OffsetGuitars.com

Hello,

I recently got my first offset, a JMJM. Beautiful, comfortable and sounds good.

My only issue is that it sounds rather thin with my fuzz and other distortions, and I use my fuzz heavily. I was looking at demos with other pickups and sounds pretty amazing. I'm looking for a fuller and warmer sound than what my axe currently delivers.

I was looking into the Kinman Fatmaster pickups: they sound amazing and have zero hum but they're quite expensive.
Other option I was looking at are the Creamery Vintage Jazzmaster set. Haven't found many demos using fuzz but sounds good clean and costs about half what the kinman. I'm willing to spend an extra buck if the kinman are that good.

Any other recommendations at what to look at?

Thank you and glad to find this community

I'm puzzled because the SquierJMJM comes with P90 style JM pickups that sound quite low mid and bass heavy to my ears.. I had the guitar and sold it at some point and then missed the thick sound it had with distortion & fuzz so I bought a pair for a partscaster especially for the use with distortion.. have you tried raising the pickup closer to the strings?

There aren't many Jazzmaster pickups that sound fuller than the p90 variant.. maybe SD Quarterpounders? Haven't tried the Kinman JM pickups yet - the Creamery Vintage set will definately sound thinner than the JMJM p90 style pickups I would think... Anything "vintage" will sound more shrill and thin in the bridge normally.. especially with distortion.

I personally would recommend a humbucker style pickup - easiest solution if you don't mind the non vintage look is the adapter ring from shepherd&crow on shapeways. then you can put any duncan or dimarzio in that guitar which gives you an endless source of good distortion pickups

Or look for a Humbucker style JM pickup - there are a lot of options available nowadays from the various winders (Curtis Novak JM PAF, Rose Pickups Picasso etc etc)

Thanks for the reply.
I think it's not output what's missing, it's more like a rounder, full sound on the fuzz and distortion. More like a lion roaring. Right now it feels more flat and streamlined. My fuzz kind of sounds like a distortion.

For example, in this demo I think the CP JM nails the sound I'm looking for better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA0MJcSbAaI

Maybe it's the mids what I find lacking, not the low end?

I'll look on the humbucker variants. Also I'm taking my JM for a proper setup tomorrow to my local luthier, and will be installing some higher gauge (I'm thinking 10/52 ernie ball skinny top heavy bottom). Hopefully it's a matter of string gauge and i don't have to buy new pickups the guitar came with regular slinky I think, and I usually use heavy bottom.

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Lower your pickups and turn up the amp/pedals volume(s).

Remove some of the bass signal hitting the fuzz pedal.

Is the fuzz pedal 'first' in your signal chain? Fuzz should be first and only second if you are using a Wah pedal.

Also use your volume and tone pots on the guitar to push the tone around.

Here is JM himself showing how to stack pedals. I like how he says, "my amp tone is depressingly clean".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLjLBNmuO9c

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Thanks for the tips.

This is kind of the sound I’m after which I cant seem to get, at the 2:50 mark. I can pull it off with my epiphone sg but not with the jm (even tho its a jm in the vid).

https://youtu.be/ue4yXG4fkVw

Run the tone down a few notches from where you'd normally have it -- this'll lower the resonant peak and bring the most pronounced part of the EQ spectrum down a bit, letting you get a bit more of a humbucker-y sort of character.

On my Mustang, which is already darker than most JMs I've played, I run it at 5 to get something comparable to my humbucker guitars.

IronFoz wrote: ↑

Sun May 09, 2021 6:51 pm

Thanks for the tips.

This is kind of the sound I’m after which I cant seem to get, at the 2:50 mark. I can pull it off with my epiphone sg but not with the jm (even tho its a jm in the vid).

https://youtu.be/ue4yXG4fkVw

Which fuzz pedal are you using exactly?
Will give this a try with my JMJM pickup guitar...

NICQ wrote: ↑

Sun May 09, 2021 9:06 pm

IronFoz wrote: ↑

Sun May 09, 2021 6:51 pm

Thanks for the tips.

