April Birthdays 
2 Years ago I picked up a Fender Classic Player Jaguar Special HH on a trip to Florida at a GC. It looked great, had a budgetfriendly (we were on a vacation) price and the option to switch the humbuckers to single coil was even more tempting.
Back home in Europe, it was a big disappointment. I couldn't get a decent sound from the guitar. The humbuckers sounded flat, no sparkle at all. And I hated the adjustomatic bridge. What the hell was fender thinking, a Gibson bridge?
So I tried to sell it in a local guitar store (thanx Sticks'n'Strings), but nobody wanted it. Kurt Kobain signatures were going like hot buns (sorry Dutch saying) and dispite looking like a budget version of the Kurt edition, no luck.
So only two options remained, fleabay or modding.
I decided the last option was the better one. So here's part 1 of my modding adventure: the pickups!
Ofcourse the humbuckers were the source of the bad sound. So what to replace it with. First I thought of a couple of Jazzmaster pubs. Love the sound of my '65 JM! But after some thinking I decided to go another way. JM pubs wouldn't fit in the body nor the pickguard and I don't like wood work nor cutting a pickguard myself.
How about some P90's in humbucker size? Some research online pointed to Lolars, but they are hard to get in Europe and expensive.
Then I found an article on Duesenberg Domino P90. Hey, they are made in Germany, and I live just 30 minutes from Dusseldorf. How expensive could a set be? And they looked really cool, black with a chrome edge. Perfect for a Jaguar.
Back to my local guitarstore and I ordered a set of Duesenberg Domino's.
The guitartech made a great price including mounting the pubs (thanx Jasper) a little bit under the amount of what a set of JM pickups would cost.
I got the guitar back last week and it sounded great in the store. Not to mention that I was really in love with the way the Duesenbergs looked on my jag.
At home, I first tried my living room setup (Blues Jr with Excelsior in stereo) and I was blown away by the sound. Especially the neck pickup, what a superb twangy sound! It even sounds better than my Gretsch!
But when I plugged it in my twin reverb.... pure magic. It can do everything; loud blistering surf ala Dick Dale, twangy Duane Eddy riffs and with a bit of extra boost some really dirty Link Wray!
I'm a happy dude 
Now to find a way to replace the adjustomatic bridge with a mustang bridge. The holes are to deep for the bridge legs. The metal mounting cases of the original bridge won't come out the drilled holes.
Some pics:
www.alohasluts.com
Aloha Sluts on BandCamp
www.arnyzona.com (my photography)
Aloha Fest on facebook
Last edited: May 02, 2014 12:02:35
