Rothstein Series/Parallel mod on a JM?

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NEWOmusic
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Rothstein Series/Parallel mod on a JM?

Post by NEWOmusic » Wed Jun 21, 2017 5:47 am

Has anyone performed the Rothstein Series/Parallel mod? It seems like it would give you a lot of control over your sound but do you lose anything in the process, or does it sound less like a JM? FWIW, I have a Squier VMJM and I'm going to at least replace the pickups too (likely a gold foil Novak in the bridge and maybe a JMJM P90 in the neck, but I don't know about the latter), but I wanted to get some feedback about this mod before buying the parts and such.

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borntohang
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Re: Rothstein Series/Parallel mod on a JM?

Post by borntohang » Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:48 pm

I haven't specifically used the Rothstein diagram, but I've done pretty much the same mods to mine: series/parallel switching and a bass cut pot. I wouldn't like to say whether it still sounds like a jazzmaster or not because that's not really what I was going for - mine sounds more like a beefy telecaster with the mods I've made.

With that said, I don't think it would change the sound of a stock set-up so drastically that it wouldn't be the same guitar. It'd certainly give you some more options. The bass cut is basically a Jaguar strangle switch which I found really useful when in series to tame the bottom end. The series position sounds very much like a telecaster with a 4 way switch; a big, beefy, and open sound for rhythm work and great for thickening up leads.

One of my favourite tricks with a treble/bass EQ on a guitar is to roll both all the way off and run into an octave fuzz. Gives you a cool bandpass effect that's great for QOTSA style fuzzes and leads.

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