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Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:30 pm
by dots
jesus, the pickguard replacement is drastic, and i can't believe even that didn't sort it out for you. no wonder it's a sore spot for you!

at the end of the day, bachus is right -- it's an oddly shaped mustang in a HS configuration. shouldn't be that hard to get TEH KURDTZ toanz.

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:32 pm
by paul_
500k pots solve most of the problem, the guitar more or less calls for replacement pickups at that point though.

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:33 pm
by sunshiner
plopswagon wrote:
sunshiner wrote:Shouldn't all real Cobain fans go left handed to really honor him? And all Les Paul appreciaters have their elbows shattered. And Bob Dylan's fans crash on a motorbike. Or else don't call yourself a fan
And those Mama Cass fans…never mind.
Partying till death?

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 5:04 pm
by plopswagon
sandwiches!

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:24 pm
by Noirie.
I hope there’s a Squier version.

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:40 pm
by dots
plopswagon wrote:pork chop sandwiches!

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 7:03 pm
by Thom
It’s funny, my Jagstang experience is completely different to Mike’s. It’s still the guitar I’d grab first if the house was on fire. A lot of that is down to nostalgia and what the guitar means to me, but it sounds great and plays beautifully. I did put 500k pots in it way back when and have had both a Seymour Duncan SH-5 and Bareknuckle Miracle Man humbucker in it. I gigged it solidly for close to 10 years, back when we played regularly and didn’t have kids, and it just feels like home when I pick it up. It’s also beautifully light, around 6.5 lbs. Whilst slightly darker than some of my guitars, post-mods it’s definitely not muddy. Won’t be getting one of the new ones, but I’d love to try one to compare.

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 7:16 pm
by plopswagon
dots wrote:
plopswagon wrote:pork chop sandwiches!
Damn it! I just lost my shit!

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 7:24 pm
by dots
8)

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 7:36 pm
by dots
Thom wrote:It’s funny, my Jagstang experience is completely different to Mike’s. It’s still the guitar I’d grab first if the house was on fire. A lot of that is down to nostalgia and what the guitar means to me, but it sounds great and plays beautifully. I did put 500k pots in it way back when and have had both a Seymour Duncan SH-5 and Bareknuckle Miracle Man humbucker in it. I gigged it solidly for close to 10 years, back when we played regularly and didn’t have kids, and it just feels like home when I pick it up. It’s also beautifully light, around 6.5 lbs. Whilst slightly darker than some of my guitars, post-mods it’s definitely not muddy. Won’t be getting one of the new ones, but I’d love to try one to compare.
i knew next to nothing about guitars when i got my jstang, i did a bunch of stupid shit to it like replacing the slotted with sperzel locking tuners and hot gluing polished glass to the knobs. the best decision i made was putting a noiseless in the neck and a duncan jb in the bridge (i left the sparkly stickers on it my 2yo daughter gave me as a present and ditched the stupid glass -- tuners are on my strat).

it felt, played, and sounded great, especially once i started loading it with 11s. maybe mike had a lemon? i know i had a hamer explorer that never sounded right to me despite some pickup and pot swaps.

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 8:00 pm
by Mike
It really was the worst guitar I have ever owned aside from that £40 sawdust Flying V I got for a Doogfest that someone on here got (BacchusPaul?).

Andy/Doog had the same experience as me with regard to a lack of definition and unavoidable wooliness in the bridge pickup (which sounds great in other guitars wtf) as me, so I'm not alone here.

I guess some of them are great, some were shite, like mine, or maybe we have different ideas about what a snappy bright sound is.

For my sins at the time I was thinking it might at least get reasonably close to the Smells like Teen Spirit or Lithium intro tones into a half decent amp (and I had/have good amplifiers with great clean tones). I never got close.

I got EMBARRASSINGLY close with zero effort from guitars far more removed like my old '72 Telecaster Deluxe RI, the '65 RI Mustang, the Classic Player Jaguar and my modest 2012 Squier VM Jaguar (albeit with Antiquity II pickups) not to mention my dusty old Fenders.

I also had a CIJ Jazzmaster I could never love, and that's where Andy and I had opposite experiences - he always loved his.

I firmly believe the guitar has serious flaws, and that most people experience them to some degree - in my case - a whole lot.

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 8:49 pm
by BearBoy
Should have just poured beer on it. N00b.

Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 12:17 am
by Nick
FUCK. THIS.

Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:54 pm
by paul_
That Gretsch Electromatic I had for a week in May has now edged it out but yeah, JS was probably the worst of my 22-ish guitars since ‘96. Kinda poorly built too, glue seeping out from under frets and all on mine.
And like Mike, was pretty embarrassed to realize that guitars like the Epiphone G-400 I already had were much better for stuff like Nirvana than the JS (which is like listening to Hank Marvin tune his Strat through the bathroom wall). My CIJ Jag also blew it away (though it did cost a lot more so fair dos, Japan).
My Gibson ‘72 SG-II finally replaced my JS spiritually (ooo) in 2014... and cost less (have around $500 invested in each guitar, obviously a better deal for the vintage SG than for the retail+mods import signature model Fender). Has the narrow nut width with none of the other problems, plus it’s Lake Poo Brown.

I tried to get rid of the glue bump with a dremel cut-off wheel when I was 15. It’s messy but slightly better than it was before.
Image

Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:08 pm
by Bacchus
The pots thing: Any guitar with a single coil and a humbucker is going to have the wrong pots for approximately half of the sounds it makes.

Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:10 pm
by paul_
dots wrote:probably a bit of both. i bought my (since stolen) jag-stang in 1997 new for $700.
This would be an interesting open question... mine was $450 the same year, in a shop where they regularly ran out of $6-700 CIJ Mustangs and Jags but always had 5 Jag-Stangs on the wall.

Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:17 pm
by plopswagon
Bacchus wrote:The pots thing: Any guitar with a single coil and a humbucker is going to have the wrong pots for approximately half of the sounds it makes.
I think there’s a mod so that you can that make the pots wrong for both pickups.

Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:32 pm
by paul_
Bacchus wrote:The pots thing: Any guitar with a single coil and a humbucker is going to have the wrong pots for approximately half of the sounds it makes.
Yes this is true, barring P-90s.

To that end, they should’ve done what Kurt wanted; a hotrails in a 250k guitar, something the pickup was geared toward (and how his Comp Stang was set up). I think the Jag-Stang has sufficient natural wooliness (i.e. less acoustically bright than a Mustang) that it was let down by the combination of a generic rawkbucker with misaligned poles in a Mustang harness. Probably the same thing that makes the neck Strat pickup, higher output than any Mustang neck pickup had been at that time, sound extra good in the short and stang-bridged format.

Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:33 pm
by paul_
plopswagon wrote:I think there’s a mod so that you can that make the pots wrong for both pickups.
Aen get on this shit

Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 3:06 pm
by dots
so, yeah, clearly YMMV on how well the previously releases of jag-stangs turned out to look, feel, and sound. i think we all can agree that they benefited from at least some modification, and maybe there were just some lemons being squeezed out of japan at the time. who knew?

i'm still kinda bullish on trying one as soon as i can. even if i don't end up buying it, i'm curious what almost 20 years and a new factory will do for it. the currently available published specs on the electronics don't really paint a clear picture either. so far, however, my only initial disappointment is in sticking with the original two colors and not adding to that.