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

Offset guitars website have many users of the mastery bridge. Most are totally positive about it, but there are a few reports that you MAY still need to use tape/glue etc to stop unwanted movement. I haven't seen or used one, but it seems a pretty expensive solution to me. I don't believe you can divebomb with it - i've certainly not read any reports that the range of operation is any greater than with any other jag or jazz trem/bridge combination.

I've just changed the bridge on my Jag to a Mustang bridge with tape-wrapped posts, and it's 100% stable. I think you may lose a little bit of trem range by locking the posts compared to a properly set up, fully floating system (I have my Jazzmaster with stock bridge for comparison), but I was having so many rattling and tuning problems with the stock bridge that I decided to switch.

Dude does some divebombing in a video on the website, actually.

Hmm - I'll have to look at that.

dude in one of my bands sprung for one of those mastery bridges, it's pretty sweet

Bumping to vent how much I hate setting up my Jazzmaster. I hope GZeus doesn't yell at me cuz I shimmed it with match sticks.

WTF

WAI?

(ahem: What about it?)

They look like the bullets from the "tooth gun" in eXistenZ.

I can see that they'd make a difference to a fixed bridge instrument, but on a Jazzmaster with so many other things affecting tone?

ahem: What about it?

Oh nothin really, just WTFing because I have an abundance of time, and basically what snoball said. Like it'd probably be way more effective to develop some G&L style saddle lock thing or something, or something to directly increase string>body transference, etc... Also LOL @ "man made ivory" angle for yr weird plastic parts.

I have decided that I need one of these things more than I need financial security

I guess sooner or later [...] this happens to everyone?

Are the Mexican Classic Player ones regarded as a pretty good bet with these (JM or Jag, haven't played them recently to work out which one I like best)? There don't seem to be so many Japanese reissue ones readily available anymore as per Dr C's annoyingly shrewd investment upthread. I'm not so interested in the affordable blacktop ones because they come in shit colours. Yeah.

The CP ones are like c£700 in the UK and $800 in the US; are US dealers allowed to ship these things to Europe? Does anybody know any good websites that do? Alternately, is trying to import from Fender Japan worthwhile?

The Classic players are variable. I have played a few, mainly Jags - one was a great sounding guitar but a couple were virtually unplayable because of bad set-ups and/or badly cut nuts. That can obv be fixed though. The CP Jazzmasters seem to have a good reputation - the one I played was a nice guitar.

I ended up buying a CP Jag HH, which I got for £375 + a fuzz face in part-exchange. I wasn't really looking for one, but it was an unbeatable deal. It too, had a badly cut nut and took a lot of work to get stable. I still haven't gigged it as I'm not 100% confident in the tuning stability. I might replace the tune-o-matic type bridge with a roller bridge, which seems to be a popular mod.

What you have to know is that the pickups on the classic player series are hotter than the CIJ or AVRI Jags and JMs. My Jag never really sounds clean but it certainly growls with crunch or fuzz. The coil split really works well, with loads of tones available. Full single coil is quite Jag-like, although a bit chunkier. You can't quite get the classic Jaguar tones with them.

There are now the MIM Blacktops, which seem to have had good reviews, but I think they look hideous and are very far from the orginal designs. There are Squiers on the way too, but I wouldn't touch them. My advice would be to look out for a 2nd hand CIJ, or if you can afford the extra, then try to get one from Ishibashi in Japan. I've heard good reports about their customer service and you'd have access to all kinds of custom colours that we don't often see in the UK. Or, if the hotter pickups don't bother you, then try some Classic Players, but watch for quality problems.

Hunt down a j. Mascis unless the sparkle purple or tunamatic is a dealbreaker.

Those things look pretty cool but I already got a sparkly signature model type guitar and I think I want something a bit more traditional/non-affiliated.

Thanks a lot for all that Dr C, I was starting to lean towards CIJ so that kind of confirms it for me. Ishibashi seems to have become a bit more of an expensive proposition these days so I might just keep an eye out for cheap second hand ones here and bite the bullet on importing later in the year if nothing turns up.

I was winning a Japanese white Jazzmaster for £500 on Ebay with 30 seconds to go and then two people piled in while I was elsewhere and it vanished for £627; I could have Bought It Now for £625. This is the end of the world.

Don't worry, they do come up quite often. Other ideas:

1) Call Pete Cooks. They are not listing any CIJs on their website, but may still have some left, or be able to get some.
2) Andertons have a CIJ 66 reissue (blocks and binding) model on their website. It's £700 though, but they do normally negotiate. I got a great deal on an AC30 there.
3) Macaris still has one or two quite recently.
4) Regent Sounds - I think they can still get them and may have one or two left. I work quite near Denmark Street and could look if you like.

Absurdly, the punchline to that Ebay situation was that the winning mystery bid was actually some spectacular counter-gazumping by my own girlfriend to fend off the late interloper. Hopefully she will let me play it.

The possibility of getting a good deal on an AC30 certainly still appeals though, once I've got out of the poorhouse.

