Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster Owners - how's the trem/vibrato?

[crazyzeke]

So a friend of a friend (both musicians) recently revealed he was gifted a Squier JM JM for Xmas, tried to get on with it and didn't like it, prefers his Strat. Understandable - JM is a vastly different beast to almost any given Strat.

He might like to pass it onto me for quite a lot less than, say, Reverb going rate for them, and from the little I know they tend to be a lot of guitar for not a lot of money, relatively speaking, so it's potentially a great deal.

What I'd like to know, having massively upgraded my Jag over the years, is how am I going to fare as regards the vibrato system. Obviously it's non-Fender branded and lacks the button at the top (which honestly I never use anyway on the Jag) I'm just wondering how a stock Squier JM JM vibrato fares against the regular stock Fender CIJ Jag vibrato. Basically is the tuning stability good? Does it do that annoying thing where the unwound strings (G B E) in cheaper string sets like EB unwind slowly in it and eventually snap?

Obviously if I want to mod it I'd need to buy it - pretty sure Fatmaster pickups would be a good shout if I do go that route - but he's not in a hurry to sell so if I ask nicely he might even let me borrow it for a week, but I only want to do that if it's not going to be a nightmare to keep it in tune otherwise it seems like a waste of time.

[NICQ]

I bought one when they came out in 2013 (I think) and the biggest flaw of that guitar was/is the AOM/Tuneomatic bridge... the Squier tremolo is ok, not great but it does work but with the Tuneomatic bridge saddles it goes out of tune more than a JM bridge because of the friction of thr strings when sliding over the saddles. If you don't use the trem a lot it wouldn't matter - if you like to use it often it will be noticeably worse than with a normal JM/Mustang bridge..

There was a Staytrem AOM bridge at some point which has been discontinued I think - Halon guitars is the only other one available nowadays IIRC https://halonguitarparts.com/product/aom-bridge/

I put a rollerbridge on mine back then which was also ok - did raise the action a bit though

there's also a workaround with grub screws which would make it compatible with standard bridges - look for it on the site


Apart from the bridge the guitar was great - I even liked the pickups (P90 construction) a lot... they have way more midrange and body than regular JM pickups but nowadays most pickup winders have a model resembling these in their catalogue

10 years later I still have the neck and the pickups of that guitar

[crazyzeke]

I bought one when they came out in 2013 (I think) and the biggest flaw of that guitar was/is the AOM/Tuneomatic bridge...

Cool, thanks for the insight. Is it true that basically all models have radius mismatch, like the Adjustomatic is set for 12" and the neck is actually 9.5" radius? Be interesting to see how I get on with the neck - typically I bounce off of 9.5"radius necks, but am fine with 12" radius a la Gibson.

[bipedal2]

I have an early model Sq JMJM. I remember the stock trem unit was "okay enough" -- it did the job but wasn't exactly the smoothest feeling mechanism. I don't recall any notable problems with tuning stability, though I replaced the stock trem with an AVRI version soon after I bought the guitar because I wanted the trem lock button (I like to fiddle around with drop D tuning on occasion, and I used to break strings pretty frequently).

+1 on NICQ's note that strings can "snag" on the stock AOM trem saddles with heavy trem usage, though that's solvable with some extra attention paid to the saddle string grooves or install of an alternative bridge. I now have a Halon JM-AOM bridge on mine, which I like a lot.

My favorite aspects of this guitar are the beefy neck and the P90-style pickups. Re: the pickups, there's more output and low-to-mid range tonal content relative to traditional JM pickups -- they are definitely their own thing -- so can sound muddy to some ears, but I've found this type of pickup can be positioned quite close to the strings which maintains focus and clarity.

[Axolotl]

All the Squier offset tremolos I had/played are just horrible compared to an AVRI. They feel clunky and hard. I changed the trem, bridge and nut to take the guitar to the next level. All worthy upgrades IMHO.

[NICQ]

I bought one when they came out in 2013 (I think) and the biggest flaw of that guitar was/is the AOM/Tuneomatic bridge...

Cool, thanks for the insight. Is it true that basically all models have radius mismatch, like the Adjustomatic is set for 12" and the neck is actually 9.5" radius? Be interesting to see how I get on with the neck - typically I bounce off of 9.5"radius necks, but am fine with 12" radius a la Gibson.

