vmjm pickups

[YuriK]

How are the pickups on these. Im talking about the newer ones with the trem. All I know is that the bridge pup is very hot.

[Rox]

Any of the VMJMs I've played they were just ok. But with that said with some proper wiring and pots they'll prolly sound pretty good. A friend of mine has a CAR one and he kept the pickups and changed the pots. If he did that they must be pretty good.

[meltedbuzzbox]

Any of the VMJMs I've played they were just ok. But with that said with some proper wiring and pots they'll prolly sound pretty good. A friend of mine has a CAR one and he kept the pickups and changed the pots. If he did that they must be pretty good.

They are ok. Not great, not terrible. The pots will only make a difference if you ride the controls a lot. If you are an everything on 10 kind of player that isn't much point.

The first thing to change on a VM in the pickup selector. They are notoriously flakey

[YuriK]

Some dude on craigslist is selling one with a staytrem bridge for 200, so i'm thinking about it. I'm kind of worried about the neck though, i hear it's really thin and I have large hands so i may have to change that

[paul_]

The pots will only make a difference if you ride the controls a lot. If you are an everything on 10 kind of player that isn't much point.

Not invariably true: things pass through with quite different resistances/tolerances while still identifying as "regular ol'" 1meg/500k/250k pots "for guitar" on the tin, and in plenty of situations there's quite a difference with everything on 10 between two sets of 250k or 500k pots being fed by the same guitar & pickups in an A/B test, at times even a very perceivable improvement.

Many people find "no-load" wiring (where the pot is actually bypassed entirely with the control on 10, because in most guitars it isn't) uncomfortably bright in Strats or Teles, so they re-wire the guitar in the regular/vintage style so that the pots attenuate the high end a bit the way they traditionally have.

Conversely:

if Gibson’s buying bulk potentiometers, they can save a bit of money on each part by loosening the tolerance. Most standard pots have a +- 20% tolerance, but for a little more money you can easily find pots ~ 5-10%

So Gibson-branded pots that claim to be 500Ks? Yeah, it’s highly likely that they aren’t. Whenever a customer of mine tells me their guitar sounds muddy or isn’t sounding the way they imagined, one of my first fixes is to replace the pots, and so I measure their actual, real-life rating with a multimeter and the results are surprising.

In the case of the Squier Jazzmaster (higher-output single coils and the cheapest-possible 1meg pots), there will likely be a discernable difference in the guitar's brightness or output after replacing the tone pot. You're working with so much more articulation and output than a "hawt bucker" that a loss or gain in either/both will jump out at you a little more readily, because they make up some of the guitar's character as you know it (i.e. how it interacts with your pedal and amp settings).

You have to know both what you have and what you're replacing it with though, which most people who "upgrade" pots rarely do.

[YuriK]

I do use the pots and pots aren't too expensive so that's not worrying me. I will change the bridge pickup I think, but should I change the neck too?

[BearBoy]

Why not wait until you've played it before making any decisions on swapping the pickups? You might like the stock ones just fine.

[paul_]

These are bridges you can only cross when you come to them, there's so much personal preference to account for here. You might feel the new bridge unit shows up the neck unit or doesn't match it in sound, you might not.

I never had a problem with the CIJ neck pickup/bridge position JB Jr combo in my Jag so I'm still rockin' the microphonic neck unit in it 17 years later. I tended to favor the neck pickup when it was my main guitar, and the sound with both pickups on is still very '60s and Jagesque.

[Freddy V-C]

I can't speak for the VM JM pickups, as I haven't played one. But the VM Jag pickups are super sweet. I like them so much that I got another pair from BobArseCake and put them in my SG.

[YuriK]

Why not wait until you've played it before making any decisions on swapping the pickups? You might like the stock ones just fine.

Cuz im going for more a vintage tone than 13k is.

[paul_]

See, I'd wait until you've played a vintage Jazzmaster before saying that too.

You might like the sound of this fine, low output might not be the part of the Jazzmaster sound you like, vintage/AV/Japanese/Mexican/Squier Jazzies all sound different so Jazzmasters are a moving target sound-wise, etc...

[YuriK]

well, I've played AVRIs and i know I like SD antiquities. I'm not really a fan of high output pickups, I prefer to just turn up amp/pedal.

[theshadowofseattle]

They're MInon-descriptasiancountry to Hot for JM specs. They sond the exact same.

[luciguci]

well, I've played AVRIs and i know I like SD antiquities. I'm not really a fan of high output pickups, I prefer to just turn up amp/pedal.

i actually played with a vmjm in guitar center about a month ago and you really will not mind th estock pickups i dont think, them shits sound good

[George]

my hot jag pickup was 15k and still sounded very jag-like

[luciguci]

tbh the only time i wasnt satisfied with how my vm jag sounded was when i shimmed the neck and had a huge ass wilkinson roller bridge providing some heavy beefy toanes, but then i took out the shim and put in the old bridge with with intonation screws cut down a bit and everything sounds great and plinky again.

tl;dr yuri dont be a smeghead, just buy the fucking jazzmaster

[YuriK]

Okay, I will whenever I get the energy to go out to Queens.

[YuriK]

So it turns out it actually has antiquities in it already
Holyfuckdealsferdayz.

[YuriK]

More like craigslit amirite

[luciguci]

stfu the fuck up and buy the guitar before anyone else does