Short Scale Guitars » Olympic White

Fender Duosonic II

Frank — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:41:43 +0000

The Duosonic II was released by Fender in August of 1964, during the transitional period where the company was changing hands from Leo Fender to the CBS corporation. It was a companion to the new Mustang model that was released at the same time. The intention was the the Duosonic II would be an economy model of the Mustang so it was designed for student and budget guitarists. The main difference between the two guitars was that the Duosonic II did not share the rather impractical Mustang tremolo. Instead, it had a fixed bridge.

Originally the Duo-sonic II was offered in both the 22.5 inch and 24 inch scale. Over time, the 24 inch model proved more popular and the shorter scale length became rather rare. Also, as was the case with other Fender guitars of the transitional and early CBS periods, the headstock became larger, the logo was changed and a veneer, rather than slab, fretboard was used. The veneer fretboard was a cost saving move by the company since it required less materials and fewer manufacturing steps.

The Duosonic II guitars were available with three different body finishes: Dakota Red, Olympic White, and Daphne Blue. You may encounter other colors as well such as black or sunburst but these are typically refinish jobs and not original. Rumors of factory custom color jobs have been around but, from what I understand these can’t be proven.

Fender discontinued the Duo-Sonic II in 1969 after a production run of five years. Under CBS management, cost cutting became paramount and they trimmed the product line down to the bare bones. Many also say that their cost cutting also cut the quality of the guitars. From my experience, transitional and early CBS models are still well made and can often be purchased for much less than comparable pre-CBS models just a year or so older. CBS Fender models after around 1968 do show a reduction in quality in my estimation but you can still find some real gems from this time period as well.

The Fender Duosonic II has been growing in collector value due to its rarity as well as player demand. Many guitar players have come to prefer the fixed bridge Duo-Sonic II to it’s cousin, the Fender Mustang. Many players find the tremolo bridge of the Mustang troublesome and difficult to maintain. Ironically the lack of a tremolo bridge is probably what sunk the Duo-sonic II during its original production run. Collectors, having snapped up most pre-CBS Fender guitars, appreciate the lower costs of the CBS era guitars and hope that the price will rise to the same levels over time.

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 Swinger

Frank — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:33:12 +0000

The Fender Swinger was a limited run short scale guitar made in 1969 when then CBS run corporate management came up with the idea of using their existing parts inventory to build a guitar. The idea was to combine the guitar bodies left over from the failed Fender Bass V project with excess parts from the slow selling Musicmaster II, particularly the 22.5 inch scale neck. Parts from other discontinued projects, such the Fender Maverick, were also included.

The Swinger was to be another member of Fender’s student line of guitars. In addition to the short, 22.5 inch, scale rosewood fretboard neck, the guitar was equipped with one single coil pickup in the neck position, much like the Musicmaster. The bridge was fixed. The guitar was produced in Dakota Red, Black, Candy Apple Red, Olympic White, Sonic Blue and Lake Placid Blue.

The unusual thing about this guitar is how the headstock shaped. It has a distinctive arrow shape and is why it’s often called the Fender Arrow rather than the official name, Swinger. Some marketing material also referred to this model as the Fender Musiclander, further indicating how much at a loss the CBS marketers were in positioning this guitar in the marketplace. As a result of disjointed promotion and the overall obvious cheapness of the patched together guitar it did not sell well. It is estimated that only about 300 of these guitars ever made it into the hands of guitarists.

One notable Fender Swinger player was Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads. She played her Swinger often in live concerts and the guitar is seen in the concert movie Stop Making Sense.

Because of the very limited production the Swinger has become somewhat of a collectors item and it’s rare to see one up for sale. As of this date, there hasn’t been an exact reissue of this guitar although there have been some other Fender guitars that borrow somewhat from its look.

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.