We absolutely adore offset guitars here at GuitarGarageLondon! After many decades of nearly total oblivion these underdogs made an epic return in the 1990s in the hands of Sonic Youth and the rest of the indie alt crowd. Three decades later they've firmly established themselves in the mainstream and are seen on stages all around the world, covering a broad variety of genres. The original design has a lot of quirks that bother many modern players, so there are a few tricks and custom-mods to make a vintage-looking Jazzmaster play and sound as best as possible.
 
Did you know that when Fender received an order for a custom-colour guitar back in the 1950s and early 1960s, they often used already finished sunburst bodies for those. This is why sometimes you see a vintage Fender with sunburst poking from underneath the main colour. With this custom-build we've decided to do the same.
 
The guitar for sale comes with a handmade custom alder body sporting that glorious Lake Placid Blue over 3-tone Sunburst heavy relic finish, as if it has toured the world many times. No expense was spared here and the attention to detail is very high. You get all that lovely nitro crackling and patina as well as patches of raw wood and even those classic pickguard "tanlines" (body underneath the pickguard and neck plate has brighter blue hue than the exposed areas). The clear top coat was aged and yellowed a bit, so the guitar has tiny bit of a green hue here and there. The top coat will keep yellowing over the years. Wear patch on the back of the body looks like a new unexplored continent on a traveller's map.
 
The 3-ply mint green pickguard received the same relic treatment and a thin coat of clear nitro. Inner cavities are fully shielded with high-grade copper foil, that together with the copper-backed pickguard creates a so-called "Faraday Cage", that helps curb any interference. Body is not too heavy but very very resonant and loud acoustically and has all those vintage-accurate contours.
 
Beautiful maple neck with dark chocolate rosewood fretboard was made by Fender in USA in September 2014. This was part of a very short-lived American Special Jazzmaster series. Medium C-shape and satin back finish make this a true pleasure to play. Medium jumbo frets have minimal wear, truss-rod works perfectly, neck is straight as an arrow. Gotoh Japan tuners provide sublime tuning stability.
 
With this kind of unique finish the stakes were high when it came to choosing pickups and wiring. We wanted this Jazzmaster to have that classic 1960s tone with a bit more warmth and fullness to it and the wiring to be the most versatile ever.
 
Electric voice is provided by a pair of our favourite Seymour Duncan pickups: Vintage model in the neck position and Hot overwound model in the bridge position. Classic wide coil design and Alnico V magnets allow for warmer tone - no "ice-pick" and the overwound bridge can really bark, with beautiful clarity and musical tone, plenty of sustain and true grit when pushed harder. The best part of the classic Jazzmaster pickup design is the responsiveness to your picking - you can dig in with your right hand and the guitar reacts with a lovely growl.
 
Original Jazzmaster wiring was developed by Leo to enchant the jazz players (who ignored the guitar altogether) , but the whole rhythm/lead circuit design is a bit of a hit-and-miss. So instead, this guitar has individual volume controls for each pickup (big pots) and individual tone controls (roller pots) with different capacitors for each pickup for even more tonal variety. Neck pickup uses a vintage 1960s Mullard Mustard capacitor for "warmth" control; bridge pickup has a 1990s Red Hornet ceramic capacitor for broader palette and grittier roll-off. Highest quality Mojotone A500K pots with brass shafts and Switchcraft 3-way and 2-way switches and output socket were used for years of reliable performance.
 
Wait, but there's more! Slider on the upper horn engages both pickups in-series, where both coils essentially act as a spaced humbucker, doubling the output and overdriving any tube amp into sweet heaven. This sound is incredibly balanced thanks to all the twang from the bridge pickup, warmth of the neck and lack of mid scoop, that you usually get in a more traditional "middle" position, where pickups are engaged in-parallel. With the slider down and using the 3-way toggle switch you will still get those 3 traditional tones.
 
And this is still not all! If your 3-way toggle is in the neck position and you move the slider switch up - you will get silence. Which means in this configuration your slider switch turns into a killswitch for all those brilliant percussive Tom Morello/Jonny Greenwood style stutter tricks.
 
We started using Hosco Japan vibratos instead of Fender ones only recently, but the quality of the components and the tuning stability of these units is very impressive and consistent. Vibrato works very smoothly and the springs used in these are very responsive, yet stable, always returning to pitch. Tremolo has the lock function, that helps stay in tune in case of a string break. The original long tremolo arm stays in nicely and doesn't flop around.
 
Traditional Jazzmaster bridge famous for its rattling and string slippage was never even considered for this project. Instead, we have a Japan-made Mustang bridge here, properly radiused for a 9.5 inch fretboard. Now you can hit those strings as hard as you want and use the tremolo till your hands hurt.
 
This instrument received a full professional setup with deep body cleaning, body polish, neck deep clean, lemon oil fretboard treatment, full electronics check, truss-rod and action and intonation adjustment. Restringed with D'addario 10-46 Nickel-plated steel strings.
 
This guitar will be shipped around UK and EU with Parcelforce or UPS courier, safely packed into a sturdy guitar cardboard box. 24h courier service provided to UK customers. Worldwide shipping available as well!