2014 Troy Van Leeuwen Signature Jazzmaster

[docleelau]

Awesome - Thanks to both of you!

[edva]

Old old old but wanted to bring my thoughts on this awesome guitar.

Bought mine 10 months ago at a local store here in Tampere, Finland. I had been searching for a jazzmaster for a while but this thing just fit in my hand perfectly. I would have paid the price for the neck alone Overall the best jazzmaster and a guitar I have ever played.
Haha didn't even know who TVL is at the time and still not a fan of QOTSA...

Changes I made
- Pickguard and upper pickup switch - anodized gold pickguard with a regular JM switch - The stock switch is just too easy to flip by accident.
- Pot hats to regular strat style - Mine are metallic, made by Schaller (these will not fit the stock solid shaft pots as the pole is too large for the hole).
- Mastery tremolo - The action is way better than Fender stock and IMHO justifies the price.
- Mastery bridge - Tried the Staytrem, but it didn't fit the holes at all. It was too loose and wiggly to maintain tuning when trem was used. Btw TVL jazzmaster fits the Mastery M1 as the bridge slots are the same as AVRI. hah even TVL himself uses Mastery trem and bridge in his guitars. Maybe Mastery wasn't ready to for the demand the production of these guitars would need. Also price would have been way too high for a MIM guitar I think this needs a Mastery bridge and it's really worth it.
- Lollar JM P90s - Stock AVRI pups were too cold and clean for the kinda rock I play.
- Lead circuit tone cap to 0.033nf regular vintage type slim cap (don't remember what the stock value was) and 0.022nf TAD Mustard style cap for the rhythm circuit.
- 50s wiring - In the lead circuit tone pot the capacitor is soldered between the left lug of the tone pot and the middle lug of the volume pot. Also the middle lug of the tone pot is soldered to ground. This should help maintain highs when backing down on volume and brighter tone. Like this:
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/ ... telecaster
NOTE Otherwise regular Jazzmasters wiring for the vol pot is:
- right lug to lead pickup switch
- middle lug to rhythm pickup switch
- left lug to ground.
Here:
https://reverb.com/news/upgrading-jazzm ... our-offset

I play through Vox HW-series amps so I tend like a bright tone with vox type highs and sparkle.

A few word about the pots, wiring etc and the massive drop of tone that occurs when rolling back the volume pot in the lead circuit even just a tiny bit. If you like the tone roll off, don't change anything. Simple.

I hated it and thought that changing the 500k stock pots to 1meg would make a difference as it is the regular JM value. It didn't. Then I changed the vol pot to linear and tone audio taper. Again, no difference. Then went for 500k CTS audio taper pots as the local guitar tech suggested saying they will let through all the tone the P90s produce (what ever that's supposed the mean?) and it wouldn't benefit from 1meg pots. While installing the cts pots I rewired everything inside the guitar with a proper vintage type cable with a fabric/wax coating. Dunno if the the tone roll off happened due to poor stock wiring/soldering or the cts pot's just worked their magic but rolling down the volume maintains highs like on star or tele now. So happy it finally fix the main issue I had with this otherwise lovely instrument.

I also tried some different treble bleeds but "meh", not what I wanted. Sound was ok but it always resulted in a bad taper. I do vol swells with the volume pot so no treble bleed for me. Also the slight loss of highs when rolling down the volume helps to blend better into the mix when playing rhythm sections.

So not much left of the stock Troy Van Leeuwen Jazzmaster. It is now my signature guitar

[Zeus]

Sounds great, would love to see some photos.

[señormisterioso]

So not much left of the stock Troy Van Leeuwen Jazzmaster. It is now my signature guitar

Photos?

[MattK]