Tuneomatics normally are 12" - you can file the grooves on the outer saddles a bit deeper to compensate
but tbh from 9,5" to 12" the difference is not that much imho
But as I said - that bridge needs to be replaced anyways if you use the trem a lot

[MayTheFuzzBeWithYou]

The J Mascis is definitely "a lot of guitar" for the money... if you get an even better deal - even more so.

A few years ago I picked one up from a friend - and as I was broke at the time - I more or less picked it up for another friend - with the deal that I could keep it for a week or two.
Neck and body colour are - the gold anodized guard is cool & useful (but not exactly my taste - I'd prefer a black anodized one or a white plastic guard, but that's not the question here), pickups are kinda cool. More into P90 territory which is fine for me but not exactly pure Jazzmaster-like.
The things I personally didn't like were the bridge and the vibrato position. The vibrato itself was okay - but clearly not as inspiring as let's say a Mastery unit. It was missing an arm - so I added one of my spares. It also could have needed a real setup.

After that week - this guitar was the introduction* into the offset-world for my friend and it still is his main guitar for his band (with stock pickups, new electronics, an AVRI vibrato and a Schaller Roller Bridge... which is okay I think... he'd still like to mod it to fit a Staytrem/Tuffset or something else in there).

I haven't seen/played the guitar since the upgrade to the AVRI vibrato - but as I've dealt with a few stock squier units: there IS room to improve:
file the pivot plate (it's pretty square stock - could be turned into "a blade"), file the slots that no metal "teeth" remain that could catch your strings - if this happens - it could also be countered with adding an old string's ball-end in between the vibrato and the new string (had to do this on my new MIJ guitar, never happened before with any of the other seven offset vibrato equipped guitars). OR exchange it with a better unit and call it a day.

Same goes for the bridge. It's a cheap mis-matched part - but it was a common mod in the 90s - not ideal for vibrato use. I'd personally go for the grub screw + Mustang/Staytrem mod (I had the same Schaller Roller Bridge on a Squier Jag... and while it was okay - the E string still fell out of the slot with too much force applied) never tried the Halon stuff - but from what I've read here - they're pretty solid as well (and a drop in).

*also the introduction "payed off" - he recently bought a modded CV Jag (Staytrem Bridge + Mastery Vibrato), and will also build another one with me - with a Tuffset and one of the D&B necks.

[crazyzeke]

The J Mascis is definitely "a lot of guitar" for the money... if you get an even better deal - even more so.

These are some gold-dust tips buddy, thank you for that.

UPDATE: As musicians are often wont to do, he decided he wanted to avoid mates rates and has lined up a private sale, no hard feelings.

However, some good has come of it; as the Squier JM JM got such good press for having (for the money) a decent vibrato system and my Jag suddenly going from being tuning stable to all over the place - funnily enough I think it's all the surf rock that it didn't like, hilarious considering what it was built for in '62 - I was able to source someone selling the vibrato plate on Marketplace for £30, a third of the AVRI price, so I figured it was worth a go.

Like an idiot I skipped the step of applying lubricant to the spring etc, which I should have as it came straight off the guitar the original owner said and they do creak over time so I had to cheat it and spray some into and around the collet as it started creaking during extended use after the strings went back on, but it's a massive upgrade.

Looking at my old CIJ vibrato I can see why - it's corroded in a few places plus has a lot of burrs on it, probably worn out. Good news is it'll now put up with a lot more vibrato arm use, so much so that I wrote the guitar solo for a song with some Beck/Knopfler finger picking and bar action, and it drifts only slightly out of tune after hours rather than massively out of tune every 90 seconds which it was literally doing for a week before that.

Also the push-fit works with the CIJ arm I modified (the heat/bend the arm up trick so you can strum dip more easily with it) which makes it a lot more pleasant to use so yay for that.

[broomhandle]

I have a 2015 JMJM. I replaced the trem with a fender "Korean" There are so many fender models. I personally feel it was not worth it. The only difference I feel is maybe it has a tighter spring. That was my main issue when I used it.

as for the bridge, I still have the original. I think it is a nashville style. It is something that I would like to replace, because I feel the wire vibrates.

Otherwise, everything I have on it is stock, except the switch was replaced after it broke with a swithcraft, and the jack as well with a switchcraft.

I still love it and just was playing it a few hours ago.

[andy_tchp]

Slight tangent - No idea where this 'lubricate the spring' idea came from, that's the third time I've seen it mentioned here over the last few weeks.

