idea for ultimate custom Jaguar

echelon

Borrowing ideas from Elias78 and that Jag i saw on Ebay, here's the plan -

Parts -

Jaguar Special Edition Black HH

custom made red tortiose scratchplate

2x chrome humbucker pickup rings

2x American vintage jaguar pickups

2x SD hotrails

chrome mini 3 way toggle switch

Build -

Humbucker rings have extra holes drilling so each ring can fit 1x Jag pickup and 1x hotrail.

Humbucker rings + pickups placed in guitar with new red pickguard.

Jag pickups wired to jaguar 'lead' circuit, using original pickup switches and pots

Hotrails pickups wired to Jaguar 'rhythm' circuit, with new 500k pots and cap

Mini 3 way toggle fitted on upper control plate, between rollers and lead/rhythm switch. 3 way toggle wired to do be pickup selector for hotrails pickups.

Strangle switch wired to split coils of hotrails pickups.

So basically it's an original jaguar + a humbucker enabled jaguar all in 1! Now that's veratility!! I went for the Jaguar HH cos it's already routed for humbuckers, + i like the lower radius neck and hardtail bridge.

What does everyone reckon to this idea?? bit mad but man it would be sweet guitar, looks wise and the number of combinations of sounds. Only difficultly is wiring - have to get this done by a pro!

Rick

i suppose the variation in sound would be useful for many people. but it just seems over the top to me

echelon

Rick said: i suppose the variation in sound would be useful for many people. but it just seems over the top to me

quite a bit of work and quite complex, but i think it would be cool.

that said, i doubt i'd ever actually get it built - just a dream really.

To be honest i just want a Jaguar HH with red pickguard - but then the option of Jaguar single coils would be soo sweet too. My favourite guitars are ones with humbucker in bridge and single coil in neck.

echelon

Rick said: i suppose the variation in sound would be useful for many people. but it just seems over the top to me

also, the whole point of a Jaguar is that it's already an over-the-top guitar!

The thing already has 2 seperate control circuits, i just thought it would be cool to take advantage of all the switches and knobs and rollers and buttons and actually use em for something.

stupid thing is, most bands i've seen using jaguars tape over the rhythem circuit entirely with duck tape, or at the very least completely ignore it. may as well put it to use.

Elias78

Glad that echelon's taking the ideas to a higher level *lol* Frankly, it's more of me wanting to tinker around that drove me to wanna have the best of both worlds (single coil and humbuckers). I own a strat, a Flying V, and 90s Ibanez artist and when I had a jag, it happens that there are extra sets of controls on this guitar that other guitars didn't have, so, I figured it'd be fun/useful to try out the configuration (anyway, I still love the stock jag so much that I got another one 😆 )

The config you've suggested might be a tad more complicated than mine, but I'm a sure a pro would pull it off. But before the actual job, do plan ahead how the guitar would function in a live situation, the switching convenience, etc...many times, the most desired combination isn't practical in live situations. You'll have research on the combination of the pickups as well, as in whether to put the bridge single coil in nearer to the bridge or the hotrails nearer to the bridge...same goes for the neck pickups. I'm sure there'll be lots of experimentation to get the best sounds.

Good luck on carrying out your dream combination 😉 Oh...pics and sound clips please, when you're done 😉

echelon

Elias78 said: Glad that echelon's taking the ideas to a higher level lol Frankly, it's more of me wanting to tinker around that drove me to wanna have the best of both worlds (single coil and humbuckers). I own a strat, a Flying V, and 90s Ibanez artist and when I had a jag, it happens that there are extra sets of controls on this guitar that other guitars didn't have, so, I figured it'd be fun/useful to try out the configuration (anyway, I still love the stock jag so much that I got another one 😆 )
The config you've suggested might be a tad more complicated than mine, but I'm a sure a pro would pull it off. But before the actual job, do plan ahead how the guitar would function in a live situation, the switching convenience, etc...many times, the most desired combination isn't practical in live situations. You'll have research on the combination of the pickups as well, as in whether to put the bridge single coil in nearer to the bridge or the hotrails nearer to the bridge...same goes for the neck pickups. I'm sure there'll be lots of experimentation to get the best sounds.
Good luck on carrying out your dream combination 😉 Oh...pics and sound clips please, when you're done 😉

hey, yes you inpired this idea - having 2 pickup circuits makes so much sense! like i said, i love my bridge humbucker/neck single coil combo, but i also love the sound of a Jaguar using both single coils at once (that early Placebo/sonic youth sound)

live it would be extremely practical - just flick the rhythem/lead circuit switch to switch between the different sets of pickups.

