My Classic Player Jag

Armchair Bronco · Post by **Armchair Bronco** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:58 am

What's your view of the volume & tone pots?

I also have a Classic Player Jaguar Special HH -- mine is the Olympic White version. I love the neck and the modern circuitry and the TOM-style bridge. But I do have two issues with this guitar:

1) the blend control for the bridge pup shorts out when it touch it, and is terribly scratch. It's so bad that I plan to take it in to a shop to have it repaired under the warranty.

2) I'm not sure if Fender got all of the electronics right, since I have almost zero taper in the volume and tone pots. Basically, I need to keep them at 100% all the time. If I roll the volume off even a little, then the pups become dull and uninteresting. It's very dramatic. On my SG Classic with P90's, the volume and tone pots are usable throughout their entire range. At low volumes, my P90's are still crisp and sparkling, just not quite as loud. But with the Jaguar Special HH, the volume pot *must* be at or near 100% for the pups to come alive. And the tone pot seems to be tightly coupled to the blend controls, too. There are some blend setting where the tone pot seems to have zero effect.

I'm curious whether you experienced anything similar with the stock pups, and whether you (or your tech) made any mods to the pots, blend controls, or caps when you swapped in the Super Distortion and the PAF (which is what I'd like to do to "Kurtify" my Jaguar).

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 9:26 pm

Armchair - There were no issues with the orignal pickups or blending wheels. No excess noise, popping or shorting out. Nothing was added or taken away when the DiMarzio's were put in. I would even say they were a little quiter than the DiMarzio's at cranked volumes...but not by much (I just think the stock ones had less pizazz, so it seemed quiter).

The funny thing is, I've got to run the master tone knob around half, otherwise it gets a little hairy when I'm really loud. It's really responsive and has a pretty wide sweep/range.

I'm not sure man, but it seems like there might be some issues under the hood as your description doesn't seem typica. How long ago did you get it? Did you get it at a chain with a return/exchange policy?

Armchair Bronco · Post by **Armchair Bronco** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 9:47 pm

I got it at the local GC in Kirkland, Washington. I complained about the volume/tone issue right from the start. They let me bring the guitar back in and "A-B" it with another Jag Classic Player Special HH in the store. I did this and got the same results with the other guitar so I figured it was just part of the guitar's personality. Back then very few folks had one, so there weren't any reviews out there yet.

I'm past the 90 (or 45?) day return period anyway, and in any event, I like this guitar -- everything else is perfect (neck, fret ends, finish, etc.) so I don't want to take my chances with a new guitar.

The scratchy/shorting pot is a separate issue, and it'll have to be fixed under warranty. But the lack of taper on my volume and tone pots has me concerned. I guess I'll just summarize my concerns to a Fender-certified repair tech, and ask him to do some simple diagnostics to narrow down the problem.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 9:57 pm

The dudes in my local guitar store rate the build of the Classic series Jags very highly, they're less enamoured with the electrics.

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:41 pm

Yea I wouldn't say the tone knob perfomance is typical...but found the sweet spot and left it.

I did play a lot of therm before I picked the one I liked without some fundamental flaw.

Skip · Post by **Skip** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:29 am

glad you like it and got it close to all set chicago
i love my cp jazzy
im sure the cp jaguar is awesome too
rock on

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:47 am

So I just got back from practice and I did find the volume sweep to be limited. I do see what you're saying after playing with it for awhile.

I usually don't mess with the volume of the guitar....so I did some testing and it pretty much went from full on to almost completely off when around half power on the knob.

I didn't take the knob off, but I was thinking it might be misaligned (happend once on a phaser...pulled the knob off and placed it on so that when it was full on, it was only at half power).....although I doubt this is the case based on your findings.

It's not really an issue for me as if I want to mute the guitar...I just flip the kill switch.

Skip - I'd love to get a CP Jazzmaster. I had a '62 RI and miss it dearly, but actually preferred the feel of the jumbo frets of the CP...not to mention by the time I get around to one, they might be cheaper on ebay.

Armchair Bronco · Post by **Armchair Bronco** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:11 am

Chicago Mike wrote:So I just got back from practice and I did find the volume sweep to be limited. I do see what you're saying after playing with it for awhile.

I usually don't mess with the volume of the guitar....so I did some testing and it pretty much went from full on to almost completely off when around half power on the knob.

OK, I'm relieved.

It's beginning to sound like this is how Fender made 'em.

If you ask me, this is a design flaw -- but certainly nothing fatal. A good guitar tech should be able to correct things with different pots and/or caps.

