Sunday, March 30, 2014

Fender: Modern Player Jazzmaster HH

Fender's Modern Players are such value-for-money instruments, it's difficult to ignore them. While they may not be everyone's idea of a Fender, they are still legit, done by the very people who give us the Squier Classic Vibe & Vintage Modern series.

As documented earlier, my concern with this guitar is its confusing manifestation; it's a Jazzmaster (by virtue of looks & appointments) but it's not a Jazzmaster (with humbuckers in there, no traditional Jazzmaster tone could be acquired). I've overcome the humbucking appointment of this guitar, accepting what it was intended to be. However, the other concern, now that I actually own this guitar (OK it's been slightly more than a week now) & had a good playing time with it- is the tune-o-matic type bridge. In use, the whammy mechanism works- no complaints there but the TOM bridge won't hold tuning no matter how much lubrication one applies to the slots. Do note that the original Jazzmaster features a different bridge mechanism, so the most sensible thing to do here is not to whammy. As such, I've set it up to a locking position so no whammy action any time soon. I did some other parts replacements but that's saved for an April episode :-)

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