Jazzmaster action help

[Jdiaz87]

Hi all,

Newbie to Jazzmasters. I usually play les Paul’s and like a lower action when playing. New Jazzmasters action seems high even after adjusting bridge sides. Can lower action but fret buzz is present. Please help! Thanks.

[adamrobertt]

Well, first off, your action will likely never be as low as you're used to on a Gibson. Fenders generally have rounder fretboard radiuses and therefore the action can only be set so low before it buzzes. HOWEVER, you can get the action pretty low - just check your expectations for what you think "low" means. A low action on a Fender with a 7.25'' radius is going to look visually different than on a Gibson, just due to the mechanics of everything.

Secondly, the best way to get a low action on a Jazzmaster is to shim the neck and raise up the bridge. You want to angle the neck very slightly away from the body (Gibsons are set at a 3-5 degree angle from the factory) - this will allow you to raise up the bridge a bit. This will accomplish a few things.

• It will give you a better break angle from the bridge to the tailpiece. This will increase stability at the bridge and reduce buzzing.

• It will allow you to set the action lower on the higher frets - assuming the nut isn't cut too high you can probably get a pretty low action this way.

• It will increase the downward pressure that the strings are putting on the bridge (because the tension will be higher) which will help to further increase stability at the bridge.

Many people will tell you that you need to use a minimum string gauge of 11, but it's not really true. I've set Jazzmasters up to play beautifully with 10s if you prefer them.

I recommend the StewMac neck pocket shims above using a credit card or paper shim. Card/paper shims work, but they aren't ideal IMO. The shaped 1 degree shim should do the trick for you. Here's a link. https://www.stewmac.com/Materials_and_S ... uitar.html

[Embenny]

The only thing you can do in a situation is take the guitar to someone who knows what they're doing. It could be something as simple as a high fret or two that need leveling, too much/too little relief, incorrect radius set (if using traditional jazzmaster saddles), too little neck angle (as mentioned above).m, or qc curveballs like a hump in the neck (not something ive encountered on a Fender personally, but have seen on other brands).

Encountering buzzing is simply too generic a problem to diagnose sight-unseen online if you don't know how to inspect for these aspects of a setup.

[adamrobertt]

The only thing you can do in a situation is take the guitar to someone who knows what they're doing. It could be something as simple as a high fret or two that need leveling, too much/too little relief, incorrect radius set (if using traditional jazzmaster saddles), too little neck angle (as mentioned above).

Encountering buzzing is simply too generic a problem to diagnose sight-unseen online if you don't know how to inspect for these aspects of a setup.

Also good advice. Definitely wise to figure out exactly where the buzzing is coming from before you decide how to move forward.

[timtam]

Fender provides specific set up instructions for strats and teles (links below), but not jags and jazzmasters. One might speculate why that is ... perhaps they don't think people should be messing with them, at least when they could be directing set up business to Fender dealers. Even though it's not really any harder than setting up a strat.

https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/art ... -properly-
https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/art ... -properly-
The 34 page generic 'manual' that comes with Fenders contains less information ...
https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/Orig ... Manual.pdf

If you want to understand what might be wrong, before taking it to a tech, you'd need to measure the action and the relief, for example as described in the above tele link. Fender suggests measuring action at the 17th fret; lots of people prefer the 12th. Their recommended action for a 7.25" radius neck is 2mm on the bass side and 1.6mm on the treble side, with 0.3mm relief. Lower for flatter radius necks. The likely sources of buzz depends on when/where it is ... open and/or fretted ? Upper/lower/middle/all frets ? All strings ? Only when bending or playing hard ? Action lower than recommended ? Relief less/more than recommended ? etc

[adamrobertt]

Fender provides specific set up instructions for strats and teles (links below), but not jags and jazzmasters. One might speculate why that is ... perhaps they don't think people should be messing with them, at least when they could be directing set up business to Fender dealers. Even though it's not really any harder than setting up a strat.

https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/art ... -properly-
https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/art ... -properly-
The 34 page generic 'manual' that comes with Fenders contains less information ...
https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/Orig ... Manual.pdf

If you want to understand what might be wrong, before taking it to a tech, you'd need to measure the action and the relief, for example as described in the above tele link. Fender suggests measuring action at the 17th fret; lots of people prefer the 12th. Their recommended action for a 7.25" radius neck is 2mm on the bass side and 1.6mm on the treble side, with 0.3mm relief. Lower for flatter radius necks. The likely sources of buzz depends on when/where it is ... open and/or fretted ? Upper/lower/middle/all frets ? All strings ? Only when bending ? Action lower than recommended ? Relief less/more than recommended ? etc

Odd. They used to have a Jazzmaster one as far as I recall...

[timtam]

Fender provides specific set up instructions for strats and teles (links below), but not jags and jazzmasters. One might speculate why that is ... perhaps they don't think people should be messing with them, at least when they could be directing set up business to Fender dealers. Even though it's not really any harder than setting up a strat.

https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/art ... -properly-
https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/art ... -properly-
The 34 page generic 'manual' that comes with Fenders contains less information ...
https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/Orig ... Manual.pdf

If you want to understand what might be wrong, before taking it to a tech, you'd need to measure the action and the relief, for example as described in the above tele link. Fender suggests measuring action at the 17th fret; lots of people prefer the 12th. Their recommended action for a 7.25" radius neck is 2mm on the bass side and 1.6mm on the treble side, with 0.3mm relief. Lower for flatter radius necks. The likely sources of buzz depends on when/where it is ... open and/or fretted ? Upper/lower/middle/all frets ? All strings ? Only when bending ? Action lower than recommended ? Relief less/more than recommended ? etc

Odd. They used to have a Jazzmaster one as far as I recall...

There was the original circa 1960s one ...
https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/Orig ... Early).pdf

And there are some brief references to the JM/jag in Fender's generic set up instructions ...
https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/art ... -properly-

But the ones I think of are from non-Fender sources ...
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/ ... rs-jaguars
https://mmguitarbar.wordpress.com/2013/ ... guar-pt-1/
https://offset.guitars/the-goodies/sett ... lo-system/
https://offset.guitars/the-goodies/setu ... azzmaster/

[Larry Mal]

My feeling is that you can get the action as low as you can on a Gibson for all intents and purposes. I always do, anyway- I am a fiend for low action.

I also feel that the Jazzmaster is easier to set up than a Strat, personally. Still, not everyone knows how to set one up due to them being less common.

When you say "buzzing" on a Jazzmaster it could come from a lot of situations. One is which the strings might have less tension due to the action being low, and when the tension is lower then the saddles could buzz because they aren't set completely flat.

A lot of people might miss that kind of thing.

[OV7]

Shim the neck with a 1 degree shim from Stewmac and raise the bridge up with the center posts until you can get the action fairly level and low up and down the fretboard. Then fine tune the string height with the little tiny screws in the saddles. I've got the lowest buzz free action up and down the fretboard on my Jazzmaster that I've ever had on any guitar and the string height up and down is the same at the 1st fret as the 22nd fret. It took a lot of work to get it that way. The .5 degree shim wasn't steep enough to get it right, but you could start there. Shimming the neck won't make your guitar feel weird or sound different. It will just make it much easier to play once you fine tune everything.

Despite my pickups being a little too low after raising the bridge, this picture might give you an idea of how high you can jack it up. I used to have my bridge floored because I thought that was the way it had to be done(I was wrong).



Edit: I fixed the pickup height this morning and I can tell a slight boost in output and clarity for sure. Took me about 6 months to do it:)