How is your Squier VM Jaguar/Jazzmaster/Mustang holding up?

[601210]

...

Honestly, it's always been a real dog of a guitar. The body isn't super resonant, it wasn't built that well, and the neck had geometry issues even before it snapped. But it's my only JM and the sound of a JM is really what I'm interested in, so it's been my faithful companion for nearly 7 years now.

Alas, I'm growing bored with JMs and their sound now. I've started pining for novelty. Thus, I think I'm gonna hang this one up for a bit. I'm definitely going to give it some love in the future. Upgrade the wiring harness/ pick guard (I love the pups though). Maybe I'll spray the body and headstock some funky metallic nitro hue down the road.

It's only got 5 strings on now because it's in Fripp's New Standard Tuning, and that high G was too much.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't abused it. Especially, as I can't really resell it now. Also, if I ever want a "nice" JM, I can't just upgrade this one, it's too busted in the timber for that.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these gross mojo photos.

Since you're looking for a different sound and this one has little monetary value, why don't you go full sonic youth in it and jam all sorts of weird pickups in?

[BoringPostcards]

My Squire vm mustang is doing great. I love the little bastard. I put 12s on it.

[seenoevil II]

...

Honestly, it's always been a real dog of a guitar. The body isn't super resonant, it wasn't built that well, and the neck had geometry issues even before it snapped. But it's my only JM and the sound of a JM is really what I'm interested in, so it's been my faithful companion for nearly 7 years now.

Alas, I'm growing bored with JMs and their sound now. I've started pining for novelty. Thus, I think I'm gonna hang this one up for a bit. I'm definitely going to give it some love in the future. Upgrade the wiring harness/ pick guard (I love the pups though). Maybe I'll spray the body and headstock some funky metallic nitro hue down the road.

It's only got 5 strings on now because it's in Fripp's New Standard Tuning, and that high G was too much.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't abused it. Especially, as I can't really resell it now. Also, if I ever want a "nice" JM, I can't just upgrade this one, it's too busted in the timber for that.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these gross mojo photos.

Since you're looking for a different sound and this one has little monetary value, why don't you go full sonic youth in it and jam all sorts of weird pickups in?

Honestly, for me, jazzmasters and jazzmaster pickups are an inseperable unit. If I wanted a different sound, id have a different guitar. This is why I've hated all of the garbage fender has put out in the last decade trying to placate the offset crowd. Things with p90s and hum buckers. And the American professional with it's strat pickups in jm bobbins. To me, the shape and feel of a jm are locked to the sound of it's piculiar pups. Besides, i'd rather a jm pup on a different guitar. Like a jm neck pup on a big jazz box, for example.

Besides, I'm kinda looking for a whole new vibe. Like a guild Starfire ii. Or, god help me, a es 335. My personal pendulum has swung away from the glassy boom of jazzmasters. I'yn craving something more "organic."

[aliendawg]

Wow! It looks awesome dude!! That poly finish from the body looks indestructible though huh? No apparent chipping or checking or even discoloration

[seenoevil II]

Wow! It looks awesome dude!! That poly finish from the body looks indestructible though huh? No apparent chipping or checking or even discoloration

Not as indestructible as you'd think. It's really hard to get it to show up in photos, but there's lots of little dings and scratches. I think the basswood body under the finish is so soft that the dents just "punch" through, like an egg's shell. The color helps with the analogy too. When I do work on the electronics, I can see that the color has changed a little bit. Not much, but it's a bit darker.



Another view of the pickup cover wear. Lots of strumming.



The back is rather pox marked. Sorry for the finger. It's the only way to get the camera to focus on the finish and bout the reflection.

I will say this. The body has become more resonant over the years. Through playing, and perhaps the air tight seal of the finish being broken in so many places allowing the wood to react to the air? Just a theory. But when I first got it, I'd strum the open strings and feel around the body for vibrations, and I wouldn't feel much, especially in the horns. Now it hums along with the notes. Not as much as my other guitars, but more than before.

[seenoevil II]

My Squire vm mustang is doing great. I love the little bastard. I put 12s on it.

That much tension on such a small body it's like a tennis racket!

[Sweetfinger]

I bought three of the VM Jazzmasters with the Danelectro style bridge when Musicians Friend was blowing them out. One I played for a few years in a particular band, even used it for an entire record. The other I've kept in an open tuning for slide and have gigged it at least once a week for years. The third is an experimental platform I've kept mostly in baritone tuning and have put several different pickguard assemblies on with Tri-Sonics, Guild HB-1s, and most recently, the new Dearmond Dynasonics.
All three are holding up fine. I don't baby them but don't abuse them either. They'll last the rest of my life, no different from any other guitar.

