New to the forum

[Ensono]

I've been playing guitar for over 30 years, but am fairly new to offsets.

What made me want to start playing was watching John Frusciante in the "Under The Bridge" video--that sealed the deal for me. Of course, he was playing a Sherwood Green Jag.

Ironically, my first proper electric was a Strat, probably because they were more available, and because offsets were far too mysterious and esoteric for me. A friend of mine also had a Jag-Stang that we could never keep it in tune, so I wrote off offsets as temperamental.

I played in multiple bands and projects throughout my 20s and early 30s, but never with an offset. My playing days came to an end in my mid 30s, and I ended up selling most of my gear.

Now that I'm in my mid-40s, I'm rediscovering guitar and music.

It started with buying a Strat in early 2023, and then I bought a Squire CV 70s Jaguar a few months later.

So far, I've installed an AVRI vibrato and a Staytrem bridge.

My latest plan was to put together a Warmoth Jag in Sherwood Green and a reverse headstock to call back to the John Frusciante moment (with my own twist), but I've decided to put on the brakes and try to get to know Jags a bit more before I spec out my own.

I will likely turn my current Jag into a testing canvas for building my custom Warmoth, which means that I'll throw more money into it than its actual cash value.

But I'm ok with that, because it's an experiment to get me to my ultimate goal.

Next up is a set of Bootstrap pickups and likely a wiring harness from Hoagland to really upgrade the electronics. I haven't seen many posts here about the Bootstrap Big Spotted Cats, so I'll post my findings here when I know enough about them.

Again, the mods are more than the guitar is worth in cash, but I have a plan....

I'm thinking in a perfect world, I'd be able to put a 3 way toggle and strangle switch to replace the 3 switches on the lead circuit, but that's for another time.

Hoping to learn more about offsets here, and meet other people who obsessed with them.

[crazyzeke]

Welcome, bienvenue etc

I've been playing guitar for over 30 years, but am fairly new to offsets.

I think I'd been playing about 10 years when I first found them, but looking back that still wasn't soon enough.

What made me want to start playing was watching John Frusciante in the "Under The Bridge" video--that sealed the deal for me. Of course, he was playing a Sherwood Green Jag.

Frusciante is still one of my favourite non-gaze Jag players, honestly. He owns some tasty vintage ones still. He answers the question "what if Nile Rodgers.. but Jag?" very well, and let's be honest his backing vocals and songwriting are great too.

Ironically, my first proper electric was a Strat, probably because they were more available, and because offsets were far too mysterious and esoteric for me. A friend of mine also had a Jag-Stang that we could never keep it in tune, so I wrote off offsets as temperamental.

JM/Jag with stock bridges are indeed temperamental. It's the Achille's Heel of the whole design. Good offsetness starts to happen when literally anything else is put on there - Mustang, StayTrem, ABR-1 or (best) Mastery.

Yeah my first electric was a Vintage Strat copy in 3-tone sunburst, with a pearloid white/cream kinda pickguard. Bought it cos it looked good, ended up Cobaining it at a school talent show or whatever it was. My current Jag is sunburst and had the pickguard switched to a pearloid one too, so it resembles that, the difference being it's a much, much better instrument - thank you Fender Japan

I will likely turn my current Jag into a testing canvas for building my custom Warmoth, which means that I'll throw more money into it than its actual cash value.

If I may, unless you're part building a Jag for the joy of it, you'd save money/time/effort by getting a Squier/Fender Jag of some kind in whatever colour body you like, then changing other parts to suit. Advice I'd give would be avoid Classic Players (they moved the vibrato plate and it messes with the offset core tone) and any Jags/JMs with Gibson-style "Adjustomatic" and stop tail; they lack character. You could get a good Sherwood Green Jag and change neck and/or other parts to suit - I bet a set of SD Antiquities would get you close to vintage tone without having to have a set custom wound at greater cost.

Bear in mind that John's vintage Jags will undoubtedly have vintage radius 7.25" necks, which is my personal favourite radius to pair with 24" scale guitars like this (so comfy). Most modern Fenders and a lot of modern repro necks for them will be between 9.5" and 12", so depending on how accurate you want to be to his Jags and/or what your hands prefer you might want to keep that in mind.

