NGD: MIJ Hybrid Indigo Jazzmaster

[601210]

That's a lovely looking guitar mate. I see these pop up on Reverb from time to time. I might be wrong but I don't see a lot of Japenese Fenders for sale first hand here in the UK. Tends to be US, Mexican and Chinese/Indonesian Squiers. I do love seeing offsets with maple fretboards. My first Fender was a Mexican Standard Tele with a one piece maple neck and I loved how it felt and looked. I've become an offset fan since then and you don't see a lot of maple fretboards on those (I assume due to the era they were released when Fender was going through a rosewood phase - I know the very early JMs had maple fretboards). Anyway, congratulations on the NGD.

Thanks! Yeah for the longest time I kind of just accepted that offsets go with rosewood (or rosewood-like) boards, but when I saw this one I just had to have it. Even the American Pros with maple boards look so appealing to me, if you can get past the controls and such.

[rhythmjones]

What does the term "hybrid" refer to anyway?

Sweet guitars no doubt, but that terminology confuses me.

Hybrid means its a fusion of old and new specs - so for example despite being a many ways a tradiational jazzmaster, it has medium jumbo frets instead of vintage, and probably a 9.5" radius instead of 7.25". (so same idea as the Vintera modified, although not necessarily with exactly the same modifications)

The other range released at the same time was "Traditional"

Thanks!

[trustee]

I picked mine up a while ago and still loving it. The maple cap neck is so perfect. I gave it the mastery upgrades (bridge, trem, and string tree) that further catapulted this instrument. On the radar now for one of those Char 2020 mustangs that look gorgeous.

[SemiOpaque]

Interesting regarding the pick ups in this indigo model.. I have the Sherwood Green hybrid, it's a 2020 build and it does not have PV65, it came with the Vmod

[601210]

I picked mine up a while ago and still loving it. The maple cap neck is so perfect. I gave it the mastery upgrades (bridge, trem, and string tree) that further catapulted this instrument. On the radar now for one of those Char 2020 mustangs that look gorgeous.

I'm drooling over this picture, and I have the exact same guitar right beside me

Interesting regarding the pick ups in this indigo model.. I have the Sherwood Green hybrid, it's a 2020 build and it does not have PV65, it came with the Vmod

That's super interesting, I could have sworn it was a late/early production thing. When they released the 2nd batch of the hybrid series I remember some of the copy explicitly cited PV65 pickups.

[pompower]

I picked mine up a while ago and still loving it. The maple cap neck is so perfect. I gave it the mastery upgrades (bridge, trem, and string tree) that further catapulted this instrument. On the radar now for one of those Char 2020 mustangs that look gorgeous.

I'm drooling over this picture, and I have the exact same guitar right beside me

Interesting regarding the pick ups in this indigo model.. I have the Sherwood Green hybrid, it's a 2020 build and it does not have PV65, it came with the Vmod

That's super interesting, I could have sworn it was a late/early production thing. When they released the 2nd batch of the hybrid series I remember some of the copy explicitly cited PV65 pickups.

I'm in the market for one of these as they seem to be great value, but there seems to be such little detail anywhere on what I figure would be a pretty widely asked question. All the copy I can find on the Indigo models refers to "Fender USA Single Coil Jazzmaster" which tells us preeeeeetty much nothing? I've done a bit of digging and while I may be overcomplicating things (probably), these Indigo guitars are a bit of an outlier from the rest of the range.

Here's how it shakes down as I understand it: the MIJ Hybrid series guitars were first released in 2018 alongside the MIJ Traditional series, and are pretty much the Japanese predecessor to what we now see in the Vintera line. One range being more traditional (Traditional/Vintera) and one having some modern appointments (Hybrid/Vintera Modified) -- I think that's the idea, anyway. It looks like they were first released (in the West at least) as an FSR, with a couple of Strats, Teles, and Mustangs in fancy colours, in the middle of 2018. Looked around and was able to find some serials of those starting with JD17. Funnily enough, the details around the pickups on these are pretty vague too. The Strat has "Fender USA Vintage Stratocaster" pickups and the Mustang has "Single-Coil Mustang" pickups. Only on the Telecaster does it clearly state which pickups it has: American Vintage 58s.

Now, the Indigos came out in Japan some time late in 2018. I was actually in Japan in late December, and walked around Ochanamizu -- the area in Tokyo with a bunch of guitar stores, highly recommended! -- and that's where they first caught my eye. Firstly because I had always wanted a Jazzmaster, and secondly because the colour was irresistible. There was a Strat and a Tele in the Indigo colour too, and you can still find all of these, they have JD18 serial numbers. The 2018-made Indigo is the first Jazzmaster in the Hybrid series, I think. Again, pickup-wise, the Teles clearly state that they've got AV58s in them, while the Strats/JMs have those opaque "Fender USA" descriptions.

Clearly they were successful because there were a ton more released last year and this year. The rest of the models got too complicated (50s/60s/70s models and a ton of colours) so I'll stick to the JMs. The rest aren't really relevant anyway.

So the 2019/20 line of Hybrid Jazzmasters come in Sherwood Green, Charcoal Frost, Sunburst, Olympic White. As far as I can tell, these all have JD19 or JD20 serial numbers, and are all advertised as having V-Mod pickups. Here's where it gets weird though: there are a bunch of Indigo Jazzmasters with JD19 and JD20 serials, and none of them are advertised as having V-Mod pickups, they're still advertised as having "Fender USA Single Coil Jazzmaster" pickups. It could just be incompetence on the website/Fender PR department's part, but it seems like a pretty weird detail to miss out. To make matters more confusing, the Teles still have AV58s, and the Strats still have "Fender USA Vintage Stratocaster" pickups, so the Jazzmasters have been the only ones to change.

So I thought I'd take a little look on the Fender Japan website to see if it wasn't just the retailers updating the same page as before with new photos/stock and not changing any details (which would be unusual I think? But let's go with it), and lo and behold:



The only colours available on the official site (the button says "add to cart") are the new colours with the V-Mod pickups. Which begs the question: where the hell are these JD19/20 Indigo Jazzmasters coming from, and what the hell kind of pickups are in them? This mystery has really been tugging at me for a while.

@601210 -- it seems like you're fairly sure the pickups in your Indigo are PV65s, or at least *not* V-Mods. What's the first four characters of your serial number? If it's JD19 or 20, then I'd put money on the Indigo having different pickups to the rest of the line, in a weird, arbitrary point of difference.

Sorry about the essay, everyone!

[601210]

@601210 -- it seems like you're fairly sure the pickups in your Indigo are PV65s, or at least *not* V-Mods. What's the first four characters of your serial number? If it's JD19 or 20, then I'd put money on the Indigo having different pickups to the rest of the line, in a weird, arbitrary point of difference.

JD19 on mine. I'm pretty certain they aren't V-Mods, or at least they don't show the thin and tall coil wind that V-Mods have.

However I've had a lot of people tell me that 1) the pickups they got certainly are V-Mods and 2) The pickups they got definitely look different to what I have, that's why I'm inclined to think it's period-specific.

[CROSS_guitars]

Wow.
Just discovered these Char Mustangs!

[s_mcsleazy]

Wow.
Just discovered these Char Mustangs!

holy fuck i need all of these

[CROSS_guitars]

That was my first thought!
Plus you can get them all with Tort or black pickguards.