[seenoevil II]

I bought three of the VM Jazzmasters with the Danelectro style bridge when Musicians Friend was blowing them out. One I played for a few years in a particular band, even used it for an entire record. The other I've kept in an open tuning for slide and have gigged it at least once a week for years. The third is an experimental platform I've kept mostly in baritone tuning and have put several different pickguard assemblies on with Tri-Sonics, Guild HB-1s, and most recently, the new Dearmond Dynasonics.
All three are holding up fine. I don't baby them but don't abuse them either. They'll last the rest of my life, no different from any other guitar.

As somebody who's put dearmonds up against jm pups head to head, how would you describe the difference? Audio would be better (obvi), but dynos are the only other pickup that intrigue me like jms. They're a bit more unctious maybe. Your thoughts appreciated.

[Sweetfinger]

The one I put the Dearmonds in is one I keep tuned as a baritone and I just haven't had any gigs lately where I would use that particular guitar, so I don't have much to offer other than I like them, and like them more than the Tri-Sonics they replaced, but I also put the Tri-Sonic bridge pickup further towards the neck, which may have been a bad move for the bari, in hindsight. I sound like myself through most pickups. I think in order to give a real good comparison I'd need to have the Dearmonds on one tuned to standard.

[timtam]

I will say this. The body has become more resonant over the years. Through playing, and perhaps the air tight seal of the finish being broken in so many places allowing the wood to react to the air? Just a theory. But when I first got it, I'd strum the open strings and feel around the body for vibrations, and I wouldn't feel much, especially in the horns. Now it hums along with the notes. Not as much as my other guitars, but more than before.

Not a good sign. If vibrations are in the body they have been lost from the strings and therefore are not seen by the pickups. Unless you like the sound of that loss. Or you are Neil Young ..
"I am convinced that every note ever played on a guitar somehow remains in it. While it does leave the guitar body as sound, it still is within the wood. Everything that happens on a guitar remains in it and sums up to an overall experience (G&B 12/05). " (p7-114 in Zollner 'Physics of the Electric Guitar')
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/08/ ... s-on-line/
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ic_guitars

[seenoevil II]

I will say this. The body has become more resonant over the years. Through playing, and perhaps the air tight seal of the finish being broken in so many places allowing the wood to react to the air? Just a theory. But when I first got it, I'd strum the open strings and feel around the body for vibrations, and I wouldn't feel much, especially in the horns. Now it hums along with the notes. Not as much as my other guitars, but more than before.

Not a good sign. If vibrations are in the body they have been lost from the strings and therefore are not seen by the pickups. Unless you like the sound of that loss. Or you are Neil Young ..
"I am convinced that every note ever played on a guitar somehow remains in it. While it does leave the guitar body as sound, it still is within the wood. Everything that happens on a guitar remains in it and sums up to an overall experience (G&B 12/05). " (p7-114 in Zollner 'Physics of the Electric Guitar')
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/08/ ... s-on-line/
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ic_guitars

Oh, gosh. Do you think I should throw it out?

I think it's a great sign.

I don't think the amount of vibrations conducted into the body has changed. I think the moisture level of the wood has dropped and the amount of crystalized resin in the wood has increased. So the same amount of energy that has always gone in, but now some more of it comes back out.

Some as sound that I hear, some into the pick up that -err- picks up some sound microphonically. And some right back into the string creating all kinds of phase interference and resonance.

I think Neil's right. If in a less poetic sense. Something as complex as a guitar body- the desicated remains of millions of plant cells. The complex structures at the macro and micro scale. The thousands of different compounds all interacting with each other. Introducing kenetic energy probably does creates all sorts of changes. Probably really small ones, but real changes all the same.

[timtam]

So the same amount of energy that has always gone in, but now some more of it comes back out.

The admittance of a solid bridge (transfer of string vibrations to the body) is so low as to be irrelevant - the bridge is a vibration 'road block' that mostly reflects vibrations back up the strings (otherwise sustain would be zero), with some internal vibration absorptions at the bridge's air gaps. On an acoustic guitar, bridge admittance is very high, as the vibrations must be transferred to the body in order to be heard. Back to the solid body electric, the neck sucks some string vibrations because it is flexible and thus vibrates (via higher nut/fret admittance); the body just doesn't really vibrate at all ..
https://acoustics.org/pressroom/httpdoc ... scher.html


Re the notion of string vibration energy 'coming back out' ...
"for a solidbody electric, the whole notion of increasing sustain with resonant tonewoods or letting a string send its vibrations into the body to resonate before returning to the string is pretty much nonsense."
(Heiko Hoepfinger, physicist and guitar builder)
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/ ... -resonance

Re microphony, measure how much vibration or sound energy you have to expose your pickups to to generate a pickup signal magnitude similar to string vibrations. And that's even if those large-enough vibrations were present in the body wood .. which they're not. Most pickup are barely microphonic, or you'd be in trouble in every live situation.
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/wp-conte ... honics.pdf
"a guitar generates e.g. a voltage of 0.1V (due to the movement of the string) which is amplified to 2V by the amp. For the8-Ω-speaker, this translates into 0.5W and results in an SPL of 97dB at a distance of 1m in front of the speaker. If this sound now hits the pickup, the latter will generate e.g. 1.4mV due to its sensitivity to airborne sound –in addition to the 0.1V mentioned above. "
That is, in that example standing 1m in front of a loud amp generates just 1.4mV of pickup output due to microphony, compared to the 100mV generated by string vibrations, ie a relative efficiency of just 1.4%.

