Mustang/DuoSonic/Jaguar distinguishing characteristic?

[Medicine Melancholy]

Well I don't know I just got the impression they were different enough to tell apart. If they really sound so similar I think that changes things a bit for me, might go for humbuckers and coil split

[stewart]

like i say, perhaps i just have cloth ears. maybe others will tell you different, and they can spot one a mile off. i can't.

[Medicine Melancholy]

I'm really interested in knowing because there's a lot of BS science thrown around when it comes to guitar gear.

It's not that i don't like Strats. I was considering getting a Strat, but the body shape is kind of vanilla at this stage and while versatile, most of the sounds have been done into the ground so I find it hard to get excited about them. I was intending to fill it with random pickups eventually. I was hoping it would be a Green Strat, and I would call it "The Green Machine". Luckily I found out about the Parker P38, which is super strat-esque, and has Single Coils, Humbuckers and Piezos. If I just swapped one pickup I'd have a nice variety there.

I think with texture people tend to focus on different things, maybe are more sensitive to certain frequencies, but there's a certain grit and complexity to a Jazzer and to a lesser extent a Jag under light gain. Of course, that could be down to the preference for dirt people playing them have.

[honeyiscool]

I think with texture people tend to focus on different things, maybe are more sensitive to certain frequencies, but there's a certain grit and complexity to a Jazzer and to a lesser extent a Jag under light gain. Of course, that could be down to the preference for dirt people playing them have.

Having had a Jaguar and a Strat, I can tell you that there's nothing gritty, complex, or magical about a Jag compared to a Strat. A Jaguar in your hands sounds a lot closer to a Strat in your hands than a Jaguar in somebody else's hands. Do Jags and Strats sound the same? No. But does one Jag sound exactly like another Jag? Not really, either. Given that Jags and Strats have so many options for pickups and switching nowadays, the only real differences at the end of the day in my opinion are the third bridge thing and the scales. But the scale makes very little difference in my opinion, and the third bridge thing is something you notice more when you're playing it than when you're hearing it because I really can't tell the difference between a Jaguar and a Strat when recorded.

The important thing is to nail the feel of your dream guitar because anything else is far more subtle than can easily be explained. See, I don't mean to criticize you or anything but judging from your posts, I get the feeling that you've spent way too much time lately reading about different guitars and not enough time actually playing them. It's easy to get caught up in all the hype about guitars, especially slightly rarer guitars like Jaguars and Jazzmasters, but at the end of the day, guitars pretty much sound like the player wants them to sound and Radiohead would not sound much different if Thom swapped his Jazzmaster for Jonny's Telecaster. The way Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine played Jazzmasters, that's a bit different because they relied heavily on the unique designs of the guitars themselves, but if you're mostly just a chords and leads type of guy who doesn't whammy much, most guitars are the same.

That's why I say if you're someone who's into short scales for the comfort factor, get a Mustang because that's the guitar for you. If you like the bling factor, get a Jaguar. If you're gonna use the whammy a lot, get a Jazzmaster because I do think the longer scale helps.

[Medicine Melancholy]

Sadly they don't have any offsets or shortscales where I live save for a Jagmaster(which I did like).

If sound doesn't vary that much, I was thinking maybe I'd be best off getting a HH Jag with coil split just for the variety of sounds? A split humbucker doesn't sound like a proper fender single coil perhaps, but that could actually be a good thing for once in this situation.

[Medicine Melancholy]

Just a bit of a word on different pickups;

My current guitars are pretty cheap; I have a Xavier Tele Copy with Fatbody pickups and a First Act Sheena.

The Sheena is my axe of choice, it's pretty and feels comfortable to me. The neck on the Xaviere isn't bad, and there are times when I prefer it, but the Sheena feels more of an extension of my arms than the Tele. The Tele is heavy and noisy and the tone knob doesn't work right, nor does the "Humbucking" middle position. It probably has grounding issues. I think I fucked up the wiring fixing it.

The thing is the Sheena is a kind of a safe bet. It's easier to use humbuckers with a lot of things, and they're bright PAFy ones so they don't sound completely shit, but they're not spectacular.

Really, there's something far more "alive" about the single coils to me, just I haven't been able to find use for them. The pickups I put in there are GFS Fatbodies. The neck pickup is beautiful, one of the best I'e heard. However it does have a problem with excessive bass. You don't always notice it, but on amps/modelers/pedals that allow those low frequencies to pass through it can cause some awkward distortion where you wouldn't normally get it with a low output SC pickup. It can lead to an unbalanced sound. It's not muddy though, which is weird, probably because it lacks mids. Because of that it can get muddy quite quickly when you start to add Fuzz.

