IT'S DONE!!! (pimping my jag) - (Now with sound clip)

Elias78

Once again, Jag purist look away! 😆 Spent 2 weekends working on the modifications on my jag and I'm more or less done. Here are some pics to share:

'Stock' Olympic white jag (sjags pickups installed) next to Pimped-up Sunburst jag

Mods done:

-Routed another cavity (done by a guitar tech)

-Hot rails (bridge) pickup added + spare CIJ jag pickup cover installed

-Rewired and 3-way toggle switch added

-Changed to black pickguard (custom-made by another fella)

3-way toggle selects Hot rails/all pickups/AV pickups (with individual on/off switches). Bottom tone/vol controls AV pickups and top roller vol controls Hot rails. From the pics, you can see the CIJ pickup cover is kinda warped out of shape a little...this is due to me soaking it in boiling water in an attempt to reshape it a little to fit the Hot rails (CIJ cover is slightly smaller than the AV ones) 😆

Next phase will be doing a Hot rails parallel/series toggle using the top sliding switch and either aging the CIJ pickup cover or getting a AV pickup cover *lol*

shapeshifter

nice

BanditGuitarist1

Elias your sunburst jag has a really beautiful wood grain!

slythe_frontman

Lets see the routes please.

jellybelly

Thats cool as funk, and funk is pretty cool man. Is it a CIJ or an american jag? like bandit said its got a beautful grain, and the black pickguard looks ace!

Mad-Mike

Looks great, you got sort of a late 60's Yamaha guitar thing going on there with the pickup.

Now It's got me thinking about putting a black pickguard on my Jag..........

BanditGuitarist1

same here think someone can make me a black PG for a KDC Jag?

Elias78

Thanks fer the comments guys 😁

It's a CIJ jag (there's no American lefty jag save for the vintage ones). I'm pretty lucky to have obtained one with a nice wood grain cos I actually ordered it from Ishibashi and requested Mr Koichi (Ishibashi staff I liaised with) to help me pick the best-looking sunburst *lol*.

The black-white-black 3-ply pickguard was done by a friend locally and costs me roughly US$25+. The cavity routing job costs around US$30+ and was pretty nicely done although it was routed for a triangle bobbin (cos my Hot Rails is the older version and has a triangle bobbin). I'll try to see if I have pics of it, if not, I'll take some on the next mod). Finally, getting the 3-way toggle to fit into the that space was a tough job as I had to snip off the ground lug, file the damn thing a few millimeters and re-aligned the other switches a little.

Go for the 70's look with a black pickguard, Mad-mike and BanditGuitarist! 😁

Fran

Good work. Looks a bit 'busy' on there but you've done a great job.

I'm impressed with the blacl/white/black pickguard, looks good on sunburst. 😉

will_s

nice, very original

Spitfire

Nice work. I like the black scratchplate.

echelon

obvious question - how does it sound??

I mean, the hotrails is quite far from the bridge, which would add a bit more bass to it..wondering what it sounds like. Ditto the 'all 3 pickups' position.

nice mod though!!

riotshield

any connection with echelon the band?

echelon

riotshield said: any connection with echelon the band?

nope! didn't realise there was one!

echelon

sorry to be a dummy but a jaguar newbie.

On Elias' custom jag, what's the bit pushing the strings down just behind the bridge?? Does it lock the vibrato or something, or serve some other purpose?? Never seen that before!

I do like this jag mod - all the fun of a jaguar, but with a humbucker option too! Also reminds me of one of Sonic Youths customised jags/jazzmasters, they used to stick pickups all over the place. The coolest one is where they put a pickup behind the bridge, to pick up all the weird string noise there!

paul_

echelon said: sorry to be a dummy but a jaguar newbie.
On Elias' custom jag, what's the bit pushing the strings down just behind the bridge??
The coolest one is where they put a pickup behind the bridge, to pick up all the weird string noise there!

the thing behind the bridge on Elias's guitar is a buzzstop, which eliminates the weird string noise behind the bridge.

Elias78

Okay, I've gigged with the modded Jag on Saturday and I'm a happy man 😀

The main concern of the Hot Rails sounding crappy due to its slight deviation from the typical bridge location is put to rest when I realised that the 1 meg pot offsets the effects on the location...which basically means that it sounds just the right amount of dark without being too bright compared to putting it in the bridge position and using 1 meg pot. I actually left out the tone pot (cos it made it sound a tad too dark/muddy) and adjusted the pickup height so that it gives a slight volume boost when switched from the native Jaguar pickups to the Rails cos it's mainly use for solo or for noisier parts of my songs 😛

I'd describe the Rails on my jag sounding somewhere between the bridge and neck pickup on steriods...less bright than the bridge pickup and less dark/more usable than the neck pickup. My main distortion is a RAT2 and coupled with a Metal Zone as a solo boost, the Rails' perfect for its purpose 😀

I'll try to get some sound clips once I have the chance to.

Elias78

echelon said: sorry to be a dummy but a jaguar newbie.
On Elias' custom jag, what's the bit pushing the strings down just behind the bridge??
The coolest one is where they put a pickup behind the bridge, to pick up all the weird string noise there!

Actually I can still play with the strings behind the bridge to get some spiffy weird sounds, albeit a little less chimey than without the buzzstop 😛

Elias78

Here's a long-due clip of my modded jag:

http://psycho.loversoul.com/misc/jag_test.mp3

Please pardon the crappy, sloppy playing...not in my best form (overgrown nails, playing with no pick, no warming up, etc...excuses I know *lol*)

Setting: Jag-->RAT2 (all knobs 12 o'clock)-->Digitech RP6 (multi-effects but only used as pre-amp/bypass cos my RAT2 can't plug straight to the pc)--->PC (I know it sounds quite synthetic and would sound tonnes better with a real amp)

All clips in sequence of: Bridge pickup/Neck pickup/SD Hotrails

Last second clip uses Bridge pickup/Neck pickup/Both pickups/SD Hotrails.

Last clip uses MT2 (Metal Zone) in conjuntion with RAT2 as a solo boost.

Riffs from misc songs (Muse/Brian Setzer/Tesla) and my originals.

Analysis: Some songs/style/riffs suit the Hot Rails better but Hot Rails tend to sound a bit less organic. Has bass like neck pickup but more defined mids

LIFE

That sounds really good man. I'm really digging it imagining it through a nice amp.