There's no need for 'voodoo physics' with solid body electrics. The real physics are clear ...
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/T ... e14939c004
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ic_guitars
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/08/ ... s-on-line/

"Not a good sign" was tongue-in-cheek ... it's exactly the same guitar as when you bought it, save for any direct modifications / adjustments / neck distortion / fret wear / pickup de-magnetization etc that may have occurred over time (Neil Young's nuttiness notwithstanding).

[vistavision]

This thread just got profound and nerdy simultaneously.

[seenoevil II]

So the same amount of energy that has always gone in, but now some more of it comes back out.

The admittance of a solid bridge (transfer of string vibrations to the body) is so low as to be irrelevant - the bridge is a vibration 'road block' that mostly reflects vibrations back up the strings (otherwise sustain would be zero), with some internal vibration absorptions at the bridge's air gaps. On an acoustic guitar, bridge admittance is very high, as the vibrations must be transferred to the body in order to be heard. Back to the solid body electric, the neck sucks some string vibrations because it is flexible and thus vibrates (via higher nut/fret admittance); the body just doesn't really vibrate at all ..
https://acoustics.org/pressroom/httpdoc ... scher.html


Re the notion of string vibration energy 'coming back out' ...
"for a solidbody electric, the whole notion of increasing sustain with resonant tonewoods or letting a string send its vibrations into the body to resonate before returning to the string is pretty much nonsense."
(Heiko Hoepfinger, physicist and guitar builder)
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/ ... -resonance

Re microphony, measure how much vibration or sound energy you have to expose your pickups to to generate a pickup signal magnitude similar to string vibrations. And that's even if those large-enough vibrations were present in the body wood .. which they're not. Most pickup are barely microphonic, or you'd be in trouble in every live situation.
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/wp-conte ... honics.pdf
"a guitar generates e.g. a voltage of 0.1V (due to the movement of the string) which is amplified to 2V by the amp. For the8-Ω-speaker, this translates into 0.5W and results in an SPL of 97dB at a distance of 1m in front of the speaker. If this sound now hits the pickup, the latter will generate e.g. 1.4mV due to its sensitivity to airborne sound –in addition to the 0.1V mentioned above. "
That is, in that example standing 1m in front of a loud amp generates just 1.4mV of pickup output due to microphony, compared to the 100mV generated by string vibrations, ie a relative efficiency of just 1.4%.

There's no need for 'voodoo physics' with solid body electrics. The real physics are clear ...
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/T ... e14939c004
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ic_guitars
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/08/ ... s-on-line/

"Not a good sign" was tongue-in-cheek ... it's exactly the same guitar as when you bought it, save for any direct modifications / adjustments / neck distortion / fret wear / pickup de-magnetization etc that may have occurred over time (Neil Young's nuttiness notwithstanding).

I've read a lot of the thinking on both sides of the flame war regarding tone woods. I've got my take on it. You've got yours. It's not really anything I want to dive into.

I don't think my guitar is the same. In fact, it certifiably isn't, not least because of the visible changes that I've included in this thread. Everything abides by the second law. Change is constant. Can't be helped.

I don't think anyone wins when this level of empiricism is brought to bear on a matter that is experienced in fractions of fractions- absolutely miniscule gradations of difference. Not least because an even greater level of empiricism would reveal the very real differences between different variables in greater detail. How could it not? Different things are different.

My guitar vibrates more than it used to when I strum it. I have some guesses as to why, and I approved it this development.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to keep reading the Wikipedia article on Vodouism that I was mining for a sweet comeback, but turned out to be really interesting

Edit: spelling/ grammar

[46346]

indeed it's hard to imagine how a guitar body's response would not change over the years of wear and playing. most of mine seem to have changed with playing time (i've noticed this on a few of my guitars with 6+ years of playing twice/week on average). but i also have a few guitars that don't seem to have changed much over 6+ years (alas, they ultimately get less playing time...).

regardless of whether or not it affects the sound of the string at the pickups, you sure as heck can feel a guitar body's resonance on your torso and arms while you're playing it. one of my favorite ways to write music on a solid body is late at night at home, at low volumes, or even unplugged. i have some favorites with bodies that resonate strongly and are a physical joy to feel vibrating on my body and frame - and as luck would have they tend to sound just great at full amplification.

maybe it's mostly the neck that's vibrating - but i often feel it in my sternum and ribcage, and... gut, being in contact with the guitar body.