About JDI Music Australia

My first electric guitar was a Japanese Strat I got as a kid. I played it for years — didn't know the brand then, and certainly hadn't heard terms like "MIJ" or "lawsuit era" — but the sound of those Japanese instruments stayed with me. Later, when I started looking closer at what Japanese factories were actually building during the 1970s through to the early 1990s, the quality stood on its own, regardless of what inspired the shape.

That's what led to this. JDI Music Australia focuses on Japanese domestic-market instruments — especially the makers and models that are interesting: Greco, Tokai, Burny, Fernandes, Guyatone, Aria Pro II, Orville by Gibson, and others. Many of the most interesting instruments were built for the Japanese domestic market, often with specifications and model ranges that were never widely exported.

What I do is find interesting instruments — source them from Japan, understand what they are, inspect them properly, clean them, do sympathetic restoration where needed, set them up, and document everything honestly. Each one is handled individually. Some arrive in great shape and just need setup; others are genuine restoration projects, and the work itself is part of what the instrument is about.

The approach to restoration is straightforward: preserve originality where it makes sense, repair what needs repairing, and avoid unnecessary irreversible changes. If something original is removed, it stays with the guitar. Replacements and repairs are documented.

Every instrument listed here has been inspected, photographed, and documented — condition, originality, provenance where known, and any parts that have been replaced. I try to be honest about what an instrument is, rather than what I wish it was.

JDI Music Australia is based in Canberra. It's a trading name of Daminatech Pty Ltd.