Talk to me about Jazzmasters

[jimh]

So, a mate of mine and his band are doing quite well.  They've got a bit of cash coming in so he managed to pick a very beaten up mid-60's Fender Jazzmaster.  It was previously owned by Spandau Ballet (all you 80's kids out there will know them), who didn't really look after it. The neck was very catastrophically broken during an on-stage moment of rock-n-roll-throw-the-guitar-to-the-tech-who-cant-catch....  It now has a maple/maple strat neck (which actually feels really nice).

HOWEVER... The electrics are shot, the pickups are pretty crap, and Russ (my mate) wants it to be able to compete sound wise to his custom shop Jazzmaster. He's asked me to look it over and give it a service.  The electronics I'm not worried about, but I want to bang some new beefy pickups in it.  I dont know much about Jazzmaster pickups. 

Being a good homegrown British boy, I want to get some BareKnuckles for it, but looking at the website it doesn't look like they do a drop in Jazzmaster style P90, but I've sent them an e-mail anyway to confirm.

SO....... I'm canvassing opinion. 
Tell me about some great pickups.  Rio Grande's, Duncans, DiMarzio, all the usual suspects and maybe some not so usual suspects. Dont forget, JM P90s are bigger than regular P90s, so I need JM specific options.

Cheers f'now

Jim

 

[TroubledTreble]

There are many boutique makers in your neck of the woods.

http://www.shedpickups.com/  is one off the top of my head.

Here is a list of pickup makers. I'm sure you can find one near you. It's always good to go local.  :icon_thumright: This much is true..

Whoops, forgot to paste this the first time.... http://www.pickupedia.info/Guitar_pickup_makers

Interesting that lately there seems to be interest  in the Jazzmaster. All of a sudden there have been request for pups for these. You should be able to get a nice custom set with plenty of tone and output that fits the original rout. Let us hear what you come up with.

 

[jimh]

Hey Thanks TT. 
Just a thought..... Are you in the Jazzmaster pickups market yet.  I'd be very interested in trying some of yours!

Dont worry.  I'll post some pics too.

Lollars are looking good too.

 

[jalane]

if you haven't already, you should check out Curtis Novak: http://www.curtisnovak.com/pickups/Offsets.shtml.  He hand makes all sorts of JM pups.  I just got his JM-180 bridge pup and it is siiiiick.  His website has a few sound samples as well.

 

[mayfly]

If TT can't set you up, I'd strongly suggest Lollar.

A bit of cash, but they will do you right - especially if you're looking for a P90 tone in a jazzmaster package.

 

[jimh]

The guitar in question.

Sorry about the poor pic.  It was my badly lit office on my iphone

I just looked.  Although i was told it was a strat neck, it has the Jazzmaster decals.  Hmmm.  Whatever.  It feels great to play.  Havent heard it yet, but I'm going to take it apart tonight and have  little look inside  :blob7:


Oh, and thanks for all the pickup comments so far.  Keep em coming.  So far I'm liking Lollar and Novak.
:icon_thumright:

EDIT:  Ironically, I commented on how badly lit my office was, and then noticed I got the lamp in the edge of the photo  ccasion14:

 

[TroubledTreble]

I am putting together a couple of sets now for a customer. I am gathering parts to do them. Since the market isn't huge for these I thought I would just do a small run or as needed. I'd be honored and happy to put together a set for you Jim. PM me if you would like me to. Send info about desired tone, output, cover color, time frame....

Novak does do these and quite well, and Lollar is a great pickup maker.


You posted whilst I was typing.... Cool green!!

 

[jimh]

Guys.  Thanks for getting back to me.

These are Band Of Skulls.  This is the guitar Russ is trying emulate. The gold Jazzmaster in the videos is his custom shop (he has a sponsorship deal with Fender, although I'm trying to convince him to let me build him a Warmoth JM  ccasion14

Clean(ish)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFoGIVPGVas

Dirty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnKfGTTzLXs

 

[tfarny]

Check out Lollar's blog about the Jazzmaster construction - it seems to be a specialty of his, either real-deal jazzmaster pups or P90s in a jazzmaster housing. No experience with them, but if he's winding them I would probably guess they are tops.

But - do you really want to mod a 60's classic guitar that's been owned by rock stars? Seems better to keep or sell as is and buy a Warmoth Jmaster to your buddy's specs. Anything you do it might decrease the value.

 

[jimh]

But - do you really want to mod a 60's classic guitar that's been owned by rock stars? Seems better to keep or sell as is and buy a Warmoth Jmaster to your buddy's specs. Anything you do it might decrease the value.

I see what you're saying, I did mention that to Russ, but he really wants to get this thing going.  And to be honest, it's SO beaten up and messed with I really dont think it'll be worth much more than he paid for it anyway.
The body and neck are really resonant, you can feel it when you strum a few chords acoustically, loud too.  The pickups look to be non-original.  They dont match, and sound pretty bad anyway (according to Russ, i havent heard it myself yet), and the pots dont function correctly.
Either way, I'll keep all the existing components, just in case he ever wants to put it back to how it is now.

I think Russ wants to go for traditional JM style pups rather than P90s in JM covers.  Sorry for any confusion, that was just my poor wording earlier, where i was using "P90" in a generic bigger-than-single-coil-but-not-quite-humbucker sense.

 

[TroubledTreble]

Just a thought...

If those don't sound great, it may be due to the magnets loosing their magnetism. The magnets in the Jazzmaster are short. There is a certain height to width ratio a magnet needs to maintain its magnetism and those are right on the edge.

So those may just need a recharge. Another way they could loose their charge is if the guitar was taken on a subway and the rider sat near the traction motors. Enough rides and the magnetic forces from those huge DC motors would diminish the magnets. The shorter the width to height ratio the easier it is to demagnetize a magnet. I would look into the magnets (poles) before replacing them. It's easy to recharge them with some rare earth magnets.

 

[AutoBat]

All this Jazzmaster talk has got me GASing for one now. Didn't take much really, I'd been looking at some last week.

 

[-CB-]

Bet them pickups wouldn't be crap if you had the thing working correctly.

Mid 60's Jazzmaster pickups... are a good item to have.

 

[OzziePete]

I got the impression that genuine JM pickups were not very tall (but wide) and the cavity that Fender routed for them is quite shallow. So if you are replacing that sort of pickup with, say, a P90 or a humbucker, you'd ahve to rout down into the body first so they'd sit low enough in the body. :dontknow:

As for the prior ownership, unless you have documents and some sort of provenance to establish the previous owners, talk of it is just that - and you can't place too much value on it. If there's a wish/need to mod it, and no provenance for the previous ownership, you'd may as well get the old girl working properly again by modding it. Just my 2c, YMMV of course.

 

[mullyman]

My next build will probably be a Jazzmaster. I'm not going conventional though. Trust me, when it happens, mine will be one of a kind. hehe!!
MULLY

 

[Soylent]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfwvpyrAW60&feature=related[/youtube]  :icon_thumright:

 

[Mor Paul]

I found their cd on my brother's computer a few days ago. I'm not often proud of his musical tastes.