2023 Fender Japan FSR Heritage Jazzmaster (BLACK)

[forestgreen]

Appreciate the write-up on a really cool lesser seen model. Surprised by the lack of even shielding paint. Very keen to see how it looks when the witch-hats come in!

[sunburster]

Surprised by the lack of even shielding paint

There's probably shielding paint in there, but it's hard to see because the body is black as well.

[BoringPostcards]

Thom Yorke has one just like that, which he used a lot during the OK Computer era.

From what I could gather from a google search, his is a black '63 body paired with a '65 neck with dots & binding, without a matching headstock.

Ah, yes. Been a hot minute since I’ve seen any footage of him using it.

[atomicwash]

What a looker! Thanks for the review.

[sunburster]

Fender Japan have some of these for sale on their website, for anyone interested:

https://www.fender.com/ja-JP/electric-g ... 00306.html

You have to use a proxy service to buy one, though.

I sold mine awhile back. Loved the look and the light weight, but once I got an American Original Jazzmaster and A/B'd the two, I found the AO pickups sounded WAY better. Far more articulate, with more clarity and interesting harmonics. The Japanese pickups do sound "good", don't get me wrong, and I was OK with them before I played the AO. In addition, the Japanese pickups, though said to be 'built to American spec' still have the Japanese pole spacing, which is annoying as American covers won't fit the pickups and American pickups and most boutique pickups won't fit the covers. The Heritage also has an Audio volume pot instead of the standard Linear on American JMs, making the volume knob pretty useless for me (it was already pretty much silent at 6-7 on the knob). The need to change the trem, change the bridge, shield the cavities, change the volume pot, and change the pickups made me think "this is not worth my time or money, I'd rather just sell this and keep the AO". The AO is perfect as-is, and putting all that work in the Heritage would make it similar in price in the end (but without the nice G&G hardcase!).

[MrJagsquire]

Shame, but I do understand your reasons. It's easy to get sucked into doing 'upgrades' only to find in the end you could have bought the guitar you really wanted in the first place. Done it myself, though sometimes it works out OK as I could only get what I really wanted from custom shop. Other times I could have bought a MIM with pretty much the same spec as I ended up with, probably used for even less than I spent.