Jazzmaster and Jag pre cbs evolution till mid 60 ś

[timtam]

Case in point - I have two totally original slab board ‘62 Jazzmasters, one in Olympic white over alder and the other blonde over Ash.

They sound a little different and the only variable is the body wood.

With respect, you mean the wood is the only obvious physical difference you can see. If all the guitar science research done in the last several decades on real guitars has taught us anything, it's that there are many, many things that can affect the sonic output of solid-body electrics. Many not well-known. Many do not always exert a sonic effect, but can do so under the right conditions (or wrong conditions, if you don't like the sonic result). Unfortunately little of this research has been done with offsets, but there's little reason to believe they would less subject to such variable effects. There's plenty of measurement evidence for variable phenomena in the (long, thin, flexible, composite) neck leading to particular vibration frequency losses from the strings, along with evidence of things like bridges absorbing string vibrations in idiosyncractic ways due to manufacturing variations/wear patterns/setup, etc etc.
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/08/ ... s-on-line/

And of course we have very little data to be sure one way or the other on how manufacturing variability manifested in sonic differences between same-model pickups. There is however evidence for example that PAFs from same-generation vintage Les Pauls can have quite different bode (frequency response) plots (Helmuth Lemme). Again there's no reason to suspect that offset pickups would not be subject to similar potential variation (also given what we do know about the lack of QC in vintage pickup winding, chance variations in materials etc).

[Sauerkraut]

Guys, I agree that pickup´s make most of the sound, but wood influence IMHO very strong too. Just imagine, if it was so simple, we could get Fender vintage sound just by installing vintage specification pickups on a horrible Chinese guitar. Are you really sure that it would sound exactly as a jazzmaster from 1959? i don´t think so.

I think it would sound so similar as to be indistinguishable. If you made sure you transferred the same tuners, nut, frets, bridge, tailpiece and electronics (or at least the same spec pots) and made sure the pickups were mounted at exactly the same distance from the strings, I seriously doubt you'd be able to hear any difference.

I also doubt any set of Jazzmaster pickups from the same year will sound exactly the same for the reasons mentioned above by timtam. Remember they were handwound, so they were all a little different to begin with. Over time, as the magnets deteriorate at different rates depending on circumstances (humidity, heat, etc.), I'd expect that difference to grow bigger. However slight that difference might be, I'm convinced it has a far greater effect on the tone of a guitar than what type of wood the pickups are mounted on or the thickness or shape of that piece of wood (which I believe is close to completely irrelevant).

Or, as they conclude in that super interesting research paper timtam posted:

"For short notes, the guitar body has next to no influence on the electric sound, and for solid
body guitars no influence is felt for longer sustained notes, either. With hollow-body
instruments, in particular two effects are found: since especially the low-frequency notes are
(acoustically) radiated better, the corresponding decay times are shorter, and for the same
reason these instrument tend to feed back more quickly.

In terms of influencing the sound, the way/style of playing comes first, and strings and
pickups are next (in high quality guitars). We then get to the mechanical characteristics of the
bridge, and then to the frets (even the higher-most, possibly “never used” ones). That the
acoustical sound radiated by an electric guitar would give “complete” testimony about the
electric sound is a fairytale – albeit one that apparently cannot be silenced. Already Leo
Fender and Les Paul fully understood that the vibration-energy needs to remain in the string
as long as at all possible – as little as possible should be transferred into the body. Any
acoustic sound needs to be channeled through the body (to use layman’s terms) – so the
material it is made of is relevant, but – alas! – only for the acoustic sound. The guitar body
can influence the electric sound, but only in terms of absorption. Since it seems that every
guitar player demands a sustain as long as possible, the absorption needs to be as low as
possible. In that case, however, the influence of the body wood on the electric sound has to be
as small as possible, too. Knowing that, it is not surprising that an electric guitar build from
undefined, knotty platform-wood can fill the guitar player with enthusiasm due of its sound
(G&B 7/10) … because of its electric sound, that is, of course."

So between the two Jazzmasters Highnumbers posted in here, besides the pickups and distance to strings, I would expect the presence/absence of the buzz stop to be a major factor in what makes them sound different.

