Aria pro II

[straycat]

Found this set neck Aria Pro II last week and its a monster player.Made in the mid 70's.Same factory as the Ibanez and Greco guitars.
3 piece maple neck,Sen body original pickups and hardware.Junked the POS electronics and installed an RS vintage pot upgrade kit and new switchcraft jack.
Very well made and a very nice player cool trans finish too.

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[DocNrock]

Very cool. I had an Aria Pro II Strat copy back in the early '80's. It was a great player, too. Your's looks very sharp...damn near mint!

[straycat]

Its got a nick or two and a bit of a fade going on but thats how I like em'.

[zeegler]

NICE!

It'll look even better without the pickguard.

By the way, what exactly is Sen, and how do you know that it's made of that?

My Aria LP is mahogany with a maple cap.

[jim777]

Sen is basically Japanese Ash

[Newc]

The Killer I had was made of Sen, and it's not a low-grade wood by any means.

[straycat]

Sen is a very ash like. By that I mean its hard like ash and has an ash like grain.
My resident wood expert looked at it and said Oh thats Sen or Japanese ash.
Ibanez used Sen in its "Rocket Roll" series explorer and V copies and stained them to look like Korina.
Its a very good tone wood, brighter than mahogony tho'.
Zeegs I like that one just killer.

[CharvelRocker]

Japanese/Uncle Mat Aria's may be one of the most unsung guitars out there. Well built guitars that always seem to play fantastic, with build quality to match. I guess most people are turned off by the (at times) lame hardware and electronics.

[zeegler]

Japanese/Uncle Mat Aria's may be one of the most unsung guitars out there. Well built guitars that always seem to play fantastic, with build quality to match. I guess most people are turned off by the (at times) lame hardware and electronics.

While I agree, I believe that the hardware they used wasn't necessarily lame, just different to what people are used to. They tended to experiment alot with different types of bridges, and some of them were actually really good. Take for example the Cardinal series that came with the Ray bridge. The CS-400s had the dual-load Ray that you could load the strings from the rear (string-thru), or just hook them over the back of the bridge. My CS-400 has sustain for days, and I'm sure that huge chunk of bridge has something to do with it. The Act series trems were a little odd, but I have an ACT III on my Custom X (V shape), and once you get used to it, it's actually a very good trem. It stays in tune really well, and moves a little more smoothly than a OFR because the bridge posts are set farther back in the baseplate. The pivot point is closer to that of a Kahler, but in a Floyd style bridge.

As far as pickups go, Aria often used the MMK pickups which sound really good. I have them in my Cardinal, and it is probably the only guitar I own that I haven't swapped the pickups in. Having said that, I did swap the pickups from all my other Arias. The Custom X had some rail type pickups, and I thought they sounded tinny. From what I've heard, they also used to use Dimarzios in some guitars.

As far as the quality goes, the Matsumoku stuff was top-notch. I currently own 6 Matsumoku built guitars, and they are all fantastic. I'm always on the lookout for more, especially my own personal holy grail, the Urchin U-100.

[jim777]

I always thought the Matsumoku guitars were adequate, with the occasional one being a bit better than adequate. I don't think I've ever played a truly great one.

[straycat]

The pickups in the Aria 1st posted in this thread have a Patent applied for sticker on the back(not like the gibson ones)and a MFG name Fugito.......something or other can't read it all its faded pretty bad.
The pickups read 7.52 neck and 8.52 bridge.It took some time to tweak them but they kick ass now.
The build quality is outstanding, its a very nice guitar.