NGD - Harmony Jupiter!

[Surfysonic]

I bought Riorio's Harmony Jupiter as i've been Harmony guitars-curious for some time. Didn't hurt that he offered it at a really terrific price (thanks, Josh!). It arrived yesterday afternoon safe & sound.

The Jupiter's lovely "C" neck is similar to my '63 Jag (This Jag is a touch thicker in depth) and actually more similar to my Johnny Marr Jag (mid-60s C), only a bit wider. Fills out the hand very comfortably. The locking tuners are nice, too.

The nitro finish is "Space Black" (bit of sparkly goodness) and I love it. When I first saw the Harmony Jupiter and the Silhouhette (offset), I really liked the Champagne finish with the gold foil pickups. However, after seeing more photos of the Space Black finish, I really prefer it over the Champagne. That said, if I ever get a Silhouette, I'll go for the Champagne...although the Slate (gray? blue?) is really growing on me, too.

As soon as I got the Jupiter unpacked, I tuned it up and plugged it into my Magnatone Twilighter. The stock "Custom gold foil" humbuckers are decent. It took me a few minutes to dial in a tone that works for me - I essentially rolled the tone knob down to the mid-way point (if numbered, "5" out of "10"). I'm kind of on the fence about the stock pickups. I'll give them some time because I'm not too keen on swapping them out as I like the gold foil aesthetic vibe that these are known for...

...if I were to swap them out, I'd likely get another set of TV Jones Magna'Trons as I think they'd be awesome in this beastie. Still, I'll do my best to leave it be for now.

The guitar is fairly light - it weighs in at 7.4 lbs/3.3 Kg. I find it very comfortable to play. Love the cup cake volume and tone knobs. Love the half cut Tele-style bridge plate. I guess I'm really into its understated simplicity.











I look forward to any thoughts on the Jupiter and Harmony guitars in general. I know Embenny (Mike) is a fan/owner of a Comet.

[Embenny]

I sure am.

Congrats, that looks great. I especially like the finish - I know they made a run of Comets in that colour and wish mine was one of them! It's kind of absurd how nice a guitar Harmony is managing to make, in the US no less, at their price point.

My Comet isn't just good "for the money." It wiped the floor with my full-fat ES-335, which wasn't even a bad one. Right up there with any high-tier US-made guitars in my opinion, which I still have trouble wrapping my head around given their price point.

What do you make of the stock pickups? I imagine they're the same as my Comet's given the size and look. I still can't bond with my bridge pickup, but the neck and middle positions are great.

[Surfysonic]

Thanks, Mike! Yeah, the pickups aren't terrible but it took a while to dial them in. My putting the tone all the way down to halfway is a first for me with any guitar. Most Fender guitar maybe down to just 8 to take off the ice-pickyness. I think the neck pickup was OK but the middle position and bridge weren't great until I turned the tone knob down. I don't know if this is how they come stock but the pickups are both situated at an angle. Both pickups are slanted with higher side towards the neck and lower side towards the bridge. Probably before swapping them out, I'll try to lower them a bit to see if that helps with the tone I want.

I may be misremembering something I think I read in your "NGD X 2 - Stolen Thunder edition!" thread about Harmony pickups - are these "custom" Roswell pickups? If so, that may motivate me to get a set of Magna'Tron pickups (humbucker-style) to swap in. If I do this, then I have to decide with going for gold to kind of/sort of be in keeping with the current look (not gold foil, of course) or match the rest of the nickel hardware and go with a nickel set, which I think would look best. Black is another option but I'd like not to get them lost in the Space Black finish.

I'm curious if anyone has gotten a Silhouhette yet? The Thunderbird-sized pickups look interesting and there are plenty of replacement options if I don't get on with the stock ones. Again, the solution may be to simply lower (or raise) the pickup height to make them work for me.

Not that I'm going to get a Silhouhette any time soon. Along with the Jupiter, I've got an incoming vintage NAD coming next week. I want to get those paid off before doing anything else. I went for the amp due to it being sold for quite a bit less than what you'd find on Reverb and well, there was a more, Steve is INSANE reason.

More on that next week...

[Surfysonic]

Here's a demo I made today, pairing up the Jupiter with my Magnatone Twilighter (1x12, 22 watts). I think I'll leave the stock pickups in for now as they're growing on me and I can dial in my preferred tones.

https://youtu.be/mTRJ-pqss1c

[JSett]

Here's a demo I made today, pairing up the Jupiter with my Magnatone Twilighter (1x12, 22 watts). I think I'll leave the stock pickups in for now as they're growing on me and I can dial in my preferred tones.

https://youtu.be/mTRJ-pqss1c

Oh man, that's got loads of spaghetti western energy about it! Good demo of it.

