Squier Jaguar Vs Fender Jaguar
REVIEW – Fender’s new Player Series Jaguar guitar is begging to be picked up and played. What is it?The Jaguar body style is a classic offset-body design that moves some of the mass towards the tail resulting in a very comfortable playing position. Clearly a descendent of the legendary Jazzmaster, the Jaguar has as impressive artist roster including Bob Dylan, Joe Pass, Johnny Marr, John Frusciante, Kurt Cobain and Thurston Moore.
Squier Jaguar Vs Fender Jaguar Convertible
The new Player Series takes the heritage of the Fender brand, the authentic Fender sound, and adds accessibility and playability for this generation. In our house, there’s a bit of a role reversal as I’m into punk/metal/alternative and he regularly schools me in music that was clearly influenced or was created by musicians of my dad’s era. Funnily enough, the last guitar I purchased for myself ( ’95?) was a Fender Jag-Stang, a hybrid of Jaguar and Mustang bodies, so I was excited to see what’s new in a 2018 Jaguar. Another very visual aspect of the Jaguar is the floating tremolo which allows you to modulate all six strings at once for some very cool effects. The tremolo arm pushes into place and stays where you leave it; a great improvement over the older style that required screwing the arm into place or using an Allen key to lock it down.The humbucking bridge and single coil neck pickup give you a wide variety of tone to play with and the 3-position slider makes it really easy to switch between them or run them both. There’s also a slide switch up high above the neck pickup.
This effectively lets you split the bridge humbucker if you want to get more of a single coil sound out of it.SetupThe Jaguar effectively comes ready to use out of the box. A quick look-over confirmed everything was adjusted well with action set neutrally without any fret buzz. All that was left was to remove the plastic film from the pickguard, a bit of string stretching and a final tune. Ready to roll. PerformanceThere’s a bit of a role reversal as I’m into punk/metal/alternative and he regularly schools me in music that was clearly influenced or was created by musicians of my dad’s era. Funnily enough, the last guitar I purchased for myself ( ’95?) was a Fender Jag-Stang, a hybrid of Jaguar and Mustang bodies, so I was excited to see what a 2018 Jaguar would be.My son has been playing jazz guitar for a good number of years now. His guitars have all been arch-tops and semi-hollow designs which lend themselves well to his music.
He’d been eyeing a Telecaster recently and when the opportunity came up to review a Fender and to select between a Stratocaster, Telecaster and a Jaguar, I was a little surprised that it was the Jaguar he was drawn to. A buddy he plays in a band with gave him a bit of grief when he found out he passed up a Tele “Ugh, I hate that guitar. It’s so hipster”. On seeing the Jaguar in person a week or so later; “I completely change my mind, that is sick!”Let’s jump into some videos so you can listen to how the Jaguar plays. The audio on these is recorded through the Roland Go-Mixer directly to an iPhone 8 with no effects.
I've had tons of vintage modifieds and did own a classic player one time. I've been meaning to post a thread about this but I'd stay away from any of the VMs. They're not thin at all, in fact they're muddy sounding with a lot of midrange.
I've mixed and matched the parts on several of them including necks and pickups and that tone always stays with the cheap basswood body. I really love the necks on them though so I stick them on nicer bodies. Seriously the necks are better than even MIA standards in my opinion. I've had tons of vintage modifieds and did own a classic player one time. I've been meaning to post a thread about this but I'd stay away from any of the VMs.
They're not thin at all, in fact they're muddy sounding with a lot of midrange. I've mixed and matched the parts on several of them including necks and pickups and that tone always stays with the cheap basswood body. I really love the necks on them though so I stick them on nicer bodies. Seriously the necks are better than even MIA standards in my opinion. Click to expand.Honestly, my suspicion has been that the basswood body is responsible for the tonal elements I'm not liking. I don't want to start yet another raging discussion about tonewoods. I just know that in my experience, wood choice has made a big difference in sound and feel.
It's the main reason that I've been leaning towards the CP Jag over the VM.I also do like the sound of the beefed up CP pickups from video demos. The neck pocket angle and the relocated trem cavity sound like very good improvements too.And wouldn't you know, I happen to have a Tune-o-matic replacement roller bridge just lying around.I think it might have to be the CP Jag.