Assuredly not a requirement and almost certainly not beneficial in any way outside of placebo effect. The spring is captive and not expected to move outside of compression/rebound (neither of which will be affected by lubrication or lack of).

A case could possibly be made for lubricating the pivot point 'knife edge', but you'd want a multi-purpose grease of a grade that actually stays in place through the range of movement seen during vibrato use (and routinely cleaned out/replenished), rather than a thin liquid out of an aerosol can.

Frankly I wouldn't really want either of these materials in my instruments but YMMV.

[alexpigment]

Slight tangent - No idea where this 'lubricate the spring' idea came from, that's the third time I've seen it mentioned here over the last few weeks.

Assuredly not a requirement and almost certainly not beneficial in any way outside of placebo effect. The spring is captive and not expected to move outside of compression/rebound (neither of which will be affected by lubrication or lack of).

I don't know exactly where all this was mentioned on the forum, but I recently lubricated my spring to help silence a creaky trem not that long ago. The ends of the spring rub against two metal pieces (the plate and the foot). Any rubbing/scraping sounds will then be amplified through the length of the spring. A reasonably viscous substance (e.g. vaseline) will dampen these types of sympathetic vibrations, and will also prevent the rubbing/scraping at the source. The same principal is used on basically every high end turntable, where damping fluid is used to reduce unwanted vibrations on the tonearm. Certainly not a *requirement* on a trem spring - more of a "lubricate if necessary" situation - but the reasoning behind it is pretty simple, and there are no downsides that I'm aware of.

[Mondaysoutar]

Aye, I found lubricating the pivot plate, spring and collet very beneficial to the performance of my trem(AVRI). Seems pretty obvious how it would help. Sometimes it’s best to just not overthink it.

[crazyzeke]

Slight tangent - No idea where this 'lubricate the spring' idea came from, that's the third time I've seen it mentioned here over the last few weeks.

Sometimes you've just gotta go with what works - one of the things that used to plague the original CIJ vibrato and also be detrimental to tuning is the spring would creak and sometimes "ping" at random causing major tuning slippage, regardless of how loose or tight the spring was set. As a gigging musician the DIY solution the day before a gig years ago was fully disassemble, clean everything, let it dry, apply lubricant to every part, let that dry, reassemble. No more spring creak/random tuning slips, until recently at least.

Aye, I found lubricating the pivot plate, spring and collet very beneficial to the performance of my trem(AVRI). Seems pretty obvious how it would help. Sometimes it’s best to just not overthink it.

Exactly, in an ideal world I'd not be doing that, but moving parts need help being frictionless, it's why ICE cars have oil and the pots in volume pedals have that thick white grease I suppose and as alexp mentioned, turntables with damping fluid. Probably helps longevity too.

That reminds me, when I have another few paying gigs money in the bank I need to get my Lenco turntable serviced - if you don't use it for a few days both the 33 and 45 settings run slow, I assume because all of that kind of stuff is old... looks like it hasn't been serviced since it was made in about 1971.






Unusual design, it's neither belt nor direct - it's idler wheel. I've found that they're slower to spin up (you can spin it by hand if you're impatient before starting the motor) but because they have a big heavy platter and are Swiss made, they have lower wow/flutter than basically every other turntable I've owned or used, and a really sweet tone. It'll also amazingly play warped af records that other decks would literally make the arm fly off the record on the bumps - obviously thankfully I don't have a lot of records like this but for ripping to FLAC it's great - I'm using it as intended then because it's a Transcription Turntable dontchaknow, literally made for archiving but the design was so good it made its way to home hi-fi enthusiasts.

Anyway...

[andy_tchp]

Yes, a fluid filled damper on a near zero weight tonearm is definitely the same thing as a high tension steel spring kept captive between a hardened steel plate and a brass(I think?) seat with some lubricant smeared around it.

Carry on...

[andy_tchp]

That reminds me, when I have another few paying gigs money in the bank I need to get my Lenco turntable serviced - if you don't use it for a few days both the 33 and 45 settings run slow, I assume because all of that kind of stuff is old... looks like it hasn't been serviced since it was made in about 1971.






Unusual design, it's neither belt nor direct - it's idler wheel.

Whoa, that's a cool thing and the idler wheel setup is something I've never encountered! Don't know if it's the exact same setup as this, but this guy claims to have worked at the factory:

Lenco Idler wheel adjustment - the factory way