NGD: Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster

[Jarick]

Picked up a new guitar for the first time in a couple years, a mint Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster. I've been wanting one for many years now and realized this morning that they were discontinued and prices have been going up sharply.

This one was listed at $600, but I got it straight up in a trade in at my local music shop for a bunch of stuff I wasn't using and was too lazy to sell. Originally I was going to pick up a Boss GT-1000 Core, but decided the new guitar route instead. Plus I got to show my wife the receipt saying I literally got it for free, so she thinks I'm not spending much money on gear!

Really what pushed it over the edge was seeing the Gavin Rossdale video with him playing the Jazzmaster through the FM9. I'm not a big fan of Gavin or Bush beyond the radio hits, but it got me looking at the J Mascis again, and then realizing not only were they discontinued but there were two at the shop down the street from me, I picked it up. Also, watching the Justin Ostrander videos with his pink Jazzmaster the last few weeks and thinking that was such a cool instrument compared to the usual Strat and Tele.

So there were two models, both in excellent shape. One was really bright and ringy and clearly had new strings on it while the other was much darker and more focused and clearly had old dead strings on it. The bright guitar was intonated a little better but it had a little sharper fret edges, an uglier fretboard, neck was a little more orange, and a couple nicks on the back of the neck which I don't like. So I took a chance on the other guitar which has a really smooth feeling neck, better looking board, and was a little cleaner overall.

I chopped the strings, polished the dirty frets, cleaned the fretboard a few times, and then put a fresh set of D'Addario XT 10-46 on it, and the guitar definitely woke up quite a bit. The little bit thicker neck and big jumbo frets feel amazing and it's pretty stable tuning. I've never had a JM or an offset before, and the extra string length behind the bridge does seem to really make the guitar louder and more jangly.

Pickups are surprisingly quite hot even dropped as low as I can get them. I may have to remove the pickguard and put some slightly thinner foam in there. I know they are closer to P90 pickups than traditional JM as well, but they are cool. The wide spacing makes for a really scooped middle position sound. I may try some other pickups at some point, maybe the new J Mascis Fenders which are only $120 and more vintage JM spec. But will rock them for now.

 

[la szum]

Congrats!


Oddly, I parted with mine yesterday in a big sale. Killer JM style guitars with great necks. I put some
SD Antiquity II JM pickups in the one I had. Getting that foam just right is a PITA!

 

[Stone]

Woot Congrats Nice Axe, now need to play that really loud

 

[jellodog]

Great value guitar and excellent modding platform if you fancy trying other pickups etc. HNGD!

 

[Jarick]

Yeah I spent half the night looking at potential replacement pickups but I think these are much more like what I want anyway (P90 style). I'm not after the super bright jangly JM tone so don't think I'll ever do the vintage style pickups. Also, the new J Mascis pickups that are supposed to be somewhat more like the Duncan Antiquities with alnico 2 magnets apparently have been getting meh reviews so put the brakes on that.

Part of why it's so loud is that it has 1 meg pots in it so there's more signal and a higher resonant peak. I may put 500k pots in it at some point but for now I'm rolling the tone down to 7 which helps. But I did have to turn down the input sensitivity on the Axe 3 a bit. Also I need to put in a treble bleed because it gets really dark. Those seem like common and cheap mods.

Anyways, the guitar sounds really great as is with the tone rolled down a bit. The neck is really smooth and creamy sounding but not as bloated as a humbucker. Middle position has a ton of clarity, great for cleans with lots of effects. Bridge is a little bright but rolling down the tone a little further helps.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Nice!! Always wanted a jazzmaster. Enjoy if!!

 

[Sleezy E]

Nice guitar!
A friend of mine has the same one and it's got toanz for days

 

[Jarick]

I think this could be my new go-to guitar for clean tones. It's really, really nice. Very sparkly in the middle position, but with a lot more fullness and output than my other single coils. This along with my Ibanez AZ HSS and PRS CE-24 should cover about everything.