The Bridge pickup is overly honky, really, but still quite fun. It is a bit of a cheesy sound. if you throw on a Flanger it can do Andy Summers well.

There's this wonderful glassy texture to it under distortion I don't get with my HH guitar. I don't think it's just that guitar, in general, most humbuckers, modern ones anyway lack that life for me. I do love humbuckers for their own sound too though - I like the big dangy clean tone you can get, the real chunky low gain crunch you won't get easily out of a single coil
and the odd big thumping metal tone. But for just playing around with, something is a bit more interesting about Single Coils.

In many ways I think another Tele would be a good guitar for me. Something with slightly hotter pickups, less noise, etc. I've thought about upgrading the Xaviere, swapping out for a better bridge pickup but I think I like the guitar the way it is and turning it into a "good" guitar just wouldn't work out and even though it's not a bad guitar at all would require changing too much.

However I really need a Trem with my guitar. I get bored of playing guitar pretty fast. A basic HH guitar with no Trem tends to do that, and the exagerrated Tele sound can get tiresome. Teles don't tend to come with Trems and honestly look quite ugly when they do.

Offsets were the obvious thing to look at for me here. I did think about a Strat for a while, but the sound and body shape is just so over exposed I found it hard to get excited about it. Jazzmasters had the single coil sound, but a more "full" feel to them - something my Tele was lacking, at least in the bridge. Jags seem to have a similar quirky sound to the Tele but are less honky, another good choice for me.

I'm okay with something with Humbuckers and split coils too, sometimes that can be an interesting sound. I have heard the odd humbucking tone lately that's just sounded so huge to me compared to normal -

I'm just trying to communicate that to me at lest when i'm playing them guitars can have a very different sound and some can just have more "life" to me. Getting a new guitar, I do want to get that balance right. I want something nice and jangly, but still usable in a variety of situations. A different Tele would probably do this quite well, but because of the Trem and overall looks I do lean towards the offsets.

It's been very difficult for me to chose a guitar because I'm not sure what that ideal sound is. JMs are nice but I was drawn to the Jag overall and it's more aggressive attack - however it is inevitably more Strat like, Mustangs persumably more so again.

I think in general, I may be rather tired of the sound of electric guitar in general and a lot of what I'll be doing with it will maybe bring it closer to a synth in sound. But for jamming around and adding the more guitary textures to my tracks, I definitely need that right sound to inspire me, as well as the feel. I've made do with cheap-ass guitars for a while now so I'd like something decent for a change. Though really, I've no problem playing a cheap guitar either if it fits me well.

I hope someone can understand where I'm coming from...

[StevePirates]

It must be very frustrating to not have a decent music store within easy traveling distance. There is no substitution for sitting down and playing for a few hours and getting a feel for what you like and what you don't.

[honeyiscool]

What you should try is a pair of really good low-output Tele pickups (noiseless, maybe, even), and a 4-way switch for the series wiring. A neck pickup having excessive bass is probably due to the hotter output.

Anyway, I think if you want a slightly glassier texture and a versatile sound, you should try a HH setup with two high-output ceramic pickups, and then wire the coils in parallel. If you use something like the Dragonfire Screamers, they're like what, $30 a set? And they sound great, too. Split coils generally don't quite sound right, but parallel coils usually sound very good and balanced.

If you're going to be picky about a guitar's sound, it's a better idea to mess with electronics than try a different guitar model.

[George]

The Fatbody is supposed to be Strat like so excessive bass shouldn't be a huge problem. My bet is sticking a no load tone pot and lowering the pickup will help it out massively.

[Ankhanu]

It must be very frustrating to not have a decent music store within easy traveling distance. There is no substitution for sitting down and playing for a few hours and getting a feel for what you like and what you don't.

Yes it is
I'm in a similar "can't test it" scenario as MM, and it's pretty frustrating. You have to base your decisions on various recordings and written descriptions, both of which are deceiving. It leads to thinking too much about the guitars and getting mixed up information... it sucks

[Medicine Melancholy]

Yeah, I'm fully aware I'm driving people nuts but there's not much I can do. I really appreciate all the help I'm being given(though I would rather hear more clips than general advice, can be hard to find). I'm still waiting for that guy to get back to me about his Burgundy Mist Jag.