Short Scale Guitars » Fiesta Red

Fender Jag-Stang

Frank — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:41:42 +0000

The Fender Jag-Stang, as the name implies, is a blending of the Fender Jaguar and Fender Mustang electric guitars. The idea for the guitar came from Kurt Cobain, lead singer and guitarist for Nirvana. Cobain presented his idea to Fender and they created two prototypes, one in Sonic Blue and the other in Fiesta Red, in their custom shop for him. Both of these guitars were left-handed and were built by Larry L. Brooks, a Custom Shop Master Builder at the time. However, only one of these guitars was ever played by Cobain due to his suicide in April 1994.

Since the Jag-Stang never got past the prototype stage before his death, there are many details about the guitar that are sort of unfinished. Cobain was said to have been dissatisfied with some aspects of the guitar. He did use the Sonic Blue guitar occasionally on the In Utero tour. The Fiesta Red one had been completed and was ready to be delivered to him at the time of his death. The guitar went into production at the Fender Japan facility and had two production run periods where guitars were imported to the US from 1995 through 2001 and 2003-2005. I’ve heard that it is still possible to purchase the Jag-Stang in Japan but I’ve not been able to confirm this.

Fender promoted the Jag-Stang as blending old and new features into a “radical new Fender guitar.” To achieve a new look, the guitar’s basswood body mixes the curves and horns of the two parent guitar to create a new, but not entirely foreign, look.

Electronically, Fender went with a Texas Special single coil pickup in the neck position and a DiMarzio H-3 humbucker in the bridge position, both at a slant, for the prototypes. There was also a master volume and tone knob and a pickup on/off switch for each pickup as well as a phase switching feature. The slant positioning causes some subtle variations in tone as compared to a perpendicular pickup placement. The DiMarzio H-3 is a custom pickup made exclusively for Fender and not available for separate purchase although the DiMarzio Evolution pickup has a very similar sound and specs. On the production guitar, the pickups are cheaper copies of the pickups, not the Texas Special or H-3. It is recommended that you upgrade these pickups for the best sound.

The bridge was the somewhat troublesome Mustang style Fender Dynamic Vibrato. Some people have reported more problems with this than with the original Mustang bridge. Given that the stock, vintage, style tuning gears don’t do well with a trem, this isn’t surprising, especially for aggressive punk and alternative players.

The 24 inch scale neck was copied from Cobain’s own Mustang’s neck. The neck is quite thin feeling and is clearly designed for punk rhythm playing, not soloing. This is a guitar intended for a singer/rhythm guitarist, especially one with smaller hands.

The legacy of the Jag-Stang is closely tied with Cobain. Courtney Love gave his Sonic Blue prototype to Peter Buck of R.E.M.. Buck used the guitar on the video for the song What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? and has used it sometimes in live performances of their tribute song for Cobain, Let Me In. Most people who select this guitar as their main guitar are fans of Cobain although some rhythm players simply appreciate the comfortable feel of the Jag-Stang.

Fender Jaguar

Frank — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:41:40 +0000

The Fender Jaguar was introduced in 1962 just as surf music was becoming popular. While surf essentially made the guitar popular it’s likely that the Fender design team was wanting to improve upon the Jazzmaster. To this end, the Jaguar had the same offset waist and dual circuit wiring that the Jazzmaster had. They did decide to go with a shorter scale length, 24 inches, for this guitar. The idea was to make the Jaguar the top of the Fender product line. However, it didn’t work out that way as the problematic bridge and changing musical tastes in the 1960’s caused many guitarists to stay away from it. It wasn’t until the 1990’s with the arrival of grunge music, most notably Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, brought this guitar back into the spotlight for a moment.

The two critical elements of the Jaguar were the unusual electronics and the Fender Dynamic Vibrato (aka tremolo) system with a rubber string mute.

One of the things that you’ll first notice with the Jaguar is the number of switches, 3 on/off switches on the lower bout and an on/off switch and two roller switches on the upper bout. The roller controls on the upper bout are a presets for the neck pickup only, primarily intended for jazz players to control the tone and volume separately. The switch is to choose between this special circuit or the main circuit on the lower bout. On the lower bout, there’s a selector switch for each pickup and the third one is a switch that has a high pass capacitor that thins out the sound somewhat. The Jaguar has master volume and tone pots and are 1meg pots rather than the usual 250K or 500K found on most other Fender guitars. While many Strat style single coil sized pickups can be shoehorned to fit into a Jaguar you’ll get the best results from a pickup specifically designed for this guitar.

