Middle pickup for Modern Player Jazzmaster

[lborl]

This is my Modern Player HH Jazzmaster.



I've had it for about a year. Theoretically I couldn't be happier with it - admittedly it isn't the Jaguar I've been after since I was 16, but it is like a cross between that and the Gibson SG I've also been after since I was 16. The (second-hand) pickups I've dropped in are a Bare Knuckle Cold Sweat (neck) and Painkiller (bridge), with a 'Freeway' 6-position toggle switch wired for coil tap on the left side, humbucking on the right. It sounds and plays great (personal lack of talent notwithstanding) and I was content in the thought that there was nothing left in it for me to upgrade short of maybe getting those Tronical robot tuners for it one day (because I'm lazy).

But a couple of months ago I saw this picture on Tatsuya Yoshida's Facebook page:



And ever since then I've been haunted with the idea of putting a middle-position single coil pup in there somehow. The coil tap sound I have is so good it has me obsessed that I'm missing out by not having a 'proper' single coil to choose from. Also it's gonna be a long time before I can scrape together enough cash or credit for the inevitable Fender-branded Jaguar I have to one day get out of my system, but I reckon I could just about manage £30-40 on a single Jaguar pickup on eBay between now and Giftmas. I'm aware that other people have used Teisco 'gold foil' pickups or lipsticks as extra Jazzmaster pups but there's a kind of special mystique about the Jaguar sound for me - Rowland S Howard was the first guitarist I ever started consciously trying to imitate - and also the look of the thing.

But. I'm also starting to lean to the idea of putting a Mustang pickup in there instead. I like the sound of Mustangs (and Duo-Sonics) too, though not the small body size of them. And now I'm confused:

JAGUAR PROS: looks cool, may briefly satisfy deep-ingrained Jaguar obsession for another year

JAGUAR CONS: non-standard routing and mounting, less choice of replacement pickups if I decide I don't like the sound of it for whatever reason

MUSTANG PROS: aesthetically will blend better with black scratchplate (hidden polepieces), am way less likely to buy a Mustang than a Jaguar when next I have 'new guitar' money, standard fitting will allow swapping for any other aftermarket singlecoil if I decide I don't like the sound of it for whatever reason

MUSTANG CONS: may not satisfy deep-ingrained Jaguar obsession for another year

I should add that I envisage having the middle pickup wired directly to the output jack via an on/off DPDT switch - and possibly visiting the tone pot on the way, though I'm not decided about that. By bypassing the volume pot I'll be able to have the middle pickup on its own with the other two pickups dialled to zero as well as all my existing configurations plus middle pickup option. I doubt I'll be wanting to turn the volume down on the middle pickup since the humbuckers I have already - Painkiller especially - are pretty hot. The pots I have in there are the CTS '550k' ones Bare Knuckle recommend on their site. I'm vaguely aware that Jaguar pickups natively go through 1meg pots and Mustang ones through 250k. Do you think I should put a resistor of some kind in there? I also thought about making the middle pickup switch an on/off/on type with a 'strangle switch' resistor option as the second on position.

Can anyone advise or talk me out of this?

[badform]

If you can do it, go for it!

I'd go with a mustang/strat pickup, mainly for tonal variety, and because you'll have lots of options if you keep changing out the pickup chasing the sound you want.

How are you going to activate it? Replace toggle with a 5-way? Push/pull pot?

The first thing that came to mind was the old Les Paul Studio Lite M3...

[lborl]

How are you going to activate it? Replace toggle with a 5-way? Push/pull pot?

I'm looking at dropping in a new toggle switch for it that handy little space between the tone pot and the jack socket. I don't want to change pots to push/pull ones because I already paid out about 18 quid (after shipping) for these fancy CTS Bare Knuckle 'custom audio taper' ones.

What kind of toggle switch is another thing to obsess about though. I used to have a Patrick Eggle New York that had a kind of flat blade toggle switch I liked so possibly one like that. This one has currently captured my imagination because it's red. That's only an on/off though so I'd have to abandon the 'strangle switch' idea with that. Then there are these 3-way non-red ones...

[Steadyriot.]

Strat, Mustang and Jaguar pickups are basicly the same design and using any of them would get you in the balpark of that sound.
Like the idea of a middle pup on that Jazzmaster!

