Jag Not Bright Enough!

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Burgundy Mist
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Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by Burgundy Mist » Fri Sep 20, 2019 1:02 am

Hello all, hope you're good.

So I'm having an odd issue with my heavily modded CIJ Jaguar...I can't get the brightness that I do from my (also heavily modded Jazzmaster).

When I first got the Jag, it had that crystalline sound but I went about introducing several mods to improve the guitar - Pure Vintage 65 pickups (which the bridge p/u has been now been overwound a little after breaking...I only really use the neck p/u though), orange drop cap, 1 meg CTS pots, cloth wiring, staytrem bridge/vibrato - the works.

Somewhere along the line, the guitar has lost that crystalline tone I remember - it's much darker, warmer guitar. I have to use the mid-cut strangle switch and cut lows/add highs with an EQ pedal to get it anywhere near to the brightness of my jazzmaster (on which I also only use the neck p/u - Creamery Extra Width for JM).

I also had the Jag wired so it has the option to be in series, ala the Marr Jag - and that setting is understandably darker as it's essentially humbucking if I understand correctly. I'm talking about the guitar in regular mode though...it's definitely lost a lot of sparkle somehow.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get that sparkle back?

Cheers.
Last edited by Burgundy Mist on Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

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lastlol
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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by lastlol » Fri Sep 20, 2019 3:04 am

Put the original pickups and bridge back in.

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by thisisnickpaige » Fri Sep 20, 2019 3:13 am

I agree with lastlol, if it aint broke don't fix it. That happened to me with an old MIJ Japanese reissue Strat i had, where i 'upgraded' the electronics and pickups to some nice Novak custom wounds and the guitar ended up losing it's punch and spunky character that i loved about it. So my suggestion too would be reset and retrace your steps to get you back to where you wanted to be. Then make small mods if you still need to to find where you lost the tone you loved.
Jesus

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by lastlol » Fri Sep 20, 2019 3:24 am

Yeah this was not a joke. The original Fender bridge is twangier than the Staytrem, and works perfectly if you put 11's (at least on a Jazzmaster) and a drop of clear nail varnish on each saddle screw once the heigth of each saddle is set. And MIJ pups are just bright. Like, bright.

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by Burgundy Mist » Fri Sep 20, 2019 4:14 am

Sorry I should have clarified - it sounded bright with the Pure Vintage 65s in - the orignal CIJ pickups were just garbage. It's something that's happened with the mods since...or maybe the Jazzmaster is just brighter and that's messed with my ears.

Do people typically find Jazzmaster neck p/u's to be brighter than the Jaguar neck p/u?

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by jvin248 » Fri Sep 20, 2019 5:00 am

.

Lower your pickups.
Adjust any pole pieces if they adjust.

Otherwise it's...

Pots and caps. Pots and caps.

The controls control your output tones even when dimed.

Measure across the volume pot outer lugs with your ohm meter. Pots have a 20% tolerance range and it matters in the same way skipping from a nominal 500k to 1 Meg to 250k volume pot is known to do. Find a higher kohm reading pot out of the batch of pots you have around.

Smaller tone caps will give more sparkle, even when the tone knob is wide open. If stock is 0.022uF then replace with a 0.01uF. Caps have a tighter tolerance range, and require a less frequently available meter to measure so try a couple of different ones.

If you have a really way too muddy pickup, like overwound or dark humbucker, you can use a 0.047uF tone cap in series with the hot lead of the pickup. Just know that if you try measuring kohms of the pickup with that cap in series you'll measure DC open circuit but it passes the AC string signal.


.

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by Burgundy Mist » Fri Sep 20, 2019 5:07 am

jvin248 wrote:
Fri Sep 20, 2019 5:00 am
.

Lower your pickups.
Adjust any pole pieces if they adjust.

Otherwise it's...

Pots and caps. Pots and caps.

The controls control your output tones even when dimed.

Measure across the volume pot outer lugs with your ohm meter. Pots have a 20% tolerance range and it matters in the same way skipping from a nominal 500k to 1 Meg to 250k volume pot is known to do. Find a higher kohm reading pot out of the batch of pots you have around.