The bridge, which has given unsuspecting guitarists and guitar techs headaches over the years, is the Fender Dynamic Vibrato paired with a rubber mute. The important thing to understand about these features is that they were specifically designed for use with heavy gauge, flatwound, strings. They weren’t intended for use with light gauge strings or for heavy whammy bar wanking out. If you try to rock out with a Jaguar, you should have a good guitar tech do a few simple mods to at least lock down the bridge. Otherwise, you’ll be knocking it out of tune a lot. Kurt Cobain ended up swapping his bridge out for a Gibson style Tune-O-Matic for this reason.

Another common problem with the Jaguar is string buzz. While using flatwounds can cure this, there’s also the option of using a buzz stop or doing more extensive modifications to the guitar. My recommendation is to know what you’re getting when you buy a vintage style Jaguar rather than hacking up the guitar with mods. If your goal is to rock and you like the style of the Jaguar, perhaps you should consider one of the alternative versions of the guitar that are better designed for rock.

Most vintage Jaguars were sunburst since there was an upcharge for other colors and most had to be special ordered. The colors that were available included: black, blonde, burgundy mist, candy apple red, charcoal frost, fiesta red, inca silver, lake placid blue, olympic white, shell pink, shoreline gold, sonic blue and surf green. Other fancy appointments such as binding and a painted headstock were common in different model years but the guitar failed to capture an audience after the initial interest in the early 1960’s.

The original Jaguar had a thirteen year production run from 1962 until 1975. It became popular with alternative musicians during the 1980’s because of its low price as compared to other, more popular, vintage Fender guitars. Groups like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers made the guitar popular in alternative rock circles. This led to reissues of the Jaguar and variations on the Jaguar design in the 1990’s and I’ll be cover them in other articles.

Fender Mustang

Frank — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 03:37:23 +0000

The Fender Mustang was introduced in 1964 as part of a redesign of Fender’s student guitar line. The basic idea was to add in things like a tremolo bridge and advanced pickup switching to the revamped Musicmaster and Duo-Sonic. The Mustang was perhaps the most successful of this line, staying in production from 1964 until 1982 and then being reissued early during Fender’s resurgence in the early 1990’s. Originally popular with 60’s surf bands, the guitar remained popular with punk and other alternative rock music styles for decades, reaching its pinnacle when Nirvana guitarist and singer Kurt Cobain selected it as his primary guitar. Also, collectors consider it the most valuable of the short scale Fender guitars.

The Mustang, like the Duosonic II and Musicmaster II, was available in both 22.5 inch and 24 inch scale length necks. Over time, the 24 inch neck became the more popular choice and is the length most commonly found today. The shorter length is considered somewhat of a collectors item.

The Mustang has been available in a wide range of colors over the years including: Sunburst, Candy Apple Red, Sonic Blue, Vintage White, Blonde, Black, Brown, Olympic White, Daphne Blue, Fiesta Red, Lake Placid Blue, Dakota Red, Surf Green, Competition Red, Competition Orange and Competition Blue. This is in contrast to other Fender student guitars that have been issued only with a few basic colors.

Like the Duo-sonic, the Mustang has two single coil pickups and master volume and tone knobs, typically 250K ones. However, the switching system is a bit different. Instead of a single switch, the Mustang has three way (on-off-on) switches for each pickup. The two different on positions select the phase of their pickup which allows the pickups to be either in phase or out of phase with each other. This allows for more tonal variety. Given the generous common body rout, many electronics savvy players opted to make other modifications to this guitars electronics.

The Mustang floating tremolo bridge, called the Fender Dynamic Vibrato, has been a problem child from its inception. Unlike the synchronized tremolo system used on the Stratocaster, the Mustang trem is more difficult to setup and more difficult to use while staying in tune. Some players prefer to lock the bridge down as best they can while others have attempted full replacements. For example, Kurt Cobain used a Gibson style tailpiece on his personal guitars, although Fender did not include this change on production models that are associated with him such as the Jagstang. Other players, however, have gotten used to this trem and, with the help of the short scale length, are able to pull off some really cool surf sounds with it.

In 1968 Fender released the Competition Mustang with a racing stripe paint job including a painted headstock. This modification has proven popular and has been reissued three times, twice in Japan, known as either Made in Japan (MIJ) or Crafted in Japan (CIJ) and once by Fender’s Mexican factory (MIM). According to various sources, very few, if any Competition Mustangs were made in the shorter 22.5 inch scale length. While the shorter length continued to be listed in the Fender catalog for several years, there weren’t any productions runs of it.

Regular Mustangs have also been reissued in various Fender and Squier product lines fairly often since the early 1990’s due to the popularity of the model with alternative rockers. If you’re considering purchasing one, make sure you know what you’re buying because the quality can vary and there are ‘frankenstein’ guitars out there that have been assembled from various parts.