Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

For help with setups and other technical issues.
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Snowmonkey
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Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by Snowmonkey » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:50 pm

Morning all, I have the Player Jazzmaster with two splittable humbuckers. I didn't really know about offsets before I got it, but saw it locally at a great price and couldn't resist.

I have swapped out the bridge for a staytrem which functions well *nearly all the time. And the guitar has now become my favourite for feel and playability.

I do however, find myself wishing that I had proper JM pickups. So my question is, does anyone know if it would be possible to get a different pickguard and just swap out the humbuckers for real JM pickups without doing any re-routing. I am being a little lazy by not looking under the pickguard myself, but to be honest, I wouldn't know what I was looking for. I wouldn't need the rhythm section, just two pups, and my exisiting 3 way switch, tone and volume controls...

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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by Snowmonkey » Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:34 pm

Ah, I may have just answered my own question. It seems as though real JM pickups screw into a woodblock underneath the pick guard. From looking online, my JM body won't have those blocks...
Last edited by Snowmonkey on Fri Apr 30, 2021 12:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by andy_tchp » Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:40 pm

Snowmonkey wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:34 pm
Ah, I may have just answered my own question. It seems as though real JM pickups screw into a woodblock underneath the pick guard.
There's no 'woodblock'... they screw directly into the cavities and are spaced 'up' with strips of foam/neoprene rubber (like weatherstripping) to provide tension against the screws.
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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by Snowmonkey » Fri Apr 30, 2021 12:04 am

OK, thanks. It doesn't look like a simple swapout then.

I guess I should start looking for JM style pickups in humbucker format....if they exist.

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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by BoringPostcards » Fri Apr 30, 2021 6:29 pm

Snowmonkey wrote:
Fri Apr 30, 2021 12:04 am
OK, thanks. It doesn't look like a simple swapout then.

I guess I should start looking for JM style pickups in humbucker format....if they exist.
I am pretty sure Curtis Novak does a HB sized JM pickup. Take a look at his site.
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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by Snowmonkey » Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:21 pm

BoringPostcards wrote:
Fri Apr 30, 2021 6:29 pm
I am pretty sure Curtis Novak does a HB sized JM pickup. Take a look at his site.
Thanks, will do!

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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by Lost In Autumn » Sun May 02, 2021 4:32 am

I don't know of anyone who does a JM Style, humbucker-sized pickup; I'm not sure it's even physically possible. That said, there are other options. Novak makes a PAF-sized Wide Range Humbucker that likely is pretty great sounding and his Goldfoil GTX HMB pickups will deliver plenty of high-end sparkle and zing. I have a Standard Series HH Jazmaster and I went a slightly different route: I put a Lindy Fralin P92 in the neck, which is a cross between a wide range humbucker and a p90. it has a fat, p90-esque bottom end, with fender-esque highs. In the bridge, I'm using a PAF-sized Filtertron from ZR pickups which really has a lot of Jaguar/Jazzmaster-like high end twang, but with a robust low end. I loathe the sound of humbuckers, I find them dull and dark sounding, but this combo gets and incredible range of tones- the middle sounds a lot like the neck of a normal offset.
Image
other options include Fralin's Big Single & Twang Master

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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by ChrisDesign » Sun May 02, 2021 3:10 pm

Change your tone pot. As standard, it's 250k with a 0.1 uF cap. This drains tone! Put in a 500k pot and 0.047 or 0.022 uF cap and your ears will thank you! I did this as high-end sparkle appears where it was dull before.
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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by Snowmonkey » Sun May 02, 2021 9:17 pm

Thanks all, some good tips.

Re: changing the tone pot - do you mean in conjuction with changing the pickups? Or will just swapping out with the existing pickups make a difference?

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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by ChrisDesign » Sat May 29, 2021 2:07 pm

You need to match your wiring to your pickups.

If you’re staying with humbuckers, put in a 500k tone pot

If you’re going single coils (if possible) put in a 250k volume pot.

Either way, a treble bleed is a great upgrade to your volume pot. You can also add a bypass filter to your split-coil if you're using humbuckers to get a better split tone. If you're in the UK I can build you one.
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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by Flurko » Sun May 30, 2021 5:27 am

Regarding "jazzmaster pickups that fit in HB routes", I remembered forum member parry had something of this ilk in his Epiphone, and behold :
parry wrote:
Sat Aug 25, 2018 6:31 am
Thanks guys. I'm going to investigate the Compton a bit farther down the road. But for now...
Finished it, last night - it plays BEAUTIFULLY :w00t:

Image

The pickups are custom wound single coils in humbucker format by a winder called Buddha on Reverb. They're wound to as close to JM-spec as he could get 'em. Because they're not tall like a P90, but thin like a JM pup, I worried about having enough height adjustment. Turns out, it's perfect. The tops are open like a tele bridge - which I wasn't sure about at first... but I really like how they look. Wired up to 1m pots (vol/tone - the other two are dummies), they sound great. I'm super happy with them.

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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by MayTheFuzzBeWithYou » Sun May 30, 2021 9:11 am

David Barfuss (a German pickup winder) offers a Single-Bugger that can be configured as a Tele-, Strat-, or Jazzmaster pickup in a HB enclosure.
I'm interested in them myself - and close to pull the trigger... I'm planning to put them into a Jaguar routed for Humbuckers.

https://www.barfuss-pickups.de/humbucker-p-90/ - about in the middle of the side - right before it starts with P90 sized pickups.

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Re: Player Jazzmaster HH...under the hood

Post by Embenny » Sun May 30, 2021 11:30 am

Bootstrap Pickups wind both PAF- and P90-shaped pickups with alnico rod magnets. They're as close as any pickups can get to JM coils in the slightly estricted footprint. Made in the USA and priced absurdly well, I'd start there. A lot of the tone of a JM comes from the bridge, vibrato, scale length and pickup position. I'd be absolutely shocked if the Bootstraps in a JM could be differentiated from "true" JM pickups by a listener, since JM pickups themselves vary so widely.

I mean, lots of people find that the Classic Player and JMJM with screw-pole P90-style construction sound plenty Jazzmaster-like, or the V-mods with the taller and narrower coils. The Bootstrap Skookums have the traditional magnet style and a wide coil shape (just slightly less wide and flat than a vintage spec pickup, is all), so the ingredients are almost all there.

FYI, you'd need to either file the corners of the pickup routs a tiny bit or get a new guard though, since they're shaped like covered PAFs, which have more squared corners than the uncovered PAF rout used on the stock pickguard.
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