ShortScale.org

I am looking to buy my first short scale guitar. I currently own a ESP LTD Eclipse however I find it hard to play (bought it 15 years ago on looks only , (I was 16))

I am looking at Mustang/DuoSonic/Jaguar I would like to under $500 and i don't find buying used.

My question - Is there any distinguishing characteristic that would sway me one way or another? I only have a small amount of skill. Want At most a 24" scale and a 1.625 ish nut and a radius between 8-11.

Planing on taking a trip to play some in a store.

Thanks for any advice.

Owning a japanese Mustang and Jaguar I play them both the same amount. It really comes down to the instrument itself and the setup, to me. The mustang has a beefier neck, whereas the Jag neck is a smaller profile, both really easy to play on. Sound-wise I really like the Mustang, but they are both well balanced. I would say my Jaguar has much more low end response, notably in the neck position. The Jaguar is more versatile but feels a little less sturdy or reliable than the Jaguar.

I would play both through a good amp and decide, buy used, as your unlikely to find what you're looking for in that price range new.

$.02

cobascis wrote:The Jaguar is more versatile but feels a little less sturdy or reliable than the Jaguar.

?

How do you know weather they are Japanese Guitars or not?

the Fender Blacktop Jaguar HH is $500 retail. How dose it compare to the older jags

it'll probably save a lot of time if you read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Jaguar

ElectricFlow wrote:My question - Is there any distinguishing characteristic that would sway me one way or another? I only have a small amount of skill. Want At most a 24" scale and a 1.625 ish nut and a radius between 8-11.

Vintage radius is 7.5", and most reissues are here as well.
The Blacktop and Classic Player Jaguars are both 9.5", as is the Pawn Shop Special Mustang. I'm pretty sure everything else is 7.5". With that in mind, if you definitely want >8" radius, you've got three choices.

ElectricFlow wrote:the Fender Blacktop Jaguar HH is $500 retail. How dose it compare to the older jags

Same body shape and scale length... it ends there, I think.
The pickups are vastly different (low output singlecoils vs. hot humbuckers), the pots are a lower rating (darker), there's no rhythm circuit, different fretboard radius, no floating tremolo... they're pretty different sounding/playing guitars.

ElectricFlow wrote:How do you know weather they are Japanese Guitars or not?

Pretty simple; every guitar says where it was made on the neck; front or back of the headstock, or at the back of the neck by the body.

7.5 radius should be fine, I will try and test some out to know for sure however.

I think '65 RI Mustang is the best value, no doubt. The resale prices on used geets are pretty reasonable, and it doesn't suffer from the inflated prices that Jags do. Also it takes Strat pickups.

What about sound?

They all sound. Tone is mostly the user.

honeyiscool wrote:They all sound. Tone is mostly the user.

That's a great quote.

Yeah, that Ibanez I played with the s00per high resistance pickups I played through an ENGL Facesmasher sounds almost identical to my '51 Nocaster through my Sweet Princeton Reverb if I just vary my picking attack just a little.

Choosing the gear and the numbers on the amp is part of the user. Even so, I feel like most guitars can be made to sound similar except when going through a sparkly clean channel, which I don't get to use in my music much at all, in which case you can do things like distinguish between an HB or an SC, sometimes.

I don't think there is real tonal character that distinguishes a Jaguar, a Duo, or a Mustang. I don't know about the Duo, since I've never had one, but certainly not between Jaguar or Mustang. Most of the obvious sounds (Jag w/ strangle switch, Mustang w/ out of phase) are wiring decisions that can easily be implemented with a soldering iron and a push-push pot somewhere. There's certainly more variation between the tone of different types of strings than between two BN single coil short scales.

The Jaguars(and JMs) are meant to sound different because of the Trem assembly, largely, and circuitry, or at least that's what I've been told since joining this forum. There's a definitely "surfy" feel to them when compared to a Strat which just sounds kind of plain and lacking texture by comparison.

i think it's misleading, if not downright mistaken, to say "strats are lacking in texture". if that was the case why are they so popular? plus, there are countless models and variations now.

if you take away the switching options, jaguars and mustangs sound very similar. duo-sonic IIs have a slightly different sound because of the hardtail, it's a smoother decay, but it's very subtle.

the surfy thing is characteristic of most fenders if that's the sound you're going for. i've seen strats and teles used perfectly well for surf music. have you ever genuinely been able to tell what specific model of guitar a musician has used on a given record apart from the fact you know what gear they tend to favour? i like to think i have a reasonable ear, but short of distinguishing between hums and singles or maybe the fact someone's using a hollowbody, it's guesswork most of the time. i find it difficult to believe anyone who claims otherwise.

Dick Dale played a Strat. Strat's have mad texture and they're great, no offence Jag owners (I love them, still) but they have none of the body and bass of a Strat. Again, that's the sound they make and that's why we treasure Jags for their own thing they have going on. Can't we justify one guitar without slamming another?

I don't wanna sound like a corksniffer but I can often attribute a sound to a particular guitar if it's not a distorted mess. Not Jags vs Stangs though. I would say the difference would only be from the pickup angles and pot values because they're anatomically very similar otherwise if you're not getting into tonewoods and body size etc. Wait, do Mustangs have 1K pots? I dunno.

George wrote:do Mustangs have 1K pots? I dunno.

you mean 1M like a jag? no they have 250k pots.

I would say I can usually tell if it's a strat, and sometimes can tell what pickup position they're using.

strats have a huge variety of sounds available. I dare say more than any other fender guitar. they are basically swiss-army knife guitars. that's why they are a popular workhorse guitar.

Medicine Melancholy wrote:The Jaguars(and JMs) are meant to sound different because of the Trem assembly, largely, and circuitry, or at least that's what I've been told since joining this forum. There's a definitely "surfy" feel to them when compared to a Strat which just sounds kind of plain and lacking texture by comparison.

Well, I've had what, six SSS Strats, a couple of Jags (one HH and one SS), and three Mustangs (SS), now, and let's just say that you put the same pickups in all my guitars, and use the same switching position (I generally wire my Strats with B+N anyway), and I made recordings of them, they all sound pretty much the same. I'm sure if you then asked me to identify something that sounded like a Mustang, I might pick a Strat, or I might think the Jag's a Strat, or whatever. The great majority of surf music was played on Strats, I'm pretty sure. And whatever, I've seen Joey Santiago get great surf tones on a Les Paul. It's all in the amp settings.

Mages wrote:strats have a huge variety of sounds available. I dare say more than any other fender guitar. they are basically swiss-army knife guitars. that's why they are a popular workhorse guitar.

Well, you can't argue that a five way switch doesn't have more sounds than a three way switch, but really, I much prefer the three sounds of a two-pickup guitar over the five sounds of a three-pickup guitar wired traditionally. Once customized, Strats are great, though.

Still don't respect them for some reason, though. I have them but I wish they were all Mustangs.

I dunno Jags are defo a bit different IMO I think if I was more familiar with them I could tell them apart

you must have better ears than i have then, as i can't even tell them apart on my own recordings.