Smaller tone caps will give more sparkle, even when the tone knob is wide open. If stock is 0.022uF then replace with a 0.01uF. Caps have a tighter tolerance range, and require a less frequently available meter to measure so try a couple of different ones.

If you have a really way too muddy pickup, like overwound or dark humbucker, you can use a 0.047uF tone cap in series with the hot lead of the pickup. Just know that if you try measuring kohms of the pickup with that cap in series you'll measure DC open circuit but it passes the AC string signal.


.
Thank you - brilliant info!

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by lastlol » Fri Sep 20, 2019 5:39 am

+1 with pots. Maybe the Japanese pots were really 1Meg and the CTS are only 800k (+/-20% tolerance for some).
The first thing I would do is put the original bridge back in to see if you get more sparkle. Easy to try.

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by Burgundy Mist » Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:19 am

lastlol wrote:
Fri Sep 20, 2019 5:39 am
+1 with pots. Maybe the Japanese pots were really 1Meg and the CTS are only 800k (+/-20% tolerance for some).
The first thing I would do is put the original bridge back in to see if you get more sparkle. Easy to try.
Great will try this.

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by andy_tchp » Fri Sep 20, 2019 4:47 pm

If you prefer the sound of the stock bridge but find that the tolerances are lousy (loose/poorly cut threads for the grub screws) I highly recommend a stock US made (AVRI/AV65) bridge, with application of Loc-tite applied to the height adjustment screws as per the product instructions (ie don't just dump it on top of the screw head).

I went back to these from Mastery bridges (x2) several years ago (which also needed Loc-tite) and much prefer the sound/string response.
"I don't know why we asked him to join the band 'cause the rest of us don't like country music all that much; we just like Graham Lee."
David McComb, 1987.

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by alexpigment » Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:22 pm

Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly, the guitar lost its sparkle at some point *after* all the mods, right?

Is there anything on the guitar that has stopped working - either not working as expected or not at all? I would check the functionality of each switch, the volume and tone knobs, etc. It could be as simple as some capacitor leg that's now resting against another part, a solder joint that's gone cold, etc. Could be worth just opening it up, resoldering everything and making sure exposed wires aren't touching.

I know hearing and memory are not infallible, but if your experience about it being less bright is true, then something likely is amiss in the guitar.

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by ludobag1 » Sat Sep 21, 2019 12:19 am

to define jag sound is not bright is more thin ,my jazz are more bright than my jag (when i have them)moreover jag are less powerfull in volume at the same level in amp ,for better sound i find it better with pups more low under the strings and this made them less powerfull then you have to pull up volume amp to compensate
jag and jazz are totally different beast ,i prefer jazz but if you bond with the short scale and sound there is no way you find they miss bright ,the bridge pick up on it is really bright to my tastes
to have a good sound on jag you need to set up with bigger string than jazzmaster ,pickup height really low to make the sound better ,vintage style pickups ,modern doesn't sound well to me ,1 meg pots of course ,need to be shimed really often to have pressure on the bridge to have tuning and saddle stability and increase in sound (i find it thin and metalics this way not to far far from a jazz but less powerfull ,in rehearsale i had to open more the amp to ear me well and didn't diseapear in the mix)

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by Fiddy » Sat Sep 21, 2019 6:34 am

Get a Traynor YGM3. :w00t:

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Re: Jag Not Bright Enough!

Post by ChrisDesign » Mon Sep 23, 2019 7:39 am

Add a treble bleed to the volume. When your volume is turned down you retain the high frequencies. It a very simple a cheap mod, but found on the Fender pro series guitars.

Ebay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Treble-bleed ... Sw~CVcdqGQ

Outside that, retrace your steps. Also, check the Service Diagram/ Wiring diagram.

It is easy to 'upgrade' to the wrong spec. I changed by push/ pull tone knob to a Dimarzio pot, and couldn't work out why my tone knob didn't work like it used to. Then I found out I installed a 500k pot to replace a 250k pot. It shouldn't be a problem as I have Humbuckers that usually take a 500k pot, but if my original great sound had a 250k pot... then that is what I need to get the original sound back.
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