[Guitarman555]

It sounds like none of those have impact on sound if an offset guitar:
Sanding
Finish material (nitro, etc)
Big dents
Routings that were later repaired

[Embenny]

I'm firmly in the camp of believing that almost nothing on an electric guitar can be reliably heard in a blind test. "Educated" audiences can't even reliably pick out a Les Paul vs a Strat in the context of an actual song.

Even so, I think it's a bit reductive to say that body and neck woods have no audible impact. I think they're audible, just not in the sense of drastically changing the EQ of the electric tone. My experiences over the years have taught me that different woods (and hardware materials) really make the guitar feel different. Maple feels stiff and snappy, ash feels springy, mahogany feels soft and round. Yes, these things are far more audible acoustically than electrically, but the acoustic response of the instrument is something the player is interacting with. A snappy guitar and a warm and round guitar invite the player to dig into notes differently, and the way you play a guitar is the most audible thing of all. And in the case of necks and fretboards, especially, different woods can feel totally different to the player.

So, I think woods have a massive impact on the way a guitar sounds...but mostly because they have a massive impact on the tactile feedback the guitarist is receiving.

The truly audible difference between various eras of vintage Offsets comes from the electronics. The pickups changed specs multiple times. My flat-pole '62 Jag pickups were wound hotter than the staggered-pole pickups in my '66, and sound way, way darker. The '66 has what people would typically think of as "Jaguar tone" while the '62 is something else entirely.

I'm willing to bet that, in the case of the ash vs alder JM posted earlier, the number of turns on the pickups and the actual values of the pots are responsible for 99% of any audible differences. Two Fenders from the same year, even with identical woods, will always sound slightly different. Minute differences in pickup height, pickup wind, magnet strength, and potentiometer values all add up to something unique.

[JSett]

It sounds like none of those have impact on sound if an offset guitar:
Sanding
Finish
Big dents
Routings that were later repaired

Yeah, I don't think any of these you'd actually be able to hear at all on any solidbody guitar.

Or do red guitars sound better than black guitars? I hope not, I hate red guitars.

[Highnumbers]

Case in point - I have two totally original slab board ‘62 Jazzmasters, one in Olympic white over alder and the other blonde over Ash.

They sound a little different and the only variable is the body wood.

With respect, you mean the wood is the only obvious physical difference you can see. If all the guitar science research done in the last several decades on real guitars has taught us anything, it's that there are many, many things that can affect the sonic output of solid-body electrics. Many not well-known. Many do not always exert a sonic effect, but can do so under the right conditions (or wrong conditions, if you don't like the sonic result). Unfortunately little of this research has been done with offsets, but there's little reason to believe they would less subject to such variable effects. There's plenty of measurement evidence for variable phenomena in the (long, thin, flexible, composite) neck leading to particular vibration frequency losses from the strings, along with evidence of things like bridges absorbing string vibrations in idiosyncractic ways due to manufacturing variations/wear patterns/setup, etc etc.
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/08/ ... s-on-line/

And of course we have very little data to be sure one way or the other on how manufacturing variability manifested in sonic differences between same-model pickups. There is however evidence for example that PAFs from same-generation vintage Les Pauls can have quite different bode (frequency response) plots (Helmuth Lemme). Again there's no reason to suspect that offset pickups would not be subject to similar potential variation (also given what we do know about the lack of QC in vintage pickup winding, chance variations in materials etc).

TL/DR

I literally meant in terms of a spec sheet. How would Fender advertise these two guitars?

1) Olympic White, alder body
2.) Blonde, Ash body


That's the extent of the difference I mean. Otherwise, they're the same model, built in the same factory, in the same month, by the same people, using otherwise the same materials. Catch my drift, here?

Yes, if you bust out calipers and microscopes, I'm sure we could make a laundry list of differences, but that's splitting hairs for no reason.

[Highnumbers]

So between the two Jazzmasters Highnumbers posted in here, besides the pickups and distance to strings, I would expect the presence/absence of the buzz stop to be a major factor in what makes them sound different.

I was waiting for somebody to point that out.

Nope, this photo was the day the blonde one arrived. I had the Buzz Stop off an hour later, and a Mastery attached, making its setup identical to the Olympic White, at which point I compared the two.

