Just thought i'd introduce myself to the board, i'm Paul, from Glasgow, and only very recently a Fender Jaguar owner! Managed to pick myself up a Fender Jag Classic Player and have been over the moon with it since!
(sorry - crappy phone picture)
I have however been playing short scales for some years, and have had the luxury of playing through a Ric 620.
I've never known anything else!
What I have noticed about my Jag however, is whilst strumming quickly, i often flick the pickup switches at the bottom, and this mostly results in the sound being killed. An unfortunate habit, however i'm trying to educate myself not to!
i think mike modded his switches so they didn't get knocked. details should be in there somewhere...
haha, i'll need to have a shift through that!
i was browsing the forums earlier and came across a post of yours which contained the word 'honking'. Didn't even have to look at the location to find another Scot
Mike wrote:Did the benecol recommended pickup flip modification today. I flipped the orientation of the bridge and neck pickup switches (but kept them in their same positions) so that now down is the ON position. I left the strangle switch as it was as I want the down position for that to be OFF.
This is the stock orientation. Orange = Neck hot, Yellow = bridge Hot. The switches when on connect the pickups to the bare wire which goes to the strangle switch. When the strangle switch is OFF, the bare wire is connected directory to the other lug of the switch (the cap is shorted out) and then sent to the Volume knob. When the strange switch is ON, the signal is connected to the Volume knob via the cap (which cuts the lows passing through it).
After the mod. Since things aren't lined up now I used two pieces of wire to replace the original bare wire. The pickup wires didn't have much play in them, the hardest part was getting the grounding tag back on the bridge switch and screwed in. It was awkward but I got it done.
Now the switches are perfect, at this stage I'm thinking I won't end up installing a Toggle + Plate.
there's quite a few scottish types on here now, we're almost outnumbering the americans. we'll be able to invade soon.
I'm a total noob at electronics, though will the mod 'set' the switches, as in they can't be altered? Is that what the last comment about the toggle plate was about?
no, with that mod you flick the switches downwards to engage them rather than upwards. i think mike's original plan was to install a toggle instead of the switches. he can doubtless explain it better than me though.
I'm a total noob at electronics, though will the mod 'set' the switches, as in they can't be altered? Is that what the last comment about the toggle plate was about?
the mod just flips the switches so that down is the on position.
i think it was more about not hitting the switches and turning everything off when he was playing live so if he hit's the switches all he's doing is turning things on.
about that last comment, mike was gonna install a new plate so instead of 3 switches it had a toggle and a slider for the bass cut i think, after doing that mod he didn't need to.
You could also add an extra position to the switches which turns on both p/ups in series. It doesn't take away any of the old sounds, unless you consider OFF a sound, but it adds an extra "in series" option. Here's the wiring schematic for doing it.
thanks for the clarification chaps, sounds like a pretty good mod that i'll have to look into.. i'll be using the jag for live application as of next month!
I replaced the two individual pickup selector switches with a single toggle switch, using that replacement switch plate posted above.
No problems with it now at all.
Not accidentally turning oneself off is the most serious part of the problem, but additionally I was not keen on the notion of having to flick two different switches just to switch pickups, unlike all my other guitars. No wonder the original Jaguars were less popular, it is a stupid design IMO. It's surprising to me that they perpetuated it in the Classic Player series when they were trying to get rid of the features thought to be less favorable, to many, in other respects. But fortunately this is a trivial, reversible mod, and these guitars are not heirlooms anyway.
