Tell Me about the Fender Jazzmaster (MOD: Also Jaguar, etc.)

That's good to know, looking to buy my first somewhat decent quality guitar having only ever played cheap ones, don't have enough money for the US Fenders.

Fralin's work queue was 2+ months, so in the meantime I cleaned up the shielding, the grounds, and overspent on Reverb on a legit '65 aluminum pick guard shield. Beliefs can be expensive, but OTOH it was only $55 to fix the pickups.

Putting it all back together...

https://www.quartzcity.net/ilx/jm_assembly.jpg

Puisheen's YouTube channel is essential, if not mandatory, for folks on this thread. Mike is unstoppably boisterous about JM/Jaguars - his current series on refitting this 1961 JM is great knowledge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrYr3VZqy3g

So in the end, it takes me hours to do what a good tech can do in minutes, but hfs at the end result. I hadn't realized just how much signal I was losing and how many years had passed by in "oh, it just sounds like that" ignorance. Unbelievable improvement. Sounds badass now. gtf out of the way shoegazers.

https://www.quartzcity.net/ilx/jm_assembled.jpg

woo!

looks great et

good lord that's hott

that's pretty

yup, looks great!

Are Mustang tremolos really as unreliable as they're said to be?

They're pretty janky and don't return to pitch well for lighter gauge strings. Also only good for dives unlike a floating trem (cf Jag/JM and Strat trems). Reputation has suffered a bit due to folks stringing them the wrong way - the right way is strings going into the "cigar" from the bridge side, then curving under the cigar to come back to the bridge. Many people just pass them from the tail side straight through to the bridge, which wrecks the break angle and makes the trem not really work.
Good news is that they can be locked by replacing the spring posts with a couple of machine screws and two washers above the baseplate.

Maybe I'll go for a Jazzmaster instead, more into floating tremolo rather than divebomb stuff.

I've tried jazzmasters a couple times and feel like I just don't really get them. FWIW I looked at the "notable players" list on this wiki page and there's no one I especially like -- certainly some good players that I respect, but no one I really love listening to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Jazzmaster#Notable_players

I like the Mustang tremolo a lot - it's not just for dives (the Mustang bridge is floating like a Jag/JM but with the different saddles so strings are less prone to popping out) and you can get cool subtle effects just using the heel of your hand against the lipstick tube instead of using the bar.

see ~5:20 into this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drCCRQf-VYQ

My only complaints about the Mustang are that with older ones a lot of them are the narrow A necks and overall the bodies are so small they don't really feel right for me.

pretty sure I'm team Jaguar now overall, the 24" scale is so fun and easy to play and the stock Pure Vintage '65 pickups in new ones are just right in terms of brightness without being shrill and output without being too hot

yeah I think I was thinking of the Bronco trem re the dives-only

got a rare chance to crank up my jag today. the properly appointed and set up jag is a pretty amazing instrument--between the shape, scale length, and bridge/tremolo design it's easily the most comfortable fender to play at least for me.

As I mentioned on the strat/tele thread, I picked up a set of CuNiFe WRHBs with the long-term plan of using them in some-sort of partsmaster. Not a Ranaldo-style minimal circuitry Jazzblaster, but something more like a what-if '72 Jazzmaster Deluxe. Chunky neck, maaaabyeee stacked volume/tone pots for each pickup, but after MONTHS of quarantine time burned on differing configurations, trawling for parts on Reverb, and getting worked up over esoteric differences on warmoth vs. allparts, I impulsively bought an early-00s CIJ JM-66 Jazzmaster that just showed up on Craigslist a couple days ago.

https://qc-ckb.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ilx/jm-cij66.jpg

7.25" rosewood chunky neck, most of hardware is pretty good. If I was to source it all separately I'd end up spending a lot more. The previous owner swapped out the 1M tone pot and put in a pair of AVRI pickups several years back. I don't like the boring sunburst/tortoise shell look, but it's aged into a cool guitar. First step is to rout-out space for the WRHBs and swap the pick guard. I'm still considering a Lake Placid Blue refinish, but one step at a time...

Great get, you won’t regret it. For a what-if 70s machine, can’t go wrong with a black pickguard, with the WRHBs it won’t be boring. Headstock’s not 70s but you can draw inspiration from the last original run 82 Jazzmaster like I did.

http://33.media.tumblr.com/597f165a53b7d8e2988c51402faf42d9/tumblr_ml67h7XXAG1qdtuwuo10_1280.jpg

that's pretty

I like Spitfire Tortoiseshell pickguards for sunburst but they’re $$$.

The tort that Fender uses looks like crap but Spitfire has a lot of depth and variation.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO2_qosBmHm/?igshid=1jmhao90zif5f

I wonder how much it weighs. I’m guessing 15 pounds give or take.

I can't deal with it. Totally sets off my OCD over fingerprint smudges.

Took a chance on a Japanese Mustang 69. The neck is extremely comfortable, the most comfortable neck I've ever played in fact. The tremolo setup is definitely tricky though. It stays in tune if I bend up all the time and it stays in tune if I bend down all the time, but not if I mix the two. Luckily I prefer bending up anyway. It's definitely a great guitar for surf-style playing, techniques like palm muting and tremolo picking are quite comfortable to execute.

