Fender released these a little while ago.
I believe Eddie Katcher has a stealth Jazzmaster with Jag pups under the covers. Jeff Senn/CrazyAces built a long scale Jag back a while ago. And I think SlacktoneDave might have built one.

Surf_Skater wrote:

Fender released these a little while ago.
I believe Eddie Katcher has a stealth Jazzmaster with Jag pups under the covers. Jeff Senn/CrazyAces built a long scale Jag back a while ago. And I think SlacktoneDave might have built one.

The idea of a stealth Jazzmaster is intriguing. I bet that you could confuse the aficionados in the audience with such a rig.

edwardsand wrote:

I think the main difference in sound between Jaguar and Strat is in the bridge pickup. I find you can get very similar sounds with neck pickups. But bridge pickups in Strats seem thinner to me, while the Jaguar bridge is more focused and biting. It may have to do with the windings or maybe the Jaguar claw makes some kind of difference there.

I think your best approach would be to get a Jazzmaster body routed for Jaguar pickups - it would preserve most of the other aspects of Jaguarness but let you have the long scale.

That makes a lot of sense. I’ve had a couple of great Strats, in the past, but the bridge pickups on either of them were relatively thin sounding.

I wish that I could get a Jaguar body with the bridge routed for a long scale. I love the control set on a Jaguar, including the chromed plates for mounting the switches and pots. I do t know why, but that look has always appealed to me. Besides that, the Jaguar can do Country sounds as well as a Tele. When I had my CIJ ‘66 Jag RI (with Seymour Duncan pickups), I once astonished a Tele player I was working with, by matching his bridge pickup sound, very closely.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

One of the biggest differences in a Strat and Jag pickup is the metal claw on the Jag pickup.
While Leo devised this to try to help with noise, interference, hum, it changes the inductance of what is otherwise a Strat pickup in windings and geometry.
This is what accounts for the difference in sound between the two pickups.
You could get closer to the Jag sound, pickup wise, by adding baseplates to your Strat pickups.
This would help to approximate the Jag sound, scale length aside.

https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/prepped-baseplate/

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CrazyAces wrote:

One of the biggest differences in a Strat and Jag pickup is the metal claw on the Jag pickup.
While Leo devised this to try to help with noise, interference, hum, it changes the inductance of what is otherwise a Strat pickup in windings and geometry.
This is what accounts for the difference in sound between the two pickups.
You could get closer to the Jag sound, pickup wise, by adding baseplates to your Strat pickups.
This would help to approximate the Jag sound, scale length aside.

https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/prepped-baseplate/

That makes a lot of sense. The “claw” undoubtedly has an effect, increasing the inductive reactance of the pickup. In the Gretsch world, there are Filtertrons with screws for pole-pieces and Supertrons, which are identical, except for the fact that there is a pair of solid bars, which add some inductive reactance and make the pickup sound a bit stronger.

I don’t currently have a Strat, but I have been thinking in terms of adding another guitar to the collection. A Strat with a bit more authority might do the trick and make the acquisition that much easier. I know that there are Strat models that have a way to use the neck and bridge pickups simultaneously, without the middle pickup being on, via the S1 switch.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

synchro wrote:

Likewise, some good points. The Strat bridge is bound to have an effect, because the mass of the body and the strings are only tied together via the pivot points of the floating bridge.

I would opine that the claw probably has an effect. Pickups are about magnetic lines of force, so it would make sense that the claw has at least some effect, although that Is not to suggest that the claw is the whole of the story.

Yes, if you start factoring in all the physical differences in the two guitars, not just pickups, many other factors come into play.
The vibrato systems on both guitars contribute/diminish to the "tone" greatly. The steel block, string through on the Strat, the top mount, lowers string angle, longer string length behind the bridge on a Jag....
Having mixed and matched a lot of these details on builds I can easily say it all matters, affects sound/tone.
There are many easy ways to get the neck and bridge pickup combination on a Strat, from mix knobs, toggles, S1 switch......
All geometry on a pickup matters. Width of the coil, height of the coil, polepiece type, baseplate or none, material of the baseplate..... and on and on.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/crazyacesrock
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CrazyAces wrote:

synchro wrote:

Likewise, some good points. The Strat bridge is bound to have an effect, because the mass of the body and the strings are only tied together via the pivot points of the floating bridge.

I would opine that the claw probably has an effect. Pickups are about magnetic lines of force, so it would make sense that the claw has at least some effect, although that Is not to suggest that the claw is the whole of the story.

Yes, if you start factoring in all the physical differences in the two guitars, not just pickups, many other factors come into play.
The vibrato systems on both guitars contribute/diminish to the "tone" greatly. The steel block, string through on the Strat, the top mount, lowers string angle, longer string length behind the bridge on a Jag....
Having mixed and matched a lot of these details on builds I can easily say it all matters, affects sound/tone.
There are many easy ways to get the neck and bridge pickup combination on a Strat, from mix knobs, toggles, S1 switch......
All geometry on a pickup matters. Width of the coil, height of the coil, polepiece type, baseplate or none, material of the baseplate..... and on and on.

Everything contributes, including the short scale. I'm not in love with the Jaguar/Jazzmaster bridge and tailpiece. I had one let me down at a gig once. I like the idea of a solid mounted tune-o-matic on an offset.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

The length of the strings behind the bridge of the Jaguar (and Jazzmaster) do make a noticeable contribution to the overall sound. The ghost tones created as those bits resonate create somewhat discordant sounds and maybe some harmonics that feed into the pickups, especially the bridge. That cannot be replicated in a guitar with a stratocaster tremolo, so Jag pickups in a strat are not going to be the same, and a hardtail Jag will also not sound the same.

And I suspect with a Jag where the trem is moved closer to the bridge, you would be changing those tones as well - hard to say how much, though.

edwardsand wrote:

And I suspect with a Jag where the trem is moved closer to the bridge, you would be changing those tones as well - hard to say how much, though.

I forgot to address this in my initial reply. The Offsets sort of fizzled out in the ‘70s, and I think that a lot of this was related to the reputation of Offset bridges, whether deserved or not. I’ve seen, and played the Player’s Edition MIM Jag’ with the sharper break angle over the bridge, and a tune-o-matic bridge. It seemed competent enough, but I didn’t spend enough time with it to form an opinion regarding the effect of their design change in the sound.

That’s sort of the enigma of the Jaguar. They were all but forgotten in the market and the Alternative and Grunge guys bought them for a steal. But they weren’t really made for chunking out power chords, so many of these guitars were modified into something hybrid, neither fish nor fowl.

When I first learned to play, the Jaguar was a holy grail instrument, being the top of Fender’s line. Heck, I couldn’t even afford a Fender Mustang, at the time, but a sunburst Jag seemed like a dream. (I really wanted a Country Gentleman, but that was not going to happen while my parents were paying the bills.) Now I have the Country Gent, but I still can’t get the Jaguar off my mind.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

That’s quite interesting. I know from experience that the CIJ Jaguar pickups can be quite shrill. I replaced them with Seymour Duncan pickups on my ‘66 RI and with Fender US RIs on my Bass VI.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Those magnetic field pictures are pretty cool. You can definitely see the effect the a has on it. I’d be curious to see how that cij pickup compares to other jag pickups. I have a feeling visually it’ll be the same.

-Eric

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