So disregard the Buzz Stop

[Sauerkraut]

So to sum it up, it seems to me most of us would agree that of the OP’s mentioned 3 variables, only the 2nd affected the tone of the guitar, while the 3rd arguably affected the way the guitar feels.

And then some of us do believe wood (type and/or amount of pieces) makes a difference for the tone of solid-body electrics, while others believe it doesn’t. The latter position is backed up by scientific research, which has proven quite convincingly (imo) that it does not. The former is backed up by… marketing and myth-making? With all due respect, of course.

[Highnumbers]

So to sum it up, it seems to me most of us would agree that of the OP’s mentioned 3 variables, only the 2nd affected the tone of the guitar, while the 3rd arguably affected the way the guitar feels.

And then some of us do believe wood (type and/or amount of pieces) makes a difference for the tone of solid-body electrics, while others believe it doesn’t. The latter position is backed up by scientific research, which has proven quite convincingly (imo) that it does not. The former is backed up by… marketing and myth-making? With all due respect, of course.

Some folks are totally overthinking this.

The ash bodied Jazzmasters have a slightly different sound than alder. Just like an ash body Telecaster sounds different than alder.

You don't need some scientific research project, just plug the guitars into an amp and the difference is there. I'd chalk it up to innate differences between guitars, except there's a consistent difference between ash and alder, in my opinion and experience.

[Sauerkraut]

I’ve done that, with an ash and an alder Tele, and heard no difference. Of course, that’s just my experience. What I found did make a difference was the bridge: modern six saddle vs vintage three saddle. Changing bridges made a big difference in how the same Tele plays/feels, thus sounds. Make of that what you will (I like 3-saddle bridges a lot better)

I do find the research interesting though, because a lot is made out of different woods; a lot of money, a lot of dubious claims.

[Embenny]

And then some of us do believe wood (type and/or amount of pieces) makes a difference for the tone of solid-body electrics, while others believe it doesn’t. The latter position is backed up by scientific research, which has proven quite convincingly (imo) that it does not. The former is backed up by… marketing and myth-making? With all due respect, of course.

This post comes off as arrogant.

As someone who has spent his entire adult life reading scientific papers, I can tell you that it's important to match the strength of one's conviction with the strength of the evidence. I wouldn't say that that paper proves the point you think it does.

I took a Masters-level psychoacoustics course, and can tell you that timbre is messy as fuck. Entirely different guitars can fall within the JND (just-noticeable difference), which is why there was a decades-lpng consensus among listeners that David Gilmour played a Strat on The Wall when it was actually a Les Paul. But conversely, the tiniest of differences in feel (even from setup alone) can have a guitarist hearing a massive difference. Psychoacoustics is funny like that. Visual and tactile input literally changes what you hear (not just what you think you're hearing) because there are efferent (signal-sending) nerve fibers supplying the cochlea. They literally modify the signal that gets sent down the auditory nerve.

That paper isolated a few variables, but nothing close to approaching all of them. Don't let it make you overconfident in your opinion. Many a convincing paper has turned out to be completely wrong after their experimental method and/or analysis were shown to be inadequate.

That's why I preface my opinion on the matter by saying that the whole issue is messy, and involves countless variables. You don't know what you don't know. I could come across evidence tomorrow that completely changes my understanding of the issue. Try to keep an open mind, and to address people respectfully. Saying someone's opinions are based on marketing and myth-making isn't whitewashed by following it up with, "with all due respect."

[Guitarman555]

Does anyone has experience with interchanging original jaguar bridge, mastery bridge how does it affect sound? And btw how about mustang bridge? I have feeling mustang bridge doesn't sound very good on jazzy or jag...

[JSett]

Does anyone has experience with interchanging original jaguar bridge, mastery bridge how does it affect sound? And btw how about mustang bridge? I have feeling mustang bridge doesn't sound very good on jazzy or jag...

A Mastery is brighter and increases resonance/sustain.

A Mustang bridge basically sounds identical to the original bridges.

[Guitarman555]

Another one, worn out board with thin rosewood sounds same as board with original non refretted neck?

[Guitarman555]

Another one, repaired neck pocket sounds same as intact?