This is kind of the sound I’m after which I cant seem to get, at the 2:50 mark. I can pull it off with my epiphone sg but not with the jm (even tho its a jm in the vid).

https://youtu.be/ue4yXG4fkVw

Which fuzz pedal are you using exactly?
Will give this a try with my JMJM pickup guitar...

Blues driver BD-2 at 10 o-clock for my "clean tone", with a Germanium Fuzz Face (gypsy series) on top. It's one of my favorite combos ever, as the BD-2 gives a very punchy bass to the Fuzz Face which it lacks on it's own. All running through a Micro Dark Terror, EQ'd with a boss GE-7, where I cut the highs a bit for a smoother tone. For some reason I'm getting very trebly tones. Lowering the volume on the JMJM helped a bit. Still tempted to experiment with other pickups.

Guitar -> Wah -> Fuzz Face -> BD2 -> Modulations. Btw

HarlowTheFish gave you the best advice. Turn your tone pot down a notch, between 8 and 9. The fuzz tone will become less shrill. I find that this trick is pretty useful on offsets, not so much on other fender and almost useless with humbucker. It has another upside, it allows you to keep your amp eq steady while switching guitars because it sort of compensates for the increased brightness of JMs/Jags. Even though yours has p90 is worth a try.

Also: I don’t know the specs of the dark terror, but in my opinion a fuzz face sounds best into a cranked amp. If you can set your amp to crunch, try to leave the blues driver alone and go direct with the fuzz face.

Use at least 11 gauge strings and play around with your pickup height, the stock pickups should have a pretty awesome low mids, as people have pointed out they arent even jazzmaster pickups they are more like p90s, I enjoy them a lot. Also seconded that fuzzface, it should give you a nice fat fuzz sound and also gets nice string definition for chords if you do the roll off trick

An EQ pedal can do magic.

The video referenced above the guy is using waaaaaay different pedals to get those tones. He has an EQD Hoof Reaper, their Hoof (russian big muff style fuzz) on one side and the tone reaper (which is some type of tone bender) on the other side of it. Other than that he may be stacking them into the next pedal in that video which is a rare Devi Ever pedal called the War Horse that hasn't been made in a looooooooooong time. Even the modders who make newer Devi pedals or clones don't make it and it had a very distinct sound. That's not something I'd take lightly when considering what you want.

As everyone else here has aleady said, back that tone pot off a bit as well. I'm a heavy fuzz user (in particular of the Dino, Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine) style and I can definitely achieve those sounds even with vintage sounding pickups and the Squier JMJM pickups (I've owned one of these as well) can definitely get you in that range even easier or at least they should if there isn't something wrong with them (they're too low in the body, a wire is loose, etc).

Thanks everyone for the replies.

My guitar got setup. Changed the plastic nut for a bone nut, got calibrated, frets got levelled, changed the strings to ernie ball and higher gauge (0.010 / 0.052).

It really did wonders. I'm not really sure what did it but the guitar feels better, the bass rounder and the fuzz sound fuller, not so brittle.
Also, it really amazes how the tone changes when its not up to 10. I'm playing always around 6-7 now and adjusting my pedals and amp from there.

IronFoz wrote: ↑

Wed May 19, 2021 6:14 pm

Thanks everyone for the replies.

My guitar got setup. Changed the plastic nut for a bone nut, got calibrated, frets got levelled, changed the strings to ernie ball and higher gauge (0.010 / 0.052).

It really did wonders. I'm not really sure what did it but the guitar feels better, the bass rounder and the fuzz sound fuller, not so brittle.
Also, it really amazes how the tone changes when its not up to 10. I'm playing always around 6-7 now and adjusting my pedals and amp from there.

I was an everything-on-10 kinda guy for years, but since I got my Mustang, it's gotten a lot of use. I did my homework too and picked out a tone cap value that lets me keep it on 5 for my regular tone and go higher or lower if I want to.