Jaguar pickup question...

[ShortyMedlock]

So I bought two used Jaguar pickups from two different sellers...one on eBay another on Reverb.

One was advertised as a stock '62 reissue bridge pickup...the other a lightly used replacement AVRI.

Tonight I dug both out of my box marked "Jaguar parts"...both measure 6.4k.

Anybody ever use two of the same on any guitar?

Might have to find a hotter one for the bridge...

Thoughts?

[timtam]

Fender's Jaguar pickups typically have around the same DCR for both neck and bridge. It's one reason why you very commonly see a jag neck pickup adjusted much lower than the bridge pickup, to equalize the outputs. DCR and inductance on Pure Vintage 65 (AV65) pickups is spec-ed at around 6.8kOhm +/- 10% and 3.8h and Alnico 5 ...


Specs on aftermarket reissue 62 style pickups has never been provided AFAIK.
https://darrenriley.com/product-categor ... r-pickups/

OTOH the American Original 60s jag had '62 style' pickups that were Alnico 2 and spec-ed in it parts manual at 6.7-7.2 kOhms.

Bridge and neck jag pickups are RWRP, so one should be North up and the other South up. So that's the only actual difference between neck and bridge. You can tell by trying to bring the tops together (but possibly best to not actually let them touch). Opposites attract, so if you can feel them attracted, you have a RWRP pair. No big deal if you don't - you just won't get hum cancellation in the middle position.

[HarktheUmpire]

I wouldn't worry about it.

Just play around with the pickup heights until they sound good to your ears and about equally loud.

Also, for some unsolicited advice: the series/parallel mod is absolutely worth it. You might not know it yet, but you'll want to hear your Jag with the pickups in series and the strangle switch on. I think it's one of the best tones you can get out of a Jag, and one of the most uniquely Jag-y, and I find it's the only setting in which that strangle switch actually adds a cool, usable tone

[GilmourD]

Fender's Jaguar pickups typically have around the same DCR for both neck and bridge. It's one reason why you very commonly see a jag neck pickup adjusted much lower than the bridge pickup, to equalize the outputs. DCR and inductance on Pure Vintage 65 (AV65) pickups is spec-ed at around 6.8kOhm +/- 10% and 3.8h and Alnico 5 ...


Specs on aftermarket reissue 62 style pickups has never been provided AFAIK.
https://darrenriley.com/product-categor ... r-pickups/

OTOH the American Original 60s jag had '62 style' pickups that were Alnico 2 and spec-ed in it parts manual at 6.7-7.2 kOhms.

Bridge and neck jag pickups are RWRP, so one should be North up and the other South up. So that's the only actual difference between neck and bridge. You can tell by trying to bring the tops together (but possibly best to not actually let them touch). Opposites attract, so if you can feel them attracted, you have a RWRP pair. No big deal if you don't - you just won't get hum cancellation in the middle position.

Are the PV65 Jaguar pickups RWRP? I ask because the PV59 and PV65 sets for Strat don't have RWRP on the middle pickup. I also know that Johnny Marr talked about that in one of the videos about his signature model and how his Bareknuckles are not RWRP.

And they never sold the '62 as a set, huh?

[timtam]

Are the PV65 Jaguar pickups RWRP? I ask because the PV59 and PV65 sets for Strat don't have RWRP on the middle pickup. I also know that Johnny Marr talked about that in one of the videos about his signature model and how his Bareknuckles are not RWRP.

And they never sold the '62 as a set, huh?

Yes, the PV65's are RWRP. I have a set. I don't recall the full history back to the 50s/60s but in recent decades Fender's jag and JM pickups have always been a RWRP pair AFAIK. Magnetic polarity of each pickup has been specified in jag/JM parts manuals along with the other (very) basic pickup information for some years now.

The BareNuckles in the Marr jag are the only set that aren't RWRP AFAIK. Despite what Marr and his tech said at the time, the view that RWRP sounds different is not widely held by pickup experts in my experience (other than directly due the hum cancelling ... which could I guess maybe change how one hears some frequencies more readily in the absence of hum).

IIRC the 62s (AVRI) [0054491000/0054494000] were never sold aftermarket as a set, only individually (those part numbers sometimes has 49 in place of last 00). They are what was in the American Original 60s jag.
https://darrenriley.com/product-categor ... r-pickups/

[Embenny]

I don't recall the full history back to the 50s/60s but in recent decades Fender's jag and JM pickups have always been a RWRP pair AFAIK.