[s_mcsleazy]

here is what i would do. the guitar already looks good, right? well why not get a hot single coil and hide it under the pickguard and have a tiny toggle to turn it on and off? think of how esquires have their pickups under the guard and do the same thing. plus that way, if you get a clean route under the pickguard then you dont loose so much in the way of tone.

[eligit]

i accidentally posted a similar topic just now...my apologies for forum clutter.

I'm installing a novak strat pup in an avri 62 JM in the middle position and curious as to the ideal placement (after noticing Nels Cline had his closer to the bridge pup than the neck).

thanks again for the great forum. very informative.

[Guy Guyatone]

I've got three mini-humbuckers on my Warmoth 'split jazzmaster' with a on-off-on-reversed-phase DPDT switch exactly like the one you linked to (not the red one-it is too big) connected directly to the output jack. It just barely fits where you want to put it and works well, although with your six way switch you may have more tone options than you can remember. A bigger problem might be that the middle pickup gets in the way of your pick, depending on your playing style.

I don't quite understand how you would be able to have the middle pickup on with the neck and bridge pickups off and still be able to switch to having the middle pickup on with the neck and /or bridge pickup on at the same time using that kind of switch.

[lborl]

I've got three mini-humbuckers on my Warmoth 'split jazzmaster' with a on-off-on-reversed-phase DPDT switch exactly like the one you linked to (not the red one-it is too big) connected directly to the output jack. It just barely fits where you want to put it and works well, although with your six way switch you may have more tone options than you can remember. A bigger problem might be that the middle pickup gets in the way of your pick, depending on your playing style.

That's good to know. Yeah - right after linking to the red switch I looked properly at the listing and saw the measurements of it. Shame, there's something about a red switch

I'm hoping using a bridge pickup in the middle position will let me keep it relatively low to the scratchplate if not flush with it because of the slightly hotter winding. I did consider what s_smcsleazy recommends about an Esquire-style hidden pickup but for me part of the project is to pimp it visually as well as trick it out - there is a lot of space on Jazzmasters that it seems should be filled with something, whether it's pickups or stickers. The translucent red on this one is too pretty to cover up with stickers though. (Conveniently enough, the only place the finish isn't beautiful on this guitar is right between the existing pickups underneath the scratchplate - it's all clouded and messed-up like someone in the factory spilled superglue on it. Which is why I'm not balking so much at the idea of taking a router bit to that area).

I don't quite understand how you would be able to have the middle pickup on with the neck and bridge pickups off and still be able to switch to having the middle pickup on with the neck and /or bridge pickup on at the same time using that kind of switch.

The six-way switch I have at the minute is basically:

1 Coil-tap neck
2 Coil-tap neck + bridge
3 Coil-tap bridge
4 HB neck
5 HB neck + bridge
6 HB bridge

It works like a regular 3-way but tilted left for 1-3 and right for 4-6. There's also a master volume and master tone. With the new middle pup wired to a toggle for middle pickup on/off/on ('strangled') and straight to the output jack like yours (though again I may run it through the tone pot too) the 'master' volume will now only handle the original humbuckers. With middle pickup on I could turn the volume of the humbuckers right down to have the middle pickup alone, or up again to merge them.

It does mean there'd be no 'instant' switching between having humbuckers on and off - I'd have to spend a half a second rolling the volume dial - but I guess worse things are happening in the world.

[Guy Guyatone]

When you turn down the other pickups that would affect the volume of the middle pickup as well. (Unless you isolated the pickups with transformers: it can be done but isn't practical). Here are some options:

1. You could have a SPDT mini-toggle switch alternate between ON (middle+6 way output with the volume and tone controls) and ON (middle only straight out), but not with the ability to blend the middle pickup with the output from the 6 way switch. 8 different combinations

2. You could have a DPDT mini-toggle alternate between ON (6 way output) and ON (6 way output + middle), both with volume and tone. 12 different combinations.

3. A Jazzmaster-style toggle switch would allow you to have ON (6 way output only) and ON (6 way output + middle) and ON (middle only), with volume and tone only when the 6 way output was enabled or in all positions. That's a bigger switch, you might be able to fit it where your output jack is (and move your output jack to the side) but it would be a tight fit. 13 different combinations.