You know, if you were wanting to form some sort of evil prog-gaze band and didn't want to hold back - this Fender custom shop double neck Jazzmaster/Bass VI might just be the basis of your entire sound.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5k4AAOSwxt1fd0AN/s-l1600.jpg

Accidentally double clicked that link and clicked Buy It Now, will let you know how I get on with it

someone get Takeshi from Boris on the line ASAP

For all those songs where you want the bass part to stop while someone is playing a guitar solo

seems I should look into the Jazzmaster...

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Saturday, February 13, 2021

update: holy shit, I may be a "jazzmaster guy." what took me so long?

So that CIJ JM-66 I was talking about upthread four months ago? It looks like this now:

https://www.quartzcity.net/ilx/jm66dlx-a.jpg
https://www.quartzcity.net/ilx/jm66dlx-b.jpg

Everything came together spectacularly well. The Fender CuNiFe's were definitely worth the effort to track down even with the extra hassle in re-routing the body and a custom pickguard. I went through hours of YouTube videos of JM HB replacement pickups and none of them, even the outstanding ones, had the chunky/splat sound I've been obsessing over ever since Jason Pierce switched to '72 Telecaster Thinlines soon into Spiritualized.

Totaling all the costs, I spent slightly more than a current Fender JM Ultra. Like the Grease Rat in Mad Max said "Speed's just a question of money. How fast you wanna go?" When I was first figuring out what I wanted (other than the CuNiFe WRHBs) I was wanting a custom color, B&B neck, but after paging through other folks' Jazzblaster projects I kept noticing just how many screws were visible on the front: 25 when you add in the 8 from the pickups. All of these all-black or all-white pickguards look like it took a shotgun blast. A tortoise shell is great at disguising those and of course that led to $pitfire. I fucking love the result. I have a new #1.

Putting together a guitar out of internet-sourced parts and 15 minute YouTube videos has been an awesome depression-fighter. Recommend it to everyone.

Looks lovely and I agree about tortoiseshell pickguards.

Saddles look a little strange in these photos though, is there something unusual about them?

It's just the standard Mastery bridge for CIJs. I'm still tweaking things - the neck was initially shimmed a bit more than I was used to but I'm liking it. Should be great for .011s.

oooooooooweeeeeee

love this ET - thank you for the update and the hott pix!

I think I have a bad contact… neck pup cuts out when I engage the rhythm circuit but can be restored by tapping on the pickguard. for context, I am reluctant to take it off to diagnose bc I really like the strings I have on there now, so your DIY project gives me courage lol.

Putting together a guitar out of internet-sourced parts and 15 minute YouTube videos has been an awesome depression-fighter

I've done this a few times and concur.

it's gorgeous! i absolute love it.

rogermexico - tune down to slack and capo the strings at the 3rd fret or so. Then you can take the neck off and work under the pickguard etc.

Lovely guitar.

https://www.gearnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fender-Traditional-60s-Jazzmaster-with-Wide-Range-CuNiFe-Humbuckers-1-2048x702.jpg

Coming soon to a grey marketer/eBay exporter near you:
Fender Made in Japan Traditional 60s Jazzmaster with Wide Range CuNiFe humbuckers

I feel like Fender Japan is looking at what people are building on the internet and just duplicating them. Naturally I'm just going to assume that they saw my build and knew how to get me uptight about it by adding a block neck but I'm happier with the 7.25" in my build.

OTOH, goddamn - what a great way to get into the Jazzblaster game! I'm going to be intensely jealous if there's a Fiesta Red or Lake Placid Blue run of it.

They've done it before, the Lee Ranaldo signature model:
http://fencedinarea.com/Images/Gear/Fender_LeeRanaldo_02_150814_med.jpg

Different pickups though. Fender "revoiced" their then current WRHB to sound like the old ones. There's a very detailed discussion about all this on https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=107104

I am not going to play a Fender with humbuckers

Not on a boat, not with a goat

I will not do it, sorry. Cool if that's your thing but if I want to play a guitar with humbuckers it will not be anything on Leo's platform

boo my Tele Custom is my favourite guitar

I'm just more comfortable with a Jazzmaster or Jaguar than anything else, if I needed a drop C 7-string with EMGs I'd find a way to do it in one of those.

fender honors 60 years of the jaguar by releasing an "ultra luxe" variant with....dual humbuckers, through-body stringing, a tune-o-matic, and (worst of all, a sin to end all sins) 25.5" scale length

https://www.fender.com/articles/gear/60-anniversary-jaguar?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20220414_Jaguar&utm_term=fender&src=email15DT041422&smtrctid=ffa5dba0-b6db-484d-a883-09fc217e39eb&c3ch=ecommemail&c3nid=20220414_Jaguar

"honouring its rich legacy by systematically erasing every single design element specific to the Jaguar"

if you buy this guitar you go through a time warp and become the rhythm guitarist of a forgettable, thursday-esque 2000s emo band.