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they may not be perfect, but they are awesome

i have a mij red one and i like it alot. maybe the pickups dont sound so hot or are noisy, but they are good through the right amp. but mostly it is nimble but not wimpy guitar with good playability, dependable, and i like how the vibrato works WITHOUT the bar. i dont have the bar. but i have messed with ones that do and its so sensitive and takes care to use, but it is also great without the bar because you can just slip the heel of your palm back onto the tail piece and give it a subtle nudge to ad a shimmery vibrato dip on the end of chords and melodys

+1

I dunno, I think they are perfect.

I don't really consider the pickups an integral part of a guitar, since they're so easily replaced, and I think I've replaced the pickup on every guitar I've met. So yeah, it's really the other stuff that I get into, I love the tailpiece and how you can introduce tasteful amounts of shimmer just by banging on it, which is what I use the whammy 90% of the time anyway (other 10% is bad shoegaze and I have a Jag for that).

I also love the switching system and how well it works with different pickups, out of phase with a hot bridge pickup is really fun.

The only thing I wish about the Mustang is that more of them had the contours, the slab's OK but contours definitely seem more high class.

honeyiscool wrote:I also love the switching system and how well it works with different pickups, out of phase with a hot bridge pickup is really fun.

The switching system is it's major flaw. They're very easy to hit while playing. There are nine switching combinations but only five that are unique meaning 44% of the switching options are redundant.

It makes much more sense to have one switch be bridge/both/neck and the other something you'd find useful. That's an improvement but they're still in a bad location and relatively cumbersome to use.

They are certainly nice guitars, though.

Agree, with the above bout the switches.

They are sexy guitars, wish they were better balance as far as weight. Bodies are thin & lite, tend to be neck heavy to me.

I love the switches. I don't have any problem with hitting them. I think the trem is the worst thing about the guitar. however like has been said, it works pretty well with no bar. with the bar it sucks, probably the worst fender trem. other than that, I think it is pretty much the perfect fender. it was one of the final completely original guitar designs by leo fender and I think he pretty much addressed everything stupid about the other guitars. no stupid middle pickup, better switching, short scale, sleek offset styling. it's basically like an improved strat IMO.

How on earth is the switching better?

better sondz

So in other words, it's not and you just prefer the Mustang in general.

How can you call it a flaw? It's a quirk at worst and dates from a time when out-of-phase and series options and such were basically unheard of.

It's also incredibly intuitive, the way most crazy wiring options aren't.

It's far from intuitive. Back on Jag-stang there was a thread a month where the switches had to be explained and it happens here from time to time. Also, the fact that 4 out of 9 options are repeats doesn't make it simple to work out what's going on.

I'm probably alone in this, but to me the Mustang is Fender's least-appealing guitar. I'm not a huge fan of the aesthetics, the trem is not great, and I find the switching (and switch location) to be a bit ridiculous. The body also feels too small, and I'm by no means a large fellow. I've tried to force myself to "get it", but every time I pick one up I am underwhelmed.

They do seem to sound nice though.

see I think the jaguar and jazzmaster body is big and cumbersome. I love the small size of the mustang. it feels similar to a strat to me.

James wrote:So in other words, it's not and you just prefer the Mustang in general.

yeah, it's subjective. but I like the in-phase/out-of-phase option. every other fender guitar just has one or the other.

I love the feel of the Mustang, its one of my favorites but the switches are'nt great, they are badly positioned, hard to change settings on the fly and some settings are repeated.

Pro's:
Great neck
Comfortable and light to gig with
Looks good
Generally good tonez

Con's:
Fiddly switches
Kurt Cobain is associated with them
Temperamental tremolo
Pickups can be a bit lacklustre

James wrote:It's far from intuitive. Back on Jag-stang there was a thread a month where the switches had to be explained and it happens here from time to time. Also, the fact that 4 out of 9 options are repeats doesn't make it simple to work out what's going on.

Five way switches need to be explained, too, to a newcomer. The point is, every video that has had some radical 8 tone optionz for a Mustang end up with like a Morse code that you have to figure out to get two pickups in series, and then you flip the switches and say a magic spell to get them in parallel and out of phase. The stock Mustang, you learn it once, you have it forever.

You want to know what's got silly wiring? Just look at the Jaguar. There are what, 4 switches and 4 potentiometers and I find like all of two settings to be useful on it. Of course, the both pickups on with strangle switch is one of my favorite sounds of all time, but still.

avj wrote:I find the switching (and switch location) to be a bit ridiculous.

I find the switch location on a Tele or a Strat to be ridiculous. It's all about what you get used to. The Mustang was the first nice guitar that really stuck with me. Now, when I play a Strat, I'm liable to strum straight into the switch whereas I'll never run into them on a Mustang.

Mages wrote:see I think the jaguar and jazzmaster body is big and cumbersome. I love the small size of the mustang. it feels similar to a strat to me.

I wouldn't say cumbersome but sometimes, I find the body to be a bit overwhelming for when I just want to fiddle when I'm sitting.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Jaguar, but I find myself defending Jaguar despite its faults (rhythm circuit proves useless to most, bridge just doesn't work with light strings, huge body), whereas I don't really think that a well setup Mustang with good pickups has faults.

you want a duo-sonic II with the little mod that lowers the switches, is what you want.

i rarely if ever knock the switches on my duo, but until i buckled under pressure and taped down the switches on my jag like a total cock, i'd accidentally switch the pickups off every single time i used it. rather embarrassing onstage, let me tell you.

it's true about the strat switch; it is exactly at the right angle for you to hit it down when you strum. not that the mustang switches are perfect but for the way I play it works better.

and yes I agree, jazzmasters and jaguars are cool despite their faults. those were the guitars that I was attracted to from bands I liked. I never found the mustang that way, I wasn't very much into any bands that played them.

I find the Jag switching way easier than the Mustang. And way more efficient. The Mustang has so many repeat sounds with the switching.

Also, I understand having issues with the strat but the tele? The tele is just like the mustang because the switch runs perpendicular to the strumming. If you're going bat shit crazy I guess you can hit it but if you're going bat shit crazy, I don't think you're that concerned about getting the proper tone.

I was into Liz Phair more than anything, though she plays Duo and Musicmaster II. Since starting to play Mustang, I have grown to appreciate Kurt more, though, always liked Nirvana anyway.

Lately I'm happy to learn that it was John McLaughlin's primary guitar for his classic Miles Davis albums like Bitches Brew. It might have been a Musicmaster, but the point is, he's one of the greatest guitar virtuosos ever, and for him to have enjoyed the Duo/Musicmaster/Mustang means that nobody needs to have an inferiority complex about them. They're great guitars because I really can't imagine a jazz god like McLaughlin struggling with a guitar that he considered to have faults.

This is easily some of the best Duo/MM/Mustang tone anyone has ever committed to tape:

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