It’s not 1987 and, let’s face it, there’s no shortage of good Stratocasters to tempt us today. Our memory of the RH-4 was of a precisely built, finely tuned and tweakable guitar. The three frequencies can be pre-set to your taste via three trim-pots accessed through the holes in a small rear-covered cavity that also holds the necessary nine-volt block battery. In centre position, the VSC is bypassed (and the guitar is passive) move it down and you engage the midrange boost push it up and you get a combined treble and bass boost. The tone control has a push-push switch that splits the bridge humbucker, but the real innovation lies in the Variable Spectrum Control, now in its third VSC-3 revision, introduced by that small-tipped three-way mini toggle. These pass to a five-way lever pickup selector and just master volume and tone with knurled Tele-style knobs. Adjustable from the back of the headstock, it allows you to finely tension the top E and B strings in terms of their back angle behind the nut.Īs the ‘H’ in the guitar’s name indicates, we have an open-coil humbucker at the bridge paired with two single-coil-sized stacked humbuckers with flush rod magnet slugs. Another neat feature is the height-adjustable string tree - or Adjustable Tension Guide, as Levinson prefers. To complete the vibrato system, today we have Schaller rear-lock tuners with higher E and A string posts, and a friction reducing nut. If you want a more conventional two-post vibrato, the FT-3 is offered on the special order RH-4 Standard. Brass block aside, the rest of the vibrato is steel including the block saddles with their friction-reducing spring steel rollers. In fact, if you break one string, the others stay at pitch. Why? Well, with the Fender design (and virtually every other floating vibrato), when you bend one string, the other strings go flat. When you pull the arm up, however, it’s only the forward steel block that moves, the main brass block remains stationary and the vibrato stays flat on the body. One of the Blade’s most innovative features is its Falcon vibrato, which uses two blocks: as you down-bend they combine with the three springs for a standard down-bend feel. Again, plenty use a similar feature today, but that wasn’t the case back in the late 80s. The contrasting headstock plug tells us the truss rod adjustment is at the body end of the neck, but removing the Levinson-logo’d plastic plug you get access to a multi-holed nut, so tweaks are dead easy. The neck is immediately engaging, though its shape is very mainstream.
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