Leaderboard

Baritone Jazzmaster

new-killer-star

Senior Member
Messages
267
I was gifted a pickguard from a redditor that was an 'oops' for his build a couple of months ago.

O04IpGo.jpg


I figured this was a good opportunity to build out a baritone. Since the pickguard was so shiny, my wife convinced me to order an understated neck and body to go with it. Here they are from the showcase:

nLfw4tM.jpg

dzLAMdj.jpg


I'm still ordering a few parts (wiring, tuners, tremolo), but the pickups are now ordered from righteous sound and if all goes well, I'll be touching up the frets and assembling it while my family is having fun during spring break without me.

Waiting is hard.
 
Looking forward to seeing this come together. What kind of pickups did you wind up going with? I saw you said you ordered some from Righteous Sound, but I'm curious what the focus is here. Cleaner-sounding or heavier, grungier sounding? Can't wait to see the end product. I love a good Jazzmaster, and a Baritone is an interesting twist.
 
Tipperman said:
What kind of pickups did you wind up going with?
I took a bit of a risk and went with some newer stuff that isn't on his site yet... I'm a little hesitant to say that I'm not always a fan of traditional jazzmaster tones, they're a little hollow sounding for me, but at some point I just got the JM bug really bad so I wanted something a little more traditional sounding, except I have a bunch of traditional sounding guitars already so...

The neck is an alnico p90 he called Sweet Violet, it's supposed to be a little fuller / fatter than a traditional P90 (but I didn't actually listen to it). The bridge I ordered is called the Recognizer which is filtertron like in looks and sound.

My plan is to put in PTB, Series / Parallel wiring ala this article by Rothstein. I hope that this will allow me to control some of the hollowness / muddiness that I've heard with some baritones. It should also be fun to wire up and have the knobs actually do something I like...
https://reverb.com/news/upgrading-jazzmaster-electronics-part-II-wiring-mods

I also ordered the cheapest possible bridge so I could get the full experience that gripe about with jazzmaster bridges, part of me hopes this will happen to me too so I'll be forced to replace it with a mastery.

But we'll see how it goes...
 
new-killer-star said:
Tipperman said:
What kind of pickups did you wind up going with?
I took a bit of a risk and went with some newer stuff that isn't on his site yet... I'm a little hesitant to say that I'm not always a fan of traditional jazzmaster tones, they're a little hollow sounding for me, but at some point I just got the JM bug really bad so I wanted something a little more traditional sounding, except I have a bunch of traditional sounding guitars already so...

The neck is an alnico p90 he called Sweet Violet, it's supposed to be a little fuller / fatter than a traditional P90 (but I didn't actually listen to it). The bridge I ordered is called the Recognizer which is filtertron like in looks and sound.

My plan is to put in PTB, Series / Parallel wiring ala this article by Rothstein. I hope that this will allow me to control some of the hollowness / muddiness that I've heard with some baritones. It should also be fun to wire up and have the knobs actually do something I like...
https://reverb.com/news/upgrading-jazzmaster-electronics-part-II-wiring-mods

I also ordered the cheapest possible bridge so I could get the full experience that gripe about with jazzmaster bridges, part of me hopes this will happen to me too so I'll be forced to replace it with a mastery.

But we'll see how it goes...

Best of luck, my friend. We'll see how it goes, indeed. Sometimes these builds don't end up how we want them to, but the great thing about guitar is we have the flexibility of change, to a degree. You can't change the wood a Viola is made of, but you can change the pickups and wiring of a guitar.

I am looking forward to seeing this come together. I hope it's to your liking.

EDIT: As for a Mastery bridge, I have been quite satisfied with mine. I used it on my last build in 2012, a 1962 Fender Jaguar clone (with a few small modern improvements.) I think it's worth the money, personally.
 
A new Jazzy on the way, looks like it's gonna be tasty! Keep us posted on the progress.  :icon_thumright:
 
It looks like it shipped today...  :turtle:

I know the pickguard may not fit, I may modify it a bit if it doesn't or get a different one, I will have to see.

I'm also probably going to just order a mastery bridge for it.
 
new-killer-star said:
I know the pickguard may not fit, I may modify it a bit if it doesn't or get a different one, I will have to see.
If you need another pickguard, then you'll need to order another neck and body for that pickguard.  :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright:

Congrats on the ship notice.
 
Rgand said:
new-killer-star said:
I know the pickguard may not fit, I may modify it a bit if it doesn't or get a different one, I will have to see.
If you need another pickguard, then you'll need to order another neck and body for that pickguard.  :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright:

Congrats on the ship notice.
Then you'll have to build ANOTHER JM! Damn, how terrible is that!!!  :icon_jokercolor:
 
Then you'll have to build ANOTHER JM! Damn, how terrible is that!!!  :icon_jokercolor:
[/quote]

But... it still wouldn't fit right and I'd have to build yet another. If it doesn't work out, maybe we could send it around as a "gift" each time it doesn't quite work out to all of us who wouldn't mind 'accidentally' building another JM because, it's just a shame to see a good pickguard go to waste :P
 
new-killer-star said:
Then you'll have to build ANOTHER JM! Damn, how terrible is that!!!  :icon_jokercolor:

But... it still wouldn't fit right and I'd have to build yet another. If it doesn't work out, maybe we could send it around as a "gift" each time it doesn't quite work out to all of us who wouldn't mind 'accidentally' building another JM because, it's just a shame to see a good pickguard go to waste :P
[/quote]
Now you're talking! :icon_thumright: :icon_biggrin:
 
Woooo! Can't wait to see more. I love the Jazzmaster look/shape, a baritone version will be very cool to see.
 
It was hard to focus and not just excuse myself for a few minutes... I finally just got back to taking a look at it.

The neck feels great and fits nice and tight, the frets appear to be level, but I'll check again during setup time.

I am actually worried that the pickguard might not work out. I'll have to wait until I get the pickups in, likely a couple of very long weeks.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0548.JPG
    IMG_0548.JPG
    598.4 KB · Views: 46
Back
Top