The history of it is that Leo Fender introduced RW/RP pickups on the Jazzmaster, but the workers at the factory often got confused and installed pairs with the same orientation, so you can find lots of early examples in both configurations.

By '62, with lessons learned from the Jazz Bass and Jaguar, they used different colour leads to denote orientation and you stop getting the QC errors.

They were always meant to be RW/RP, though.

[GilmourD]

Are the PV65 Jaguar pickups RWRP? I ask because the PV59 and PV65 sets for Strat don't have RWRP on the middle pickup. I also know that Johnny Marr talked about that in one of the videos about his signature model and how his Bareknuckles are not RWRP.

And they never sold the '62 as a set, huh?

Yes, the PV65's are RWRP. I have a set. I don't recall the full history back to the 50s/60s but in recent decades Fender's jag and JM pickups have always been a RWRP pair AFAIK. Magnetic polarity of each pickup has been specified in jag/JM parts manuals along with the other (very) basic pickup information for some years now.

The BareNuckles in the Marr jag are the only set that aren't RWRP AFAIK. Despite what Marr and his tech said at the time, the view that RWRP sounds different is not widely held by pickup experts in my experience (other than directly due the hum cancelling ... which could I guess maybe change how one hears some frequencies more readily in the absence of hum).

IIRC the 62s (AVRI) [0054491000/0054494000] were never sold aftermarket as a set, only individually (those part numbers sometimes has 49 in place of last 00). They are what was in the American Original 60s jag.
https://darrenriley.com/product-categor ... r-pickups/

I could imagine that the absence of hum at certain frequencies (and they're harmonics) could effect the comb filtering. I do find that amongst the several Strats I have and that I've not owned but played that those that are non-RWRP have subtly more quack. Is it night and day? Not by any means, but it's there. And I know pickup height/volume balance between them as well as how hot they're wound can affect quack but, all else being equal, maximum quackage is a bit greater with non-RWRP.

But interesting that Leo introduced the RWRP thing himself with the Jazzmaster. I'll be honest, I kinda assumed that RWRP wasn't really a thing from the Fender factory until Bill Schultz took over in '85.

So, at no point did Fender intentionally just put two of the same part in the Jazzmaster and Jaguar... I love learning new stuff!

[N0_Camping4U]

I wouldn't worry about it.

Just play around with the pickup heights until they sound good to your ears and about equally loud.

Also, for some unsolicited advice: the series/parallel mod is absolutely worth it. You might not know it yet, but you'll want to hear your Jag with the pickups in series and the strangle switch on. I think it's one of the best tones you can get out of a Jag, and one of the most uniquely Jag-y, and I find it's the only setting in which that strangle switch actually adds a cool, usable tone

I'm intrigued by this, what does it do? What's the tone? Do you lose some combination I'm not thinking of by wiring it up like this?

[GilmourD]

I wouldn't worry about it.

Just play around with the pickup heights until they sound good to your ears and about equally loud.

Also, for some unsolicited advice: the series/parallel mod is absolutely worth it. You might not know it yet, but you'll want to hear your Jag with the pickups in series and the strangle switch on. I think it's one of the best tones you can get out of a Jag, and one of the most uniquely Jag-y, and I find it's the only setting in which that strangle switch actually adds a cool, usable tone

I'm intrigued by this, what does it do? What's the tone? Do you lose some combination I'm not thinking of by wiring it up like this?

I wish work didn't give me a headache today cuz usually I can figure out what a circuit does... I know the previous owner of my Jag replaced the strangle switch with a series/parallel switch and I wasn't fond of it.

[Futuron]

I'm intrigued by this, what does it do? What's the tone? Do you lose some combination I'm not thinking of by wiring it up like this?

It's just the common Jaguar mod for turning the "both pickups off" option into "both pickups in series". Everything else works the same as a normal Jaguar. It only works with DPDT switches, but many old Jaguars only have SPDT switches and you'd have to replace those to make it work. (It also requires a 3-wire neck pickup or converting a 2-wire pickup)

[HarktheUmpire]

That’s it! It’s really a simple mod. Supposedly, for whatever reason, it doesn’t even require adding an extra wire to either pickup. I’m not sure that’s true, because I added one anyway. It’s very easy to do with a Jag pickup.