 

[itchyfingers]

Part of why it's so loud is that it has 1 meg pots in it so there's more signal and a higher resonant peak. I may put 500k pots in it at some point but for now I'm rolling the tone down to 7 which helps. But I did have to turn down the input sensitivity on the Axe 3 a bit. Also I need to put in a treble bleed because it gets really dark. Those seem like common and cheap mods.

The pots in mine were pedal sized, lol. Replacing pots, tuners, and bridge really kick this guitar up a notch.

Somewhat related, there's a used J Mascis Tele at a local shop with one of the comfiest necks...

 

[Jarick]

Alright, a few hours and a trip to the hardware store later, I've got new pickups and pots in this thing.

The stock pickups sounded good but were quite hot and bright compared to my other guitars. I know the 1 meg pots played a role, but they were also very noisy. I also couldn't lower the pickups enough, and I didn't like how the 1 meg volume pot rolled off (very dark below 9).

I swapped them out for a set of Porter J90's which I found a good used deal on. Those are also P90 style like the stock pickups, but lower wind and with alnico 2 magnets instead of what I'm guessing are alnico 5 in the stock pickups. Also put in a pair of VIP 550k pots for a more traditional sound and response with the P90's.

Here are the measurements:

Stock PU's: 8.2k neck / 8.6k bridge
Porter J90's: 7.5k neck / 8.0k bridge

Working on the Jazzmaster was a pain in the ass. There's a lot more wires to route around the pickups, and the route was pretty tight in the bottom controls. I had to rotate the pots just right, then change out the orange drop cap for a smaller one. Also one of the VIP pots came loose and stopped working, so I had to fix it and reinstall.

But now the guitar is definitely different sounding. It's nowhere near as bright and sounds great with the volume and tone on 10, and the guitar cleans up a lot better with the volume rolled down too. The bridge pickup is much more usable now as it's more balanced sounding. Neck is definitely darker sounding, but I can drop it lower now so it's more balanced. There also seems to be less noise and I think I must have helped some grounding issues that were present beforehand.

Overall, the guitar is a lot more familiar to my others which is good and bad. I like it more for the bridge by itself, but I miss some of the sparkle of the neck and middle positions. Maybe at some point I'll look for a more traditional set of Jazzmaster pickups that are a little overwound to bridge the gap even more. But for now I've got a cool guitar with "real" P90's that I didn't have in my collection to this point.

 

[la szum]

So it's been neutered and not a Jazzmaster anymore??

 

[Jarick]

So it's been neutered and not a Jazzmaster anymore??

A little bit!

It seems like the 1M pots may have a bigger impact on tone than the pickups. I was expecting the pickups to be a little closer to regular Jazzmaster style as they're lower output, but of course they're still P90 style with bar magnets and steel poles instead of alnico rods. But the 550k pots really tamed the treble spike quite a bit.

Could be the sweet spot is a 500k volume and 1M tone, less of a treble spike but still some of that sharpness, and the better volume roll-off still. Or putting the more traditional Jazzmaster pickups in, which should have a sharper treble spike than P90's.

I will say the rhythm circuit sounds much better with the lower output pickup than the higher output. It's got a little more depth and character where before it was just a lot of bass.

 

[Jarick]

Update after another year:

After the honeymoon, this guitar didn't see much love. It was REALLY noisy. I got a set of noiseless Jazzmaster pickups to swap in, and that did take out some of the noise, but it was still pretty damn noisy and the tone was now thin, plinky, and weak. Back onto the guitar rack for several months.

Today I took the plunge and finally did full copper shielding, guitar only, not on the pickguard. I also swapped the Porter J90 pickups back into it. It seems better! It's now slightly less noisy than my Strat which is unshielded.

The tone is also better, it's still very present and clear and seems to like the tone rolled down to 6-7, but it at least has some balls. It kind of sounds halfway between Jazzmaster and P90.

Hopefully the guitar gets more love now that the noise level is acceptable! Not sure why it's so bad, maybe all the extra wiring for the jazz switch?