Next up is a set of Bootstrap pickups and likely a wiring harness from Hoagland to really upgrade the electronics. I haven't seen many posts here about the Bootstrap Big Spotted Cats, so I'll post my findings here when I know enough about them.

That's super interesting and I'd love to hear the results - never heard of that company before, and I've swapped a fair few pickups in and out of Jags in my time so I'm always up for seeing other combinations. Most people don't stick a Hot Rails in the bridge like I do though

I'm thinking in a perfect world, I'd be able to put a 3 way toggle and strangle switch to replace the 3 switches on the lead circuit, but that's for another time.

Closest you could do with OEM parts is the 4-way blade from the Johnny Marr Jaguar. Also worth noting his come with vintage correct 7.25" radius necks. You'd lose the thin switch but most people don't use it much anyway. I do because I run such hot pickups - I need it, and because I changed my lead circuit pots from 1M to 500K it actually cuts a lot more bass than stock as I never changed the stock cap. I like that because it's better for funk, one of my favourite genres to play and write in; I get more joy out of an awesome funk chord sequence with lots of mutes than I ever do busting out a fast solo.

Easiest mod to do to the diamond plate on the lead circuit is turn it round, if you haven't already. This way if you knock both switches down you'll have both pickups ON rather than OFF. I do a lot of fast strumming stuff so this has saved my arse on numerous occasions because I can never mute both pickups on vigorous downstrums. Puts the pickup switches the wrong way around and the thin switch furthest away from you, but it's a small price to pay to not look like an idiot when you're giving it some Townsend live

[jthomas]

Your journey is very familiar, grasshopper. Welcome to OSG!

[mattygbass]

I've been playing guitar for over 30 years, but am fairly new to offsets.

What made me want to start playing was watching John Frusciante in the "Under The Bridge" video--that sealed the deal for me. Of course, he was playing a Sherwood Green Jag.

Ironically, my first proper electric was a Strat, probably because they were more available, and because offsets were far too mysterious and esoteric for me. A friend of mine also had a Jag-Stang that we could never keep it in tune, so I wrote off offsets as temperamental.

I played in multiple bands and projects throughout my 20s and early 30s, but never with an offset. My playing days came to an end in my mid 30s, and I ended up selling most of my gear.

Now that I'm in my mid-40s, I'm rediscovering guitar and music.

It started with buying a Strat in early 2023, and then I bought a Squire CV 70s Jaguar a few months later.

So far, I've installed an AVRI vibrato and a Staytrem bridge.

My latest plan was to put together a Warmoth Jag in Sherwood Green and a reverse headstock to call back to the John Frusciante moment (with my own twist), but I've decided to put on the brakes and try to get to know Jags a bit more before I spec out my own.

I will likely turn my current Jag into a testing canvas for building my custom Warmoth, which means that I'll throw more money into it than its actual cash value.

But I'm ok with that, because it's an experiment to get me to my ultimate goal.

Next up is a set of Bootstrap pickups and likely a wiring harness from Hoagland to really upgrade the electronics. I haven't seen many posts here about the Bootstrap Big Spotted Cats, so I'll post my findings here when I know enough about them.

Again, the mods are more than the guitar is worth in cash, but I have a plan....

I'm thinking in a perfect world, I'd be able to put a 3 way toggle and strangle switch to replace the 3 switches on the lead circuit, but that's for another time.

Hoping to learn more about offsets here, and meet other people who obsessed with them.

Bootstrap makes great pickups! I recently installed their lakesurfer Jazzmaster pickups in a squier 40th anniversary vingtage edition that i,ve modded pretty heavily.
A friend of mine has a Jag with their big spotted cat pickups, and he really likes them. In fact he was the person that turned me onto Bootstrap pickups.He has tried quite a few of their different pickup types and he swears by them, even saying he liked the lakesurfer's as much as the Curtis Novak Jm-Fat,Jm-v set that he has in another Jazzmaster.