As pointed out; it simply turns both off positions into series. The strangle switch is left alone, so you lose nothing, but you get two interesting new tones to play with. In the worst case, you don’t care for either, but now you can no longer accidentally turn your Jag off while playing. There are really no downsides imo.

[Embenny]

That's my absolute favourite mod on a modern Jaguar, it's a "gain everything/lose nothing" type proposition.

You do, absolutely, need to isolate the claw on the pickup being wired in series, though. Just involves disconnecting it from the pickup start lead and running a new ground wire. Otherwise, the claw ends up in the signal path which means a whole lot of noise.

But it's totally worth it. Requires no new parts (on a Jag with DPDTs) and adds a really usable tone. Like others have said, the series position gives a real purpose to the strangle switch, too. Also doubles the number of noiseless tones on a stock Jag, which is something I appreciated in the days before noiseless Jag pickups were a thing.

[GilmourD]

That's my absolute favourite mod on a modern Jaguar, it's a "gain everything/lose nothing" type proposition.

You do, absolutely, need to isolate the claw on the pickup being wired in series, though. Just involves disconnecting it from the pickup start lead and running a new ground wire. Otherwise, the claw ends up in the signal path which means a whole lot of noise.

But it's totally worth it. Requires no new parts (on a Jag with DPDTs) and adds a really usable tone. Like others have said, the series position gives a real purpose to the strangle switch, too. Also doubles the number of noiseless tones on a stock Jag, which is something I appreciated in the days before noiseless Jag pickups were a thing.

Like I said, I rewired my CV Jag back to classic wiring with new pots and switches, partially because the previous owner replaced the strangle switch with series/parallel, but this looks like something I may add...

[sciuri]

I'm thinking of doing this mod for a Jaguar and adding Novak Lipstick pickups. I'm new to wiring though, so please pardon the newbie questions and if I'm not asking the right questions the right way...

1) on my un-modded Jaguar, the wire from the strangle switch goes to an outer lug on the tone pot with a resistor. If this mod has the strangle going to the volume pot output lug instead, is there anything extra between the volume and tone pots I would need to connect?

2) Novak's lipstick pickups have a separate negative lead for each pickup (if I'm using the correct terminology). If the bridge negative lead goes to the middle right lug of the bridge switch, where should the neck negative lead be connected?

3) For my regular un-modded pickups, the ground for each pickup goes to the back of the volume pot. I assume the ground wire for the lipstick pickup casing could just go to the back of the volume pot, too?

Thank you! I've wired a total of one guitar so modding a Jaguar is a bit of a leap

[timtam]

I'm thinking of doing this mod for a Jaguar and adding Novak Lipstick pickups. I'm new to wiring though, so please pardon the newbie questions and if I'm not asking the right questions the right way...

1) on my un-modded Jaguar, the wire from the strangle switch goes to an outer lug on the tone pot with a resistor. If this mod has the strangle going to the volume pot output lug instead, is there anything extra between the volume and tone pots I would need to connect?

2) Novak's lipstick pickups have a separate negative lead for each pickup (if I'm using the correct terminology). If the bridge negative lead goes to the middle right lug of the bridge switch, where should the neck negative lead be connected?

3) For my regular un-modded pickups, the ground for each pickup goes to the back of the volume pot. I assume the ground wire for the lipstick pickup casing could just go to the back of the volume pot, too?

Thank you! I've wired a total of one guitar so modding a Jaguar is a bit of a leap

1. There is no real reason why it should go to the volume pot. It could just be a mistake on the diagram. In any case route it to the tone pot as per usual on a jag. There's been some suggestion that the 56k resistor on the tone pot is part of the strangle circuit, so that's another reason to send it there. That's the way the Marr jaguar is wired, which has the series option (schematic below).

2. Separate ground and coil negative are only required on the (bridge) pickup that is having its negative re-routed to the other pickup's coil positive for the series option. So the pickup that is not being used in that way for series instead has its coil negative and ground wire both wired to ground in the usual way (any ground location will do ... whatever is most convenient).

3. Again (case) grounds go to whatever ground point is most convenient. The back of the volume pot is fine (assuming the pot body is already grounded, which is almost always the case).

Marr jaguar