1970S Soviet Ural 650 Guitar
This is a Ural 650 that was made in the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. There were about 25,000 of these made at that time (according to an article from Premier Guitar).
Most of these, from what we can ascertain, are not very playable. And when we got this one, it was not much different. The action was crazy high due to how the neck was set, and the output jack was an old 70s midi style output (I’ve never seen anything like it!). It was apparently used to allow the control of multiple amps and/or channels with the buttons on the guitar.
We though, in true The Local Pickup fashion, wanted the guitar to be playable. So, we changed out the output for a 1/4″ jack, reset the neck, and did a little fret leveling. Not to mention, we cleaned all of the electronics, and did a professional set-up with a nice set of 10 gauge strings.
So, the guitar is now very enjoyable to play. It has great action, no buzzing, and an easy and smooth neck. So, now we can really discover what the heck is going on with all of these buttons (and what kinds of great sounds can we make from pushing them all in different combinations).
