life with the jazzmaster

I’ve had my ’66 Reissue Jazzmaster a few weeks now and wanted to share a few thoughts, comments about it. First, I have no regrets about buying it. I was a bit nervous getting a guitar from overseas, however to get the color/setup I wanted I  had to go with an import. Fender USA doesn’t make Jazzmasters in the colors or options that Fender Japan does.

Quality wise it seems good, as good as any Fender I’ve played. The fit and finish is great, playability is good, however it needs a good setup done on it. The look of it is just awesome, the matching headstock, the vintage white paint, block inlays and binding.

So about the setup – Jazzmasters are touchy guitars. The bridge design was never perfect on them, and even the new ones suffer from the design flaws the originals did. You get all sorts of bridge buzz in these things. It has to do with the string tension, string angle, the saddles, you name it. The sure fix is to use a buzz stop, which increases the downforce on the strings, enough to stop them from buzzing. I’ve heard this creates other issues, and won’t be the solution I will use.

Other fixes include locktite or various oils/waxes in the saddle screws, flatwound strings or replacing the saddles with those from a mustang. Sometimes these work, sometimes they don’t. Depends who you talk to, probably depends on the vintage of the guitar a bit as well.

Even though its brand new, my Jazzmaster is no different, and as time goes on the buzz is getting worse. My approach is going to be to replace the saddles with after-market ones from Graph Tech.

I’ll be replacing the saddles and them performing a proper setup. I’ll be adjusting the neck if needed, the string action and of course the intonation. Hopefully with these changes and a little luck the buzz will go away, and it will be a lot more fun to play.

And as always, I can’t leave well enough alone. I have plans to replace the pickups with something more correct. The current pickups really are not true ‘vintage’ Jazzmaster pickups. They’re more or less modified strat pickups. Seymour Duncan and Curtis Novak actually hand-make vintage spec Jazzmaster pickups, and from what I’ve read they way a ton better. Not sure when I will do this, but I’ll be sure to post updates when I do. I’ll no doubt post some updates on the setup and saddle replacements as well.