NGD with video! Fender Jazzmaster (American Original 60's)

smogfalls

It's been a while since I had a new guitar day, or made a significant gear purchase, but I've been wanting to break my offset guitar virginity for so long now and thought that with so many options on the market right now, this would be the perfect time, hence my earlier thread seeking the advice of you jazzmaster connoisseurs! You guys pointed me in the perfect direction and I am extremely happy with my choice. Originally I wasn't taken with the binded neck on the AO line, but loved the rest of the spec. I realised that this was a pretty lame reason to not go with that model so I sucked it up and went for it. In fact, these guitars were out of stock everywhere with a 4-6 month lead time, but I got very lucky when 1 suddenly appeared on the guitar guitar site on Friday morning!.. so I pounced on it and added next day, Saturday delivery.

Here are my initial thoughts..

It looks classy as fuck. Absolutely gorgeous to behold, and the binding is already growing on me. I just wish it was aged slightly to match the off-white plastics on the rest of the guitar. Hopefully it'll yellow with age.

This guitar feels great to play and has a very resonant, lively tone even unplugged. Fit and finish is stellar, and it’s pretty light all things considered.. (8lbs I believe). The neck carve is very comfortable.. in my primitive way, I'd call it a "medium" thickness. I usually play nocaster type telecasters or an old 1949 es125 which has my favourite neck of all time. Both are very thick. This jazzmaster neck isn't in that same ballpark, but it's reassuringly sturdy with a nice, natural taper.

My only gripe is the trem system. The bar will not stay in place at all and falls out with any movement. It’s also squeaky and rattly/clunky. I’ve already ordered the staytrem and staytrem bridge so am really looking forward to fitting those.

Also, although I’m enjoying the tone, it’s is extremely bright and I’m running my tone control halfway down. The bridge pickup is a bit weak sounding too and I’ve spent a good while tweaking the pickup heights and the overall setup. I’m going to patiently wait for December when mojo is taking on new orders again, and I’ll follow @GavRichList advice and grab myself the jazzmaster set with overwound bridge. Hopefully this will sort the balance out a bit and thicken the tone a tad.

I'm already a huge fan of the rhythm circuit and can see this will be extremely useful for me. I play all sorts of styles of music and my main gig is in a roots/swing/country/blues band.. think Tom Waits/Marc Ribot mixed with George Barnes, Django and Charlie Christian style I guess would be an approximation. But I also play a lot of contemporary music, Slint, Radiohead, Grizzly Bear, Mars Volta, Kendrick Lamar to name a few.

This guitar will give me the whole range with ease.. Bill Frisell one minute, Omar Rodriguez the next and all points in between.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and guidance on this, it’s been massively appreciated and I’m well chuffed with my first offset guitar!

Anyway, pictures speak a thousand words so here’s a little video I filmed upon taking the guitar out of its case. Towards the end I use the trem, which sounds great, but it's extremely loose once you use it/dislodge it from it's position, and then it'll just swing around and fall out eventually.

(Excuse the plastic coverings and stickers still being on the guitar!)

https://youtu.be/yJmt-PpVqhE

Cheers,

Alex

Gerz6558

Congratulations, an excellent choice!

Regarding the trem bar falling out, you really have to push it in hard until it clicks in. Dont be afraid to really put your weight behind it and push it in. I've never had a trem unit where it falls out, not even the squier ones. But the stay trem will be an improvement regardless. 

The mojo pickups with the overwound are amazing. The Jazzmaster will always be bright with the 1 meg pots, but that overwound bridge gives it some extra grunt.

Enjoy!

mgaw

lovely start to the day thanks for posting, lovely playing

Loobs

Wow, you're an excellent player! Guitar sounds phenomenal, although you could probably make firewood sound nice. Which amp are you playing through? Sounds like a Princeton or Deluxe Reverb?

dazzajl

Congratulations on a beautiful new guitar. That was a sublime few minutes listening to you play it. 

brooom

Big fan of your playing, I've listened to your version of Deep Water several times. The new jazzmaster sounds great, enjoy it.

smogfalls

Thanks for the kind words, I really am bonding quickly with this guitar.
I have pushed, and pushed on the arm, putting quite a lot of pressure on it and still it’s loose. If I push and turn at the same time it stays momentarily but as soon as I use it, it flops back down again. I’ll open it up and see what’s going on under the plate.

smogfalls

Loobs said:

Wow, you're an excellent player! Guitar sounds phenomenal, although you could probably make firewood sound nice. Which amp are you playing through? Sounds like a Princeton or Deluxe Reverb?

Spot on bud, it’s a 64’ Princeton Reverb .. all original aside from the speaker. I replaced the old Oxford speaker with an Eminence Alessandro GA10-SA64 and it sounds perfect with it. Had previously used a Celestion gold in there for 2 years but was never quite happy with it. The Eminence has better lows, less mids and brings out more of that typical blackface sparkle.

Loobs

Wonderful. 

Bellycaster

Very beautiful playing and a lush looking and sounding Guitar. Only reinforces my GAS for a J.M

peynadol

Gorgeous guitar, gorgeous playing. 

Voxman

mgaw said:

lovely start to the day thanks for posting, lovely playing

Big +1 from me too Alex. Love that very musical and laid back melodic style of jazz and you are a lovely player. Just wish I could play like that. Many congrats - that's a nice looking and great sounding guitar.  What amp were you using...was that nice deep reverb built in, or is it an external pedal?

're trem, when I first got my Yamaha Pacifica 611 VFM I also thought the trem was loose, until I realised it had a small hexkey adjustment to tighten it. 

Hattigol

Could you at least look at the guitar occasionally whilst playing such fabulous stuff, to make us mortals feel just a tiny bit better.....?

smogfalls

Voxman said:

mgaw said:

lovely start to the day thanks for posting, lovely playing

Big +1 from me too Alex. Love that very musical and laid back melodic style of jazz and you are a lovely player. Just wish I could play like that. Many congrats - that's a nice looking and great sounding guitar.  What amp were you using...was that nice deep reverb built in, or is it an external pedal?

're trem, when I first got my Yamaha Pacifica 611 VFM I also thought the trem was loose, until I realised it had a small hexkey adjustment to tighten it. 

Thanks mate, I appreciate that. Yeah it's the built in reverb and trem in my 64’ Princeton Reverb .. all original aside from the speaker. I replaced the old Oxford speaker with an Eminence Alessandro GA10-SA64.

ben_wuh

That's a lovely rendition of 'Round Midnight.

Tadragh1

Actual jazz on a Jazzmaster, who knew?  Good stuff!

JezWynd

Lovely muted tones from the guitar and great playing. You must be very pleased with it.hngd!
ps. Now I understand why they call it the Jazz master.

smogfalls

thanks dudes, and well spotted on Round Midnight @ben_wuh ;

smogfalls

A couple of days later and I'm addicted to this guitar.. cannot put it down. I have a staytrem bridge arriving any day now and can't wait to put that on and restring with 11-52's. This came strung with 10's which just don't feel right on this guitar.. too slinky and rattly. Strange as I usually use 10's on my Tele and Strat. I often hear people saying Jazzmasters work best with heavier strings, infact someone posted this the other day.. interesting to see what was considered "light" and "regular" gauge back in the day!..

brooom

Do you still think it's worth changing the pickups?

GavRichList

AV / AO pickups were a vast improvement over the AVRI 62 ones and are perfectly usable. Mojos are as big an improvement again.