Problem Getting Good Overdriven Tone From Jazzmaster

[marqueemoon]

My favorites so far have been Rat (with the right filter setting), J Rockett Archer (Klone) with the treble dialed back, and Barber Direct Drive (works best with a higher headroom amp).

[soggy mittens]

Which amp are you using? Try turning the mids up on it if it has the option.

[Elixxrx66]

I remembered earlier today that I had an old danelectro fish n chips 7 band eq pedal buried somewhere so I fished it out and put it last in my signal chain and turned down the higher end frequencies and eliminating the harshness. I think you are right when you say it’s more about finding the right of pedal. To answer someone’s earlier question about which pickups I’m using the answer is I have a set of Fender Vintage ‘65 pickups installed.

[Dr Improbable]

With my G&L Doheny I've found that backing off the treble a bit (on the guitar) helps a lot. Also, I go very mild on the OD. I use a Joyo Vintage Overdrive. You could just go all J Mascis and fire up the Big Muff. I like that sound. Good luck!

[Rocky67]

What amp are you using?

[secretroutines]

You need a pedal that doesn't have any clipping diodes. The Benson Preamp, Death By Audio Interstellar Overdriver, or something else transistor based will probably do exactly what you want. Try finding a used DS-1 and removing the diodes, there's plenty of guides on how, if you want a cheaper alternative.

[The Dead Ranch Hands]

Try rolling the tone back on your guitar. That helps.

Yup. The Jazzmaster has a lot of high end. You want to limit the amount of treble going into your overdrive. I love an overdriven JM bridge pickup, but the tone control has to be like 25% rolled off for it to sound good.

[bmorepunk]

Which amp are you using? Try turning the mids up on it if it has the option.

Try rolling the tone back on your guitar. That helps.

Yup. The Jazzmaster has a lot of high end. You want to limit the amount of treble going into your overdrive. I love an overdriven JM bridge pickup, but the tone control has to be like 25% rolled off for it to sound good.

OP should should notice a theme through this thread with these and other posts; getting a good overdriven sound is about the generated frequencies and frequency response of the pickups (tone) coming out of the guitar and the complex products that come out of an overdrive/distortion pedal. That's why you hear people who swear by putting EQ pedals before/after (sometimes both) the overdrive; they can dial in completely different sounds with just EQ alone. The single tone knob on the pedals you have are making this harder; you need to work as much as you can out of your guitar's tone control, pickup height, and amp tone knobs to see what you can get. I'd try and see if I could get where I want here first instead of buying more pedals.

You'd be best served in this situation by working both the mids and highs issues that others have mentioned, but one at a time so you can start to isolate things.

The lowered (scooped) mids on the AVRI 65 pickups is already something you have to deal with (unless you're doing that metal scooped mids thing where it's hard to hear your guitar in a mix), so you're going to need to compensate with a mid boost wherever you can get it. The Tube Screamer does this inherently but you still may need more at the amp or an an EQ.

The high end comment is really important here. When someone says their distortion says "harsh", that usually means the intermodulation products that are coming out of the pedal due to those more higher input frequencies needs to be cut back significantly. The more high end your guitar lets through when you start distorting, the more higher intermodulation products you get and they will be higher in frequency themselves. These products are increasingly unpleasant to the ear, which is why reducing the highs going in is the best bet.

[gypsyseven]

My absolute no.1 drive pedal is the JHS Morning Glory...also love Boss BD-2 for more gain with my Jazzmaster...

[sirspens]

I remember seeing an interview with J Mascis in which we said that anyone who keeps the pots on their Jazzmaster at 10 is crazy. He rolls volume and tone back to about 7, which takes a lot of edge off the Jazzmaster.

All that said... here's my set up (but, then I actually like accentuating the highs for some of my tones):

Tone Stack:
JHS SuperBolt V2: low gain, bright and chimey
JHS Red Switch: The SuperBolt gets darker at higher gain
JHS mod Soul Food: medium low gain, switched to germanium, as a boost, which takes it into a creamy high gain territory. (This is an affordable Klone)
All of this runs into a BBE Sonic Stomp which I use to bring out articulation in gain signals.

I also use an Analogwise That Crazy Pedal, which advertises as a Fuzz, but is absolutely an OD pedal that is nice and crunchy and has a ton of tone options. I sometimes boost it with the Soul Food, which gates it out.

I'm also going to double down on everyone else recommending the Rat. From low gain to high, this pedal is gorgeous with a Jazzmaster.

[Elixxrx66]

In addition to adding an eq pedal to the end of my chain to tame the higher frequencies I also realized that using a clean boost with it as well will fatten up the tone so it doesn’t sound as thin

[Elixxrx66]

What amp are you using?

I’m using an old 1967 Silvertone 1484 “Twin Twelve” head into a 2x12” cabinet with Jensen speakers. My Twin Twelve has a larger, upgraded O.T. Than the original one. The older the Twin Twelve gets the more concerned I am about lugging it around to practices and gigs so I was thinking about getting just a good work horse amp like a Fender Deluxe or something similar.

[Elixxrx66]

Oh and thanks to everyone who took the time to offer me their suggestions on dealing with this issue

[mackerelmint]

My eternal solution is an SD-1 with the c6 capacitor yanked. Dirt cheap, rock solid, sounds great. I spent years being all fussy but eventually realized that after you come back to something enough times, you should just listen to what you're telling yourself.

[Danley]

I've had a tone of good driven tones over the years without really trying; right now I have my Vox (of all things) set with the master dimed and the gain low/wherever, using a Fulltone Distortion Pro (tons of knobs, so sort of like an EQ pedal) with the gain on max, bass quite a bit up, and treble slightly down. Guitar controls maxed, in drop D. Thick and heavy despite not necessarily being what you would think to use for the tone I'm ultimately getting.

I guess if you aren't used to Jazzmaster pickups, giving your setup just a bit of 'hair' first and slowly adding will help you learn how to manage the way it distorts.