[Surfysonic]

Here's a demo I made today, pairing up the Jupiter with my Magnatone Twilighter (1x12, 22 watts). I think I'll leave the stock pickups in for now as they're growing on me and I can dial in my preferred tones.

https://youtu.be/mTRJ-pqss1c

Oh man, that's got loads of spaghetti western energy about it! Good demo of it.

Thanks, Johnny, much appreciated! I think I was finally awake enough to concentrate/focus better on what I was playing as opposed to the bit of trainwreck in the early parts of the TV Jones pickups comparison in the Gretsch thread I made.

[Chippertheripper]

Happy this stayed in the family.
It fits into my soft spot too, but I’m over my quota of guitars.

[Surfysonic]

Happy this stayed in the family.
It fits into my soft spot too, but I’m over my quota of guitars.

Me, too! It's a really great guitar. Hopefully, I can move a couple of guitars and in the near future get a Harmony Silhouette.

[BoringPostcards]

Awesome! It’s gorgeous. Sounds great as well through that Magnatone.

[shigginpit]

Looks great and I was super entertained by the demo. If you can't get in the zone with the DeArmond style golds, check out the Gemini gold foil range, I'm really happy with mine. They offer Teisco, Guyatone, or DeArmond spec. I think mine are Guyatone and they're on the warm/round side tonally using alnico 5.

[Embenny]

Whoah, I missed your demo - those are definitely not the same pickups as my Comet!

My bridge pickup is very warm and has a sort of honky "cocked wah" thing going on. Yours is pokey as all heck unless you roll the tone way down. If you roll the tone down even moderately on mine, it gets quite muddy.

I was surprised to hear someone say it had a Spaghetti Western vibe, because I assumed they were the same. Definitely look the same, but sound way different!

Do you have a multimeter handy? What reading do you get if you dime the pots and measure the resistance across the tip and sleeve of a short patch cord? Resistance isn't everything, but I'm curious as to how it compares to the Comet.

[Surfysonic]

Awesome! It’s gorgeous. Sounds great as well through that Magnatone.

Thanks, BP!

Looks great and I was super entertained by the demo. If you can't get in the zone with the DeArmond style golds, check out the Gemini gold foil range, I'm really happy with mine. They offer Teisco, Guyatone, or DeArmond spec. I think mine are Guyatone and they're on the warm/round side tonally using alnico 5.

Thanks very much, shigginpit! I think I'm fine with them now but I'll definitely have a look at the Gemini gold foil range just in case!

Whoah, I missed your demo - those are definitely not the same pickups as my Comet!

My bridge pickup is very warm and has a sort of honky "cocked wah" thing going on. Yours is pokey as all heck unless you roll the tone way down. If you roll the tone down even moderately on mine, it gets quite muddy.

I was surprised to hear someone say it had a Spaghetti Western vibe, because I assumed they were the same. Definitely look the same, but sound way different!

Do you have a multimeter handy? What reading do you get if you dime the pots and measure the resistance across the tip and sleeve of a short patch cord? Resistance isn't everything, but I'm curious as to how it compares to the Comet.

I don't know if the pickups came this way but as I mentioned in the video, both of them have been angled (higher towards the neck, lower towards the back of the body) that may be contributing to the hotness?







I do have a multimeter...*cough, erm...not that I've actually used it yet...I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'll try to take some measurements today and report back.

I'm a wee bit distracted as I have a NVAD incoming today...at some point...*nose smushed up against my home office window...

[Surfysonic]

This article - https://guitar.com/reviews/electric-gui ... el-review/ - measured a Harmony Jupiter's pickups at 7.42k ohms DC in each pickup.

My readings for my Harmony Jupiter was 7.54k ohms DC in each pickup, so a bit hotter, which is fine. Also, now I kind of sort of know how to use my multimeter.

[Embenny]

This article - https://guitar.com/reviews/electric-gui ... el-review/ - measured a Harmony Jupiter's pickups at 7.42k ohms DC in each pickup.

My readings for my Harmony Jupiter was 7.54k ohms DC in each pickup, so a bit hotter, which is fine. Also, now I kind of sort of know how to use my multimeter.

Weird, that's almost identical to mine (7.3k neck, 7.4k bridge) and all of those are within margin of error for the same pickups.

Makes me wonder whether I have lower value pots in my guitar than you do in yours, though your aggressively tilted pickup might indeed be the main difference. With that much of a tilt, one coil will be contributing much more to the output than the other, pushing it much closer to single coil tone.

That's my go-to move with humbuckers, cranking the screw polepieces up and lowering the pickup, so that the slug coil becomes much quieter. Just can't do that on these goldfoils because of the covers (which might be hiding double slugs or rails anyway, who knows).

Maybe I should just try bending the legs of my pickups so they tilt like yours, might solve my complaints about them

[Surfysonic]

Yeah, I may lower the pickups and level them to see how that goes.