Quick backstory, I've been a more or less closet offset fan ever since I tried a jazzmaster out at a guitar center a few years ago. I just thought it was the most comfortable guitar I've ever played and the trem was really cool. Didn't like the thin neck or the tone though, it was very bright and plinky and when I got home to do some research I learned about all of the upgrades most people deem necessary and was totally uninspired by the color options fender offered at the time. I passively searched for the right JM, eventually ditching the idea of a fender altogether unless I could find a cool colored reissue or something on craigslist.
(gorgeous neck)
Started looking into MJT/custom builds that had all of the upgrades done for me, tried to buy one that I really fell in love with but it sold so I decided I'll just build one eventually with non-jm pickups. Fast forward a year or so and I was dipping my toes into fender land more (Gibson guy at heart) and wanted a nice tele. I shopped around and in looking got bit by the JM bug again and decided if I find the right jazzmaster I'll buy it and see if it's just a thing I've romanticized in my head (in which I'd sell it and buy a tele) or maybe it's exactly what I've been picturing in my head all this time. Note, I have not played a "real" jazzmaster since that one at guitar center probably 3 years ago. A buddy bought a JMJM and modified it every way you could with Novak WR humbuckers, mastery hardware, new harness with coil splits etc and I borrowed it for a while and just hated the way it sounded. It played well but the WR humbuckers were bad, the neck was unusable without being coil split. All that to say buying a "real" JM was a total shot in the dark whether I'd like it or not. Nearly bought a CFM AV65 since CFM is one of my favorite colors, but instead I found this guy.
I decided I wanted the best one I could find in my budget with the top of line everything so I knew if I didn't like it I probably didn't like Jazzmasters in general and this fit the bill. Worked out a deal and have been getting acclimated to the guitar ever since. It needed a setup (still working it out), and the arm was really low against the body to the point that it was almost unusable but once I got that sorted out (thanks to you guys for the help) it's been great. I was anticipating needing to run the tone and volume down for it to be usable and thick enough but these pickups are STELLAR. Played one gig with it so far and I was blown away as was the band. It had excellent clarity, totally unique tone vs my other guitars.
I ran volume and tone at 10 almost exclusively and never thought the bridge was harsh sounding, in fact I prefer the bridge tone on this one to the neck which is crazy to me on a single coil guitar that isn't a tele. Middle position is ridiculously chimey and lovely, and I even made use of the rhythm circuit a couple times. The guitar has a pretty aggressive treble bleed which I did not like at first, but now I just treat the volume knob as a bass roll-off more or less so if the tone is to thick or has to much low end I just roll the volume to around 7. Works great!
I was iffy on the color, it looks very little like the pictures Dan took in person and its just about impossible to photograph right without heavy color editing. The first grass pictures are edited to try and capture it, it's not glossy and its more coral than red. I'm more of a blue guy despite my guitar collection, and would have gone LPB or Daphne or something if it was built to my specs but it's definitely grown on me.
The guitar is also my first "aged" guitar (don't count Gibson VOS). More on that in a video review I'm planning to shoot soon
The neck is THE BEST neck I've ever felt. It's actually large, Dan's specs on the hangtag are almost definitely way off since I've got a Suhr with supposedly a bigger neck per the specs and it's WAY smaller. It is super smooth and just fits the hand perfectly. Not much smaller that the 59 spec Gibson necks.So there's my mini review / first impressions of my first and only Danocaster and Jazzmaster! This forum has been great in the research process and helping me get it setup. Expect more questions in the future as I continue learning / setting it up.
Edit: Here's a little clip I did using the guitar to show some tones.
https://soundcloud.com/user-501816189/test-mesa-ch1
