honeyiscool wrote:I've owned three Mustangs and one Jaguar. My Jaguar with the Mustang bridge and SD pickups is my favorite guitar I have.
I believe that out of the box, Mustangs are the short scale to rule them all, as they play very well out of the box. There are not many non-hardtail Jaguars that don't need some love before they perform to potential, and no, I don't want to play with 13s and I don't want to play flats. The Jags that do play well out of the box are usually not very vintage-accurate. Mustangs don't really have that problem. A stock '65 works just fine, no matter vintage or reproduction, and no matter what strings you use.
However, the Jaguar has several things going for it. Once modified to your liking, it looks, plays, and sounds so damn good. It's a high class instrument and when you look at that Jag, it's the kind of instrument that makes you go, damn, I'm glad I play guitar because that thing is hoottt! Also, the contours are nice. I do wish that there were more Mustangs that were contoured.
Also, in 2011, the Mustang is one of the most expensive guitars in Fender's lineup, as in the '65 RI is the cheapest version of a Mustang, which is far more than you have to pay for an entry level Jaguar or Jazz. The '65 RI is a fantastic instrument, but it just cannot be justified at $939. That costs the Mustang some serious points, as $939 is enough to get a used Japanese Jaguar. It's supposed to be a student guitar but is priced like a high class instrument, and that leaves a really bad taste in my mouth, since for $939, you get an instrument that really needs another $120 in pickups before it sounds like a thousand dollar guitar.
That said, I have a deep love for the Mustang. The nice thing is you can pick one up in good shape used for just about $500, put some good pickups in it, and get this pretty little thing that is light, plays like a dream, and sounds terrific. Nobody appreciates the Mustang for its looks but once you have one, you just find them really appealing. Plus, I love the switching on it. It just makes so much sense to me.
To me, the perfect guitar, you start with a '69 Mustang, put a Jag/Jazzmaster vibrato, and quality Strat pickups. If you think of Bilinda Butcher's custom Mustang, that's pretty much it. I'll build one some day.
That's cool dude but the rule here is you have to demo your short scale before your opinion is valid. Did you not see it in the rules? No worries. Get some demo's up man!
I don't have any proper demos! But I feature short scales heavily in various youtubes.
Here's one of me trying to demo a bunch of Pixies riffs on my Jag:
Here's me trying to play My Bloody Valentine on my old '69 RI Mustang with Kinman pickups (sold it a while ago):
I do have a demo of my Musicmaster and Bronco Basses:
Is that good enough for now? I can easily make demos of my current Mustang (a RI '65 daphne blue with Lace Hot Gold Sensors) and Jaguar if needed. I wouldn't be good at demonstrating versatility, though. I just use the Jag with both pickups on, strangle switch on, like 99% of the time, the Mustang stays on neck but sometimes I switch the bridge on for shiny.
Someone in this thread mentioned that they find the Jaguar far from versatile. I think that's somewhat true. There's only really variations of that one tone I get from my Jag. But then what of it? Strats generally get five tones and I find exactly one of them interesting.
Last edited by honeyiscool on Wed Feb 02, 2011 2:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
honeyiscool wrote:Someone in this thread mentioned that they find the Jaguar far from versatile. I think that's somewhat true. There's only really variations of that one tone I get from my Jag. But then what of it? Strats generally get five tones and I find exactly one of them interesting.
That was me. I dont think it's particularly versatile in comparison to a mustang or whatever, but that doesn't affect how much i like them. It was more just a pre-emptive dig at the parroting calls of "jag is my favrit cos its versatile!" that would inevitably have populated the rest of the thread. I demand my fun.
