My new guitar

This is what i would of spent my $900 on if I was gonna get it. Instead I’m not in a few hundred dollars of debt. ahh! Youth Allowance system is shiiit! fix it please, kevin... anyways

It's a 1962 Fender Jazzmaster Re-issue; Made in Japan. $795 including a lame gig bag from cash converters with a three month warranty. who woulda thought, $200 cheaper than i woulda got it on ebay. it's the ebay-isn't-actually-such-great-value-wakeup call I needed. because we all know cash converters aint great value. I wonder how much the guy that pawned it got. probably $500, seeing they need to cover sales-peoples costs, the three month warranty they gave me on it etc etc.

Based on the serial number guitardaterproject.org concluded that it was made in the year(s) 1994 - 1995 at the Fuji String Instrument Production Corporation. This really surprises me, because after playing it I could barely find a scratch besides a couple on the back, the varnish was shiny, there weren't many playing marks on the pick guard and everything seemed to be in really good condition. So I guess the previous owned mustn't of played it too much.

I've played it a lot since I bought it. I really like the sound. Just what I wanted after listening to Rowland S. Howard and my bloody Valentine (among others) a lot recently. However i am considering getting new pickups at some stage, they sound jazzmaster-y... but just a bit too strat-like (i didn't buy this to sound strat-like).




The bridge which everybody complains about... really is worth complaining about. I've been trying to justify keeping the bridge, but there's just no getting around the rattling, the thread part of the saddle hitting the string causing buzz when the saddle is moved far back (the low e and g strings) [that was hard to explain and probably doesn't make sense] and the low e string jumps across the saddle on regular occasions, slightly altering the tuning and screwing the string spacings... to fixx this I think I’m just gonna go with the Mustang bridge. the buzzstop will alter the harmonics from behind the bridge and won't fix all the problems.

now there are pro's about the jazzmaster bridge, but in my opinion they're simply out-weighed by the cons.

the jazzmaster bridge:

• can alter string spacing (useless?)


• can alter the height of each string individually (good if you're too lazy to turn the truss rod or you want to control where the high and low e strings fret out when you bend them)


• looks a bit cooler (but I’m getting a cover soon anyways)


• buzzing makes harmonics sound a bit cooler? lol

So yeah, that's about it. Very happy with it... originally wanted a jaguar but this is great.

Oh and unlike all the other (cheap) guitars I've played, I like every setting. Bridge, Neck, both pickups- with varying tone; as well as the neck pickup through different volume / tone controlls which sounds a bit darker. Though my favourite would be 'the standard' both pickups with tone and volume on full... perhaps with tone a little under full at times. and the tremolo system... the best part!

(L) MBV