I have as of yet seen anyone bring this point up.

Doing another set up on my VM Jaguar. Went from wrapping the stock bridge with duct tape (muffled the sound, robbed the tone) back to the stock bridge. I did that in an attempt to get rid of wolf tones, buzzing, ringing and intonation problems. Recently worked on the nut a bit and tightened up the vibrato.

My question is this: If the bridge rocks back and forth along with the vibrato arm, what position should it be in when you set the intonation?

Pulled back towards the vibrato or pushed forward towards the neck? There is certainly enough play in the bridge for it to affect intonation.

Thanks for any replies!

Last edited: Jan 28, 2019 14:40:55

The bridge should be in the middle for intonation, because that's where it should be when you are playing.

And you say you wrapped the bridge in duct tape - which part exactly were you wrapping?

When I put strings on my Jazz Master I move the tremolo arm up and down in an exaggerated movement while tuning. I then tune each string individually using the same process. After each string stays in tune I check intonation. In theory the bridge has found a neutral position that
it will retain and I adjust from there.
There are more variables to setting intonation, but this method has
worked well for me to get a guitar's intonation ruffed in.

Hope this helps
Best Regards
Martin

Last edited: Jan 28, 2019 17:31:03

edwardsand wrote:

What do mean by wolf tones? Buzzes and ringing are familiar enough, but my guitars haven't howled as far as I can tell.

Never heard 'wolf' tones? And you call yourself a surf guitarist?
Aaa---Ooooooohhhhh!!

(I'm referring to errant sympathetic harmonics that occur occasionally). If other members can explain them better, please chime in> Or should I say, "Howl In"!

Last edited: Jan 28, 2019 19:06:48

I have 6 Jaguars and had many problems with them all.
Well it looks like you have the right saddles and not the mustang type that kills the tone...so you look ok there.

Taping the bridge posts is a bad idea being the bridge must float to move forward and backward with the whammy bar movement. If you want to do that block the tail piece down from working. The guitar will go out of tune otherwise with the bridge taped like that.

You mentioned buzzing …...If you mean fret buzz your bridge and or saddles are set too low and the strings are touching the frets somewhere (ok it could be the neck is bent ?) but it is more likely that the bridge is set way too low. The Jaguar sounds better with high action and the pickups work better as well with bridge set higher up,.

Ok I noticed your Jaguar has no Whammy lock button on the Whammy plate real Fender Jaguars have a round lock button on there. This looks like a Squire Jaguar made in Indonesia to me (I have a few.) Jaguars usually have tailpieces with Fender logo on there. They just make more noise because the cheap wiring inside and have now shielding like the ones made in USA and Japan - If that's the case change the strings - they put real cheap noisy strings on there and it gets worse as the strings age and sound dead after a while. But these Squire Jaguars just generate more noise period. I never tried replacing wire or shielding any of these yet.

The guitar was designed to have pickups set low for a lower tone and strings set high - so if they are two close together the Jaguar will sqeal and make noise. The pickups are more powerful to pick up lows but do not sound good if too close to strings. The bridge has to be perfectly level to the pickup plate as well. It seems too sqeal the most with the High E, B and G strings when set too close to pickup - those three seem to be the noisy strings. If those three strings are to close or the pickups or the bridge is lower on the side - your talking big time Jaguar growl and it will bite you sound wise. The G string gives me the most problems being the head design has overtones due to the tuner to nut length is just right for that to happen. If I had to guess its the G string usually, its too low to the pickups. The main problem is you have lots of string past the bridge as well that produce overtones on both end of the G string, so if the G string is too close to pickup this problem is just magnified noise wise.

Even though the pickups are more powerful the guitar set up properly has low out put to the amp (Being the strings are so high - or have to be to work right)

The Fender procedure is to Lock the whammy when tuning ( But you don't have one and make short the bridge is level before inotation etc .. . The bridge has to be level all around. Even a little lean anywhere and the Jag will sqeal. If the bridge leans forward or torwad neck it will have more string behind the bridge (bad- squeal city) - If it leans back way from neck - inotation goes out the window.

It could be the strings - Those cheap Indonesian strings are horrible - change them out- some strings ring out more (especially) 10's (slinky type) - Might try 12's being the guitar was originally designed with those in mind or just try another brand. I need to put heavier strings myself so may do that soon. But strings can cause the problem too. Many times its string and improper set up like described above.

Jaguars are troublesome - but have unique sound no other guitar has - if you change anything it kills the sound a lot so your stuck with this design to get that classic sound.

Hope that helps thats all I know - The only other thing may be you might have turned on the rhythm circuit by accident - that kils the lead sound - maybe the switch is up and not down. Once and a while I hit that switch by accident while playing.

Last edited: Jan 28, 2019 23:56:09

Tqi wrote:

Flatwound 13s!

No joke, it will make everything so much more stable. Making sure nothing gets stuck in the nut, there's no going back!

Good point about the PU height, Sam, the wolf comes out when it's too close.

Mastery bridge solves many of the aforementioned problems, but it may or may not be your style, and is expensive.

Thanks for all your comments and ideas. Yes, this is a Squier VM Jaguar, made in Indonesia, year 2017.

The strings on it now are D'Addario NYXL 11s. I don't think they are the problem. Although I may go for the 12s.

I removed the tape from the bridge posts and the tone is much better. I also did some work on the nut and that has helped also. I also tightened up the tremolo and now the buzzing is mostly gone. Still have some setup work to do. I'll let you know how it goes.

Last edited: Jan 29, 2019 19:19:00

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