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Hey Brian,
Indeed, trad jazz players are used to trapeze bridges on hollow body guitars
rendering less sustain than our beloved solidbody planks. I've seen the JM
sustain issue mentioned in a few places. Richard R. Smith's great "Fender"
history sez, "The length of string behind the bridge cut the guitar's sustain, a
way to enhance jazz plunk...(Leo) had built what he supposed the top players
wanted or needed into the Jazzmaster..." The book also tells how the bridge was
designed for heavy strings and the body was designed for sit-down playing.
With all Leo's good intent, the jazz players ignored it. One prob was that it
was too heavy for the guys used to playing the light weight hollow-body Gibsons.
I'm also guessing that a lot of jazz guys didn't want to look like "low brow"
rock and rollers. It's the same reason I wouldn't buy a Jackson with the pointy
headstock, I don't want to look like metal is the only thing I play.
That's great that Jazzmaster pages already exist. If they list the bridge
solutions, we should start refering JM questions to those pages.
-Marty
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Neal
To:
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 6:43 PM
Subject: Re: [SurfGuitar101] Re: Jazzmaster trem rattle
Just for the record, my US Jaguar had 2 shims.
I'm actually thinking about taking mine out. I think the shims are for
light string gauge players. I've got 12's on the Jaguar, and the angle
over the bridge is so steep already that the strings were hitting the
back of the intonation screw heads (before I reversed the bridge). I
wonder if you would notice a change in the tone/sustain if they were
removed?
Where did you hear that Leo wanted to limit sustain? I've never heard
that, just the general idea that they wanted to sell these guitars to
the Jazz players. Don't jazz guys like sustain or something? :)
A FAQ is an excellent idea. But there are web pages already with lots of
good info, like Mel Waldorf's and Tom from Germany (who has that cool
interactive Jaguar complete with sound). There are links to their pages
in the links area on the Yahoo site.
BN
Marty Tippens wrote:
>Yeah Bob, three shims on the U.S. Jazzmaster indicates to me that they should
redo the neck pocket on those things. I though mine was a one off that way but a
friend just got two U.S. models that also had the three shims.
>
>Leo's intention was to limit the sustain with that Jazzmaster bridge, I guess
that's whatcha mean when you say a "doink" machine. The buzzstop brings some
sustain back but doesn't change the wonderful tone that we surf guitar fans
love. It's the same with the Mosrite and it's set of unique design flaws. You
gotta live with some playablility problems if you want those great tones.
>
>-Marty
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Bob Sweet
> To:
> Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 1:08 PM
> Subject: [SurfGuitar101] Re: Jazzmaster trem rattle
>
>
>
> --- In , "Marty Tippens" <mctippens@e...>
> wrote:
> > That woulda seemed like a good idear, Bob, but U.S. Jazzmasters
> already come with three shims under the neck and still have the
> settling bridge piece and rattling problems.
>
> I see your point, I had no idea they already come with that many
> shims.
>
>
> > Strangely, Don Wilson of the Ventures loves the Jazzmaster bridge
> and put it on his Wilson Bros guitars.
> >
> > Marty
>
> I can understand that, that poor design is part of the sound of the
> Jazzmaster. I'll find out about it soon enough. I'm almost done
> building me a "doink" machine. I started spraying it last week, Fiesta
> red w/matching headstock, w/Duncan vintage PU's. I've always played
> Strat's but I want the sound of Jazzmaster on some things. Does anyone
> know if the "Buzzstop" changes the tone much?
> Oops! Sorry I don't want to hijack this thread. Just slap me upside
> the head.
>
> Bob
>
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