My volume pot also goes almost silent @ around 50%, so we're consistent there. Like you, I also keep the volume full-on and rarely mess with the tone knob either. But as I said before: there's just no comparison with the sweep of the 4 pots I have on my Gibson SG Classic. I'm hoping I can have a mod done to this guitar that will bring the pots in line with what I can do on the Gibson.

Armchair Bronco · Post by **Armchair Bronco** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:33 am

Bottom line: I LOVE this guitar (well, as much as one can "love" something made out of wood & metal). It's basically 90% of everything I've ever wanted in a guitar.

The other "missing" 10% would be binding around the neck, an offset bridge, and DiMarzio Super Distortion and PAF pups, like this "Kurtified" sunburst Jaguar available only in Japan:

Libtoem101 · Post by **Libtoem101** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:52 am

Thats the other model that has no toggle switch.Im curious if these clone kurt jags have the same wiring as kurts 65 jag did.

Also on your Classic Jag what pots are used,500k or 1meg?

Armchair Bronco · Post by **Armchair Bronco** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:12 am

Libtoem101 wrote:Thats the other model that has no toggle switch.Im curious if these clone kurt jags have the same wiring as kurts 65 jag did.

Also on your Classic Jag what pots are used,500k or 1meg?

The wiring the Kurt used on his Jags is a mystery to me. I've yet to find any description of what he did (or didn't) have done to them when he had humbuckers installed. Even the Japanese site that makes the "Kurtified" Jags is silent in this regard -- presumably they use the roller pots in the conventional way (as a rhythm circuit).

As far as the specs on the Classic Jag are concerned, 2 weeks ago I posted some schematics I received from Fender on this site. Here's the URL for that thread: http://www.shortscale.org/forum/viewtop ... 91&start=0

The parts schematic describes the pots, rollers, and capacitors used in this guitar. Here's a high-level summary:

Coil Splitter Pot 12b: "Control Minipot 1MEG Linear W/ Nut"
Coil Splitter Pot 12c: "Control Minipot 50K Linear W/ Nut"
Capicator 13c: "Cap CD .003uF 20% 3/8""
Capicator 14e: "Cap CD .01uF 600V 10% 1/2" DIA"
(Tone?/Volume?) Pot 14f: "Control 1 MEG 10% Audio Metal"

Libtoem101 · Post by **Libtoem101** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:19 am

Kurts Jag was wired like a SG for the most.

Also thanks for the links

Armchair Bronco · Post by **Armchair Bronco** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:23 am

Libtoem101 wrote:Kurts Jag was wired like a SG for the most.

Also thanks for the links

Here's a link to the PDF file for the schematics. I forgot that I had uploaded this at the end of the thread.

Link-O-Ramma

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:16 pm

I agree, it's pretty much one of the better guitars I've owned. It's sounds great with the pickup swap!

Armchair Bronco · Post by **Armchair Bronco** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:46 pm

I just re-read this thread and spotted the following item from page 1:

Chicago Mike wrote:The bridge (stock) was all the way to the bottom of the body....like flush low. So the neck needed to be shimmed, the bridge raised and I put 11's on.

I have the same problem on my Classic Player HH. The initial string height was too high for me, but the bottom of the bridge was just a smidgen above the body. I lowered it as much as I could, but it wasn't nearly enough.

I'd also add this to my list of fixable "design flaws" on this guitar. Surely Fender can figure out a way let end-users lower their bridges without having to resort to shimming the neck to get low action! Fender needs to rout out about a centimeter of wood directly below the bridge and everything will be good.

Post by **Mike** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:53 pm

Armchair Bronco wrote:Fender needs to rout out about a centimeter of wood directly below the bridge and everything will be good.

Eh? That would be ugly as shit. The bridge is in the right place, the neck pocket needs correcting if anything.

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:13 pm

Yeah, it was all the way down and still was too high....the shim worked like a charm though.

I wonder, some people might like higher action?

Reece · Post by **Reece** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:17 pm

I like a high action, I like to know when I'm pressing down the strings. I'm too heavy handed for low action.

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:29 pm

Yeah, I hear you. I'm not a fan of really low action, but stock it was at that point where it becomes difficult to play.

Armchair Bronco · Post by **Armchair Bronco** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:44 pm

Mike wrote:
Armchair Bronco wrote:Fender needs to rout out about a centimeter of wood directly below the bridge and everything will be good.
Eh? That would be ugly as shit. The bridge is in the right place, the neck pocket needs correcting if anything.

But it would be directly below the bridge. It would just be a tiny recess, and you wouldn't be able to see anything. It would just look like a shadow if you looked closely.

However, you're right: either the bridge has to be lowered or the neck pocket needs to be modified if Fender decides to fix this issue @ the factory. Otherwise, shimming is the only option.