4. 6 way output as it is now, with a DPDT ON-OFF-ON(reversed phase) switch in parallel, the way I did it. 18 different combinations, but no middle only option.

If the middle pickup was set low it probably wouldn't be heard much compared to your other pickups.

Esquires don't have a 'hidden' pickup, they only have one pickup—the bridge, with special switching.

I think the third pick up is a great idea but it would be a good to have a schematic that you know works before you start routing.

[lborl]

Well, I finally got around to this.

I staved off the urge for a little while by fitting one of those Seymour Duncan triple-shot things to the neck pickup - the Cold Sweat in parallel seems to fit better with the Painkiller thanks to that. I've got to say how great the after-sales service is for that Free-Way switch - twice Alasdair's sent me a custom designed wiring diagram for nothing when I asked, including one incorporating the Triple-Shot. He's awesome.

Anyway, looking at all those old Teiscos recently and wishing I had a Jazzmaster-sized one made me realise I could kill two kids with one rock by just getting an old Teisco pickup for this. I also found these great Cameo pickups that look vaguely Jazzmasterish, can be surface-mounted if you take the back off and have the same chrome finish as my current humbuckers.



I may not be able to afford a Spectrum 5 right now but I can afford an extra mono jack to wire in as a secondary output jack - figured I'd wire it to just the Teisco pup so that I could either plug into two amps at once with different effects chains for shoegazey sort of business, or have a sort of stipped-down singlecoil 'Jazzmaster Junior' option. Unfortunately when doing the wiring I forgot to ground this output so I've had to tape it over until it's time for the next string change (the locking tuners I use on this pinch right into the string so that when you take them off you can't put the same set on again).

I also wired the middle pickup to an on/off switch on the main circuit, and then covered it under one of those flip top missile switch covers because I've been wanting to do that for a long time - who doesn't want a switch like that? To simplify the hookup I just connected the pickup to a 3x2 bit of veroboard with one track each for positive and negative: pickup in, output to switch (main circuit), secondary output to mono jack. All works.

I did have to cut a hole in the scratchplate though to get the new pup low enough not to catch on the strings. Cutting a pickguard is hard, I bought a jigsaw and everything, carefully laid down tape and all that but it still looks like I've just hacked it out with a craft knife. Still, I've discovered all that business can be easily covered up with a hairband.

Apart from my forgetting to ground the second output, I'm amazed how well it's turned out. I had been a bit concerned about how the low output Teisco singlecoil might be completely drowned out by the Bare Knuckles on the main circuit, but if anything it might be more the other way around. With the middle pickup on every position sounds more rounded and growly in a way that's different to just rolling off the tone knob - I don't know how to explain it, but with that on to me it sounds like a proper Jazzmaster now.

The irony is that for all my trying to be different and experimental about this I've essentially just recreated the rhythm / lead circuit idea of the original Jazzmaster

[Embenny]

Personally, I have never liked the sound of any middle pickup on its own. I only really ever use them for the N+M/M+B strat "quack" tones. In fact, even on a strat, I add a switch so that I can get neck+bridge, and use that far more than the standard N+M/M+B combos, so maybe I'm the wrong person to be commenting on this.

Do you like those strat "quack" tones? It would be worth doing, then. But I find that a middle pickup on its own lacks the sweetness of the neck or the bite of the bridge...and rather than being a balance between the two, I find that it just doesn't do any of those roles really well. I've subtracted middle pickups from several guitars and have always been happier.

Just some food for thought!

Also, if you're after "real" single coil tones, I will say that a Rio Grande Tallboy humbucker, or any humbucker with at least one alnico-slug-polepiece coil, will split to an amazing and authentic single coil tone in the neck or bridge...and doing that with the Free-Way would give much more usable single coil tones than what you're proposing. In fact, a Tallboy humbucker when split is just a straight-up wicked vintage-output strat pickup. That's the way I'd go, personally.

[lborl]

Heh thanks but I've done it now it does so happen that I really do like thin and out-of-phase sounds though which probably explains the fascination of this for me generally. I like those kind of post-punk guitar sounds.

[Embenny]

Heh thanks but I've done it now it does so happen that I really do like thin and out-of-phase sounds though which probably explains the fascination of this for me generally. I like those kind of post-punk guitar sounds.

Whoops! That was stupid of me.

It looks great with all the chrome btw. Glad you're happy with it!