Questions About Messy Jazz/Partsmaster I'm Trying to Upgrade

[Pavol Stromcek]

There's SO MANY good options. I'm stupidly happy with the Sunday Handwound sets I have (a custom '59-inspired set Tim wound me for Jazzmaster, Woodies for Jazzmaster, and Wandas for Jaguar). Curtis Novak is also killing it with his winds. People seem to like the Black Bobbins that Lollar makes, too.

Yeah, I've been researching this a little. The three that seem to crop up the most in my online research are Curtis Novak, Lollar, and Duncan Antiquity. I just want pickups that sound as close to stock 60s pickups as possible, though which ones—black vs. grey—I can't say, since I don't have firsthand experience with either of the original variants.

[GilmourD]

There's SO MANY good options. I'm stupidly happy with the Sunday Handwound sets I have (a custom '59-inspired set Tim wound me for Jazzmaster, Woodies for Jazzmaster, and Wandas for Jaguar). Curtis Novak is also killing it with his winds. People seem to like the Black Bobbins that Lollar makes, too.

Yeah, I've been researching this a little. The three that seem to crop up the most in my online research are Curtis Novak, Lollar, and Duncan Antiquity. I just want pickups that sound as close to stock 60s pickups as possible, though which ones—black vs. grey—I can't say, since I don't have firsthand experience with either of the original variants.

Greybottoms are going to be brighter sounding in response to the Jaguar being so popular for surf compared to the Jazzmaster. So, basically you're deciding between various levels of darkness/mellowness.

It's not going to be GIGANTIC differences, but various shades of Jazzmaster, the darkest being '58-style with AlNiCo II poles and plain enamel coil wire and the brightest being the '65+ with AlNiCo V poles and heavy Formvar coil wire that's wrapped a few less times around the bobbin, and varying shades in between.

I'd probably suggest listening to some music made with various vintage Jazzmasters and seeing which particular ones tickle your tonal fancy and then identifying what's going on with them.

[Pavol Stromcek]

I wanted to follow up on this. I just got my Jazzmaster back from the repair guy, and the Mastery bridge has been installed. I also had him fill and drill new holes in the (non-stock Allparts) neck's heel so that the end of it could be moved up against the body (there had been a wide gap), and to get the scale length correct.

He completely drilled out the sloppily done thimble holes and re-doweled/filled them to accommodate the Mastery thimbles.

The end of the neck has a slightly different contour than the neck pocket routing, so the neck's end doesn't abut it perfectly. But it still looks nicer without that canyon-sized gap, and it's obviously good to get the scale right so that the bridge saddles don't have to be all jammed forward to get the correct intonation (as was the case with the old bridge).

The one potential issue is that the repair guy opted to keep the two full-pocket Stewmac shims (.25° and 1°) in, but this meant that the Mastery bridge had to be raised higher than the recommended spec. He said he tried it with each shim individually, but he just wasn't able to get the action as low as I wanted without both of them (something about the neck heel being less thick than a standard JM neck [it's an old Allparts neck]). But so far the bridge is very quiet (I've heard that raising it higher can potentially introduce some rattling).

I can hear an immediate difference with the Mastery bridge—it obviously has that somewhat brighter sound that these are known for, and the strings ring out more clearly. I love the buzz- and rattle-free playing, and everything just feels quite stable. It's also nice to have a bridge that actually matches the fretboard radius.

At any rate, the next step is to replace the pickups, which are likely some Japanese variant (which aren't wound wide/flat like the originals, and sound more Strat-like). Right now I'm leaning towards the Curtis Novak JM-V neck/JM-fat bridge combo.

[SeymourG]

If you do get the Novak fat bridge pickup, I'd be curious to know what you think of it. I put one in my '62 AVRI Jazzmaster, and it seems a little icepicky at lower volumes, but maybe I just need to tweak my eq some.

[Pavol Stromcek]

If you do get the Novak fat bridge pickup, I'd be curious to know what you think of it. I put one in my '62 AVRI Jazzmaster, and it seems a little icepicky at lower volumes, but maybe I just need to tweak my eq some.

Right now I'm deciding between the aforementioned Novaks and the Lollar '63 JM set. In the end, it's kind of a stab in the dark because I have no way of hearing either of them in person before deciding. I'd like to think either one would be better than the current pickups.

I won't be able to buy the pickups until later in the year, as I have too many other expenses at the moment, but I will certainly post an update when I've got whichever new pickups I choose installed.