Posted on Aug 25 2019 03:38 PM
I bought one a month ago. I have to say that I am new to this genre and this guitars. Of course not new to guitar playing itself but I've always been a humbucker-guy that played for the past year an epihpone g400 equipped with a duesenberg vibrato for my surf band that formed also a year ago. This might be a valueable info after reading my impressions.
The CV 70s really lifted my band in another tone dimension which of course is not hard considering what I played before. The tone is really trebly but not that annoyingly sharp as when you just would boost the high frequencies of my epiphone. I play it through a Laney Ironheart 120H half stack (another leftover of my former band career). I figuratively can hear how you pros and purists laugh at me when reading about my setup.
It has been always hard to me to write about the sound of a guitar, I rather let it speak for itself. I advise the usual videos on Youtube. The sound is great and I am happy with it.
The neck is laquer coated and is a little thick for what I am used to (epiphone g400 and ibanez rgir20e). The very fret ends are filed nice and the binding is also nice. But the fret corners are rather sharp in comparison to the ones of my epiphone. The fingerboard and frets are somehow odd, the fingers don't slide that easy as on my epiphone. Compared to my Ibanez and the Jaguar the Epiphones fretboard is amazing, you just fly over the fretboard while playing. Sad that the other two guitars cost more than twice than the epiphone. The Jaguars fretboards has deep grooves in it because of the sawed pores of the wood and is like I said somehow rough.
The guitar suffers from tremendous treble bleed which I learned here is absolutely common with this kind. Still - this is not nice. As well as the missing sustain. Very very poor and above the 12th fret practically nothing.
I think it is when I am in the rhythm circuit, not sure, when it quietly hums through the amp. When I touch the plate where the circuit switch is the humming stops. I am so far versed to know that this is a grounding issue but I don't know more, why exactly this happens and how I can prevent that. The humming is really quiet, no big deal. If anything, I have no problems with noise when I used it with my amp. By occasion I use some distortion but I never had the feeling that it is noisy.
The "rhythm circuit" - as it is called and what I can't retrace why you would call it that way (because of the following) - is significantly mellower as the lead circuit and (maybe because of that) a bit quieter than the lead circuit. This is not nice, in fact crap, because in order to achieve the same volume level I would play the lead circuit with a backed of volume (or "master volume" as it also illogically is called) which would result in treble bleed. The treble bleed really starts at the very first degree of the turned pot. Maybe some day I will have it changed so that the rhythm circuit uses the bridge pickup and not the neck pickup.
Still I am having problems with it and after some weeks of research I learned about this whole "thing" about Jazzmasters and Jaguars. You know what I mean, your forums are full of it.
Maybe I was just spoiled by my Ibanez Superstrat with Edge Vibrato but the Jaguar had problems with staying in tune. No big deal, only a few cents but this still bothers me. I red not only here but saw videos and other sources about this problem which is part of "the whole thing" i mentioned above, you get it.
I had done some things I learned here:
- put on 12-54 strings from the moment I unpacked it (of course streched the devil out of them)
- filing the nut which is supposed to be bone as the manufacturer states but I am not really sure if this is true.
- nut sauce on every string touching spot, also underneath string tree.
- locking tuners, the cheap harley bentons but I am pretty sure they serve their purpose.
- unscrewing neck screws a quarter and then tighten them again.
- filing the two knife edges of the vibrato like suggested in this one thread here where this annoying guy made a click bait in the thread title and needed 4 or 5 posts until he revealed the secret. I called them knife edges a sentence ago but this was a lie, lol, it was just the common sawed of steel sheet with its two corners that would grip into the inner bow of the vibrato tongue in which the strings are attached. A friend of mine filed them round and I oiled the complete vibrato unit with graphite oil.
- Loctite in the stud posts, Bridge still rocking.
- setting up the vibrato as far as I understood. There are tutorials but they rely on this button you use when you want to lock it to keep the strings in tune when one breaks. I don't have this button. So i tried to find a sweet spot every now and then when it gets out of tune. I would have thought that if strings are low then I tighten it but there is no actual pattern. But if I tighten too hard then I have this issue that when it is too tight and is used deeply then it clicks because the screw is jumping against this hole of the plate.
Still, even without vibrato use the strings get out of tune after playing a bit. Even worse: they go out of tune without a pattern that would suggest it's reason for this. But no, sometimes low, sometimes high, sometimes this string, sometimes another, sometimes several.
My next steps will be a neck shim from Stew Mac in order to raise my bridge a bit because the treble side is nearly sitting on the pick guard and I think this doesn't work well with the rocking. I also can move it too easily back and forth whereas it only should pivot on its screw tip. But the spot inside the hole as just a too shallow shaped center where the tip can leave it too easily. I hope that I can always keep it centered with more pressure on it. What I can say is that I don't have issues with strings skipping of the saddle. As I red this is a common thing to many guys.
I will also upgrade with a grapthech nut TSUSQ XL which I will file more precisely as I learned in a Stew Mac video. And finally I want to switch to a Staytrem bridge. But I am not sure if this is upgrading. As I said I am not familiar with these guitars and though many of you discussed the Staytrem I might have misunderstood the need of it when I consider the new Jaguar model. Maybe you needed the Staytrem because of these vintage threaded saddles? I saw that many also substituted to a Mustang bridge that looks similar to mine. I think that the stock bridge I have is a new model for a Jaguar which is making the Staytrem obsolete. Am I right with this?
If not I will give it a try. I am confident that these 3 more steps will get the problem solved. Ultima ratio would be a Mastery vibrato. I think the special spring there will make the difference.
Having that all written, is there someone in the UK that would help me shipping a Staytrem to Germany?
David
Last edited: Aug 26, 2019 03:31:27
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