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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Gear »

Permalink CIJ Jazzmaster pickups

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I have read that certain Japan made Jazzmasters have Strat pickups in a JM housing. Mine is a CIJ from 97-98. Just curious.

From what I've read the original Jazzmaster pickup was designed with a wider magnetic footprint, the idea being that they could over-wind while at the same time retain a mellow sound. In essence it "picks-up" a wider segment of the strings.

The CIJ Jazzmaster has the same sized bobbin with longer magnets and Stratocaster looking narrow windings. There are tricks the manufacture can use to produce a cheaper pickup that sounds roughly in the ballpark of a full quality item. That might be fine for regular rock players but not so great for surf tone seekers.

Well that explains why my JM sounds so bad.

This is true. The Japanese Jazzmasters pickups are basically strat pickups in a Jazzmaster cover.

The guitars are quality though, and for a long time were the only Fender Jazzmaster you could buy. Pop in the right pups and you'd get a quality instrument.

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Thanks de-Ron. I had heard this but didn't know it applied to all of them. Very disappointing. Since I have no money invested in this axe, I won't feel bad about getting different pups.

Those MIJ Jazzmasters with stock pickups can still get a great surf sound. I recorded this song with that configuration:

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Last edited: May 09, 2018 19:49:20

Here's my stock CIJ Jazzmaster on lead. It can get a bit thin on the higher strings and some of those notes can produce a somewhat unpleasant harmonic when combined fast but overall I think it sounds really good and I've never had the urge to replace any pickups.

T H E ✠ S U R F I T E S

A little off topic perhaps, but what about jaguars, i have a japanese Jaguar from the same time period?

bluez wrote:

A little off topic perhaps, but what about jaguars, i have a japanese Jaguar from the same time period?

From what I remember from past discussions here a lot of folk thought the Japanese Jaguar pickups were quite good. They are slightly different to the U.S. part, the wires mount to the bobbin in a different place and they are not compatible with U.S. pickup covers.

A vast majority of all our surf recordings are done with stock CIJ Jaguars for the lead parts. Here's one of them:

T H E ✠ S U R F I T E S

Probably too much is made of the 'incorrect' CIJ Jazzmaster pickups. Okay, they're like Strat pickups, but then so are the p'ups in a US-built Jaguar -- and nobody thinks that Jags and Strats sound bad for surf. Of course, if you're craving the authentic Jazzmaster sound, then there's a good case for swapping them, but I'd hesitate to dismiss the CIJ versions as junk without giving them a chance: different strings, amp/settings, height adjustments, etc.

By the way, nice to see Klas back again!

I should also add that we've always used heavy* Pyramid flatwound strings which becomes a big part of our guitar sound when combined with the Japanese Fenders.

*013s for the Jaguars but less heavy for the Jazzmaster.

MissingLink wrote:

By the way, nice to see Klas back again!

Thanks man, although I'm not really back.

T H E ✠ S U R F I T E S

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Rondo1 wrote:

Well that explains why my JM sounds so bad.

Are they muddy sounding? what is it that's bad. Is it the first Fender offset you've owned and what are you playing it through.

No. I played '62 & '64 Jags back in the late 70's, so I'm very familiar with offsets. I have used this CIJ Jazzmaster for all of the Rondo Hatton recordings & gigs. After fooling around with my reverb unit, I discovered the tone cap was defective. Fixed it, no more icepick to the eyeball treble problems. I'm in love With my Jazzmaster again! Thanks for all the tips and info fellas!

Since you asked, I'm using a '61 brown face Pro with a JBL 15" in it. Heavy flatwounds, '63 Fender reverb unit. That's it.
.

Glad to hear you got sorted. Years ago someone joked Fender Jazz/Jags were part electric guitar part banjo! Big Grin I dare say some people new to them could be surprised how they sound.

I have a set of Fender U.S. Jazzmaster and a set of CIJ Jaguar pickups, out of interest I've ordered some magnetic field viewing film, If it works well I'll post some photos here.

The magnetic field viewing film has a glossy side that looks a little like metallic paint. Each sparkle is a tiny flat metal fragment which can move freely inside a bubble of oil.

Hence the pickup pole tops look black because you're seeing the edge of the metallic fragment. As the magnetic field curves you see the flat side which appears much brighter.

The metal claw of the Jaguar looks to have quite an effect on the magnetic field.

image
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So the enigmatic claws actually do something. Interesting...

This is SORCERY!!!!
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