Oh cool - didn't you realise at the time? So you have the guitar then? If so that's great news - I think you'll love it. Mine is my absolute number one guitar, I alternate between it and my CIJ Jag for gigging - they're both great guitars but the Jazzmaster is the one I couldn't live without. It's absolutely stock apart from a Mustang bridge - a lot of players claim that the stock CIJ pickups are no good, but I'd violently disagree with that. It's true that they're not the same as the vintage or AVRI pickups, as they are narrower and more Strat-like, but they sound fantastic to me.

Yeah, it was a private auction so all I could see was that I'd been outbid by two other people in the last minute while I was working late. Wifey put up with about an hour and a half of my psychopathic brooding before coming clean, concerned that I might sell a kidney to import one from Japan before she could spring the surprise.

I haven't actually collected it yet so I don't know how well it's been looked after, but I'm glad to hear you're happy with yours in its original state, cos after springing money I don't have to get it I'm a bit too cleaned out to be thinking about AVRI pickups or buzzstops at this point.

Yeah I'm playing this thing with old strings and the stock Japanese pickups through a shitty, beat up Roland Cube-60 and it still sounds pretty great to me

Fender Japan is making all the cool stuff right now. I really like the look of this Jazzmaster HO hollowbody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyFI21QFe4Q

That Jazzmaster hollow-body kind of looks reminicent to a a Reverend Flatroc with that double binding.

It looks cool though.

Ocasek's pink Jazzmaster on the beginning of "My Best Friend's Girl" is the ur-sound of all Jazzmasters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKuAPXd-M7U

That's a cool clip. Sounds good and right up on the band. You can see that Ric has the Jazzmaster in the middle position and that Elliot is flipping back and forth between the neck and bridge pickup on the Tele.

How it started

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

How it's going

https://qc-ckb.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ilx/red-jm-2.jpg

wow very neat wiring!

Oh nice!! What jazzmaster is that? Am currently sorely tempted to get a J mascis squier as an upgrade on my crap strat

I would guess that’s a proper old one which has had a nice refinish

The good parts are from 1965

https://qc-ckb.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ilx/red-jm-3.jpg

Hi Abigail! Her pickup + the AC30/Ampeg amp pair is a reason to keep living.

https://qc-ckb.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ilx/red-jm-4.jpg

On a long-enough timeline every guitar you own will eventually become a vintage collectable. When I got hold of it in 1996 I knew that the body was refinished and the wiring was questionable, but other than a refret in 2007 it's been change-strings-and-go ever since. Three days into quarantine, the strap broke and somehow the guitar transformed into a neutron star material and crashed down on my foot. Ironically, we were playing The Cure's "Grinding Halt." Creativity just stopped around here and I spent much of the rest of the year disassociating and walking up and down the San Gabriels.

Anyway, the crash broke some of the wiring inside and it was time to do something about it. The pickups are off at Fralin getting new leads put on (my soldering skills are no way good enough to that job) - I should get them back this week.

whoa whoa whoa which Ampeg? AC30 and 60s blue-check are my go-tos... seems I should look into the Jazzmaster...

whoa whoa whoa which Ampeg? AC30 and 60s blue-check are my go-tos... seems I should look into the Jazzmaster...

heh. '64 reverberocket, '66 Jet. and i still have a zoom ultra-fuzz around here somewhere. guess it really is jazzmaster time!

Oh I wanna see it when it’s all back together.

Wow, don’t think I’ve ever seen an Ybarra Jazzmaster pickup! And an A width neck too. Rare bird!

https://i.imgur.com/ZGF3Sh6.png

I guess this is the only photo I've taken of my Jazzmaster (which is currently in its case buried behind a dozen packing boxes). I bought a set of the new wide range humbuckers but I can't bring myself to have it routed to fit them.

I've never played one, or even held one. Isn't that odd?

i haven't either! but i've become JM-curious

Cool-looking JM milo. I’m wanting to build some sort of Lake Placid Blue w/black pickguard/knobs JM as my WRHB project, but I want to make it more of a big mid-70s era “what if there was a 1972 Jazzmaster Deluxe?” than a Ranaldo knock-off. I love the look of those 70s pearl blue/black Gibson SGs and want to reference that in a JM build, but I’ll need a B&B neck, etc.

milo you should pick up e.g. a Mascis Squier to put the WRHBs into, that's a beauty. AV65?

and here's my trinity (1968 Teisco TG64, 1967 Mory, 1984 Fender Japan)
https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5611/30406274592_c0e89f2e60_k.jpg

Me and the JM/AC30 revving up in front of MOCA at 1m50s and onward:
https://vimeo.com/25737733

undeniably the coolest rig there

Yep, it's one of the Thin Skin '65s - technically Firemist Silver but it was B-stock because it

For the blaster, I'm thinking of ordering a Guitar Mill JM body routed correctly for WRHBs to start with, then charring it with a blowtorch and oiling or shellacing over that. I did that on a scrap Telecaster body (separating at the glue joints) and it looked pretty cool.

b-stock because the color was off - it's bluer than normal (closer to ice blue metallic, which didn't make me mad)

I def thought it was IBM!
If you’re doing a charred finish you can leave it uncoated after rubbing it back, I’m guessing you know it’s a Japanese woodworking technique, shō sugi ban. The other one to consider is iron and vinegar ebonizing but that’d depend on the timber.

Anybody here own any of the current Vintera series? Any good?

Folks on /r/offset seem to like the Vinteras, especially for modding.

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