
Their theory is simple, although I think it’s wrong (especially if used with a standard bridge, which appears to be the case from the pictures on their site). If all strings were the same gauge and symmetric pairs (G and D, B and A, E1 and E6) were exactly the same distance from the midline of the fingerboard, curving each fret to the radius of its center distance from the nut does let each string cross the fret at a 90 degree angle. This puts contact at the same distance from nut contact, assuming a perfectly crowned fret with an infinitely narrow contact point.
But it lengthens fret to bridge contact distance the further a string is from the midline. So it magnifies the same problem at the bridge because the bridge is not curved. It also complicates compensation at the bridge for string gauge, construction (eg wound or unwound) etc because the length discrepancy is symmetric around the midline. Compensated saddles are angled so the the lower strings are progressively longer.
All strings are not the same gauge or construction, and spacing between each pair is not identical from center to center. Optimal intonation requires individualization of each string. Lower pitched strings usually require slightly greater length for most accurate intonation. So I don’t understand how simply curving the frets like this can improve tuning accuracy.
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Got to try my first FGN week before last, one of those small 335 MSA ones. Nice guitar, especially for the price.
didnt notice anything particular about the fret, except they seemed nicely seated and crowned. Neck was good. Kinda reminded me of the GB10 i also tried recently: wide’ish nut, squarish shoulders, a little flat on the back up the neck. Good player, but something i’d have to get use to.
good sounds. Nice full bridge, the neck on the clear rather than the smokey side, bit of jangle in the middle. Felt a bit more solid in tone/response than my old mij tokai.
finish felt on a par with production Gibsons in thickness. Perfectly well done. No defects or oddness i could make out
good guitar
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As far as I know FGN is the first as well as the only brand to offer this. When I played one of their guitars that has it, I did notice that chords sounded really in-tune but not more so than on most other quality guitars. I did find the guitar brighter and punchier than what I normally get from a build like that. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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Sounds like a GB200 Originally Posted by Marc Grossman
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The Feiten system is something different. It's an offset nut + instructions for adjusting the bridge intonation and tuning the guitar. It claims to improve intonation by spreading inaccuracies more evenly across the entire fretboard (as opposed to having them be more noticeable on the lower frets, as happens with a standard nut and set-up). The FGN thing is curved fret slots with a standard nut and intonation/tuning. It claims to improve intonation everywhere on the fretboard by having all the strings cross every fret at 90% angles (which the don't do with standard frets because the bridge is wider than the neck). I've never tried either. It could be that both are better than standard nuts/frets/intonation-offsets, but I try to limit the number of rabbit holes I send myself down. Originally Posted by Oscar67
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Neither Feiten nor FGN makes sense to me. But at least Feiten includes the bridge in his approach. FGN’s curved frets reduce the fretted scale length incrementally going up from G to B to E strings. The FGN bridges shown on their website are compensated similarly to standard bridges, which exaggerates this for E and G strings. I don’t see how it can improve accuracy. Originally Posted by John A.
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I don't get any of it, and don't want to. Fortunately, I don't hear intonation problems on my guitars with standard nut/fret/bridge. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Maybe to someone else it is broke, but to my insensitive ears it's fine. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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So in a nutshell, their claim is more hype than substance, which isn't unusual, every company is looking for a UMP - Unique Marketing Proposition. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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True. In this case there’s a discernible difference but I can’t call it an advantage. Originally Posted by Mick-7
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A wise man. Originally Posted by John A.
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As described, it seems like the E strings would be at risk for intonating flat as one moves up the neck, particularly to the last frets. If this system does, in fact, improve intonation and tuning, then the perceived greater brightness of the guitar might be from the overtone series of the different strings reinforcing rather than canceling each other.
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What I really think about this is that degree of curve in the frets is so slight as to not really make much difference. I think it's one of those things that people convince themselves they perceive through all the other noise in the system*. But I don't think there's any rigorous engineering validation of the principles or blind testing of the results (as with most things gear related). No one else builds this way, and the vast majority of players are fine with that. Originally Posted by Cunamara
* E.g., I have convinced myself that the true Gibson scale-length of 24.6" (ish) feels and sounds a tiny bit different from an actual 24.75" scale-length despite having no rigorous analysis or evidence to support this.
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