Anyway as i said above, it's just a dream - main problem is that it already have lots of guitars, so the only way i could do this project and justify paying

echelon

Elias78 said: Glad that echelon's taking the ideas to a higher level lol Frankly, it's more of me wanting to tinker around that drove me to wanna have the best of both worlds (single coil and humbuckers)

p.s. i LOVE tinkering about too - ive changed the pickups in most of my guitars. Coolest project is my Squier Bronco bass - i lowered the action, stuck in a kent armstrong hotrail and play it through my marshall amp like a guitar. it sound soo huge when doing power chords!!

Pedro

So echelon, did you get anywhere with this? Also, what did Elias78 do I can't find the thread. I'm asking cos I bought an HH a few weeks ago and am thinking about modding it a bit. To me, the rhythm circuit sounds a bit too muddy compared to the lead (I know they're MEANT to be that way but...) so I don't know what would be best.

Maybe a 1meg pot on the tone? But then that would just be the same as the lead circuit wouldn't it. I'm a bit new to this modifying lark, so would it be feasible to put a humbucker in the bridge position that I can switch to be single coil thru the rhythm circ? Forgive my ignorance.

Great site by the way. I didn't know the first thing about jags 2 months ago and I feel like a bit of an expert now I've read all this!

PaLo_aLTo

Pedro..look for this thread in the Fender Jaguar/Jazzmaster Discussion

on what Elias did (sory I can't copy the add)

IT'S DONE!!! (pimping my jag) - intensive graphics

echelon

hi Pedro, do you like my idea then??? glad someone does!

yes i have made a little progress on this project - i bought a Jaguar HH!

only picked it up yesterday so havent posted about it on here yet.

Initital impressions -

- Guitar size/weight/feel/neck is pretty much identical to my jagmaster. However, i REALLY like the tuneomatic bridge. However, it came set up with 10s and it really needs 11s.

- Pickups are...hmmmm. not sure. Releatively low output and not very warm and "humbucker"-y, but also not clear and nice like single coils. Seem to have lots of bass and piercing high end with not alot of mids..which is odd. I'm almost definitely going to change them.

- lead circuit is nice, but using each pickup on its own sounds a bit thin, which using them together is a bit too thick (cos theyre humbuckers). The strangle/thin switch is more subtle than i though it would be..took me a good 10 mins to work out whether it was turned on or off when i flicked the switch.

- rhythm circuit is crap, initial impress is i can ever imagine using it - way too bassy. Sounded ok through heavy fuzz but thats about it.

I have been doing more research into my project, and the only problem i see is that the ryhthem circuit tone pot would need to be changed (from 50k to 500k) to stop the hotrails being so bass-heavy. However, this is no easy feat as they have to be a special mini-pot to fit behidn the upper control plate - yes you can get 500k minis BUT not sure if theyre fit the tone roller.

echelon

As for elias, look for the thread in the jaguar forum "IT'S DONE!!! (pimping my jag) - intensive graphics".

he basically took a stock jag and added a hotrails pickup (so it had 3 pickups), and wired it so the jag pickups were controled by the lead circuit and the hotrails by the rhythem circuit.

this idea gave me the idea - why not have 2 sets of pickups!

Elias - do you find the hotrails very bass-heavy? The tone pot is only 50k..i cant believe its so low - i find the 250k pots on a strat way too restrictive too, and this is 5x lower!

echelon

oh yeh, one last thing - ive been looking into wiring diagrams (not that hard) and making my own custom pickguard.

My friend said he'd help with the latter as he has all the tools - im gonna cur one out of transparent perspex - then i can change the colour of the pickguard by cutting the pickguard shape out of card and putting it underneath the perspex (like on my yamaha RGX321 FP "Free Art" guitar)

should be sweet.

Elias78

echelon said: Elias - do you find the hotrails very bass-heavy? The tone pot is only 50k..i cant believe its so low - i find the 250k pots on a strat way too restrictive too, and this is 5x lower!

Strange...isn't Jaguar rhythm circuit using 500K and the lead circuit 1M by default? For my case, the hotrails isn't too bass-heavy but more of lacking the highs. Perhaps it's due to the near-mid pickup position it's in (for my case). Not having a spare pot around, I experimented with bypassing the tone pot entirely to get the full hotrails sound without having a tone pot to cut down the treble. After fiddling around with the pickup height, the result is satisfying 😀 It's not too bright nor too bassy. Being nearer to the mid position and bypassing the tone pot sorta offset the extremity to get what I wanted.

Oh, congrats on your purchase of a HH Jag! So, what's your plan with the pickups again, echelon? 1 single coil and 1 single coil-size humbuckers in replacement of the bridge humbucker? 😛

Btw, here's my thread on the mods I did, in case anyone's wondering:

http://www.jag-stang.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14080

LIFE

How are you going to fit two humbuckers and four single coils in such a small area?

echelon

LIFE said: How are you going to fit two humbuckers and four single coils in such a small area?

noo, they'll only be 4 pickups in the guitar - 2 in each humbucker cavity.

i think everyone doesnt really get what im trying to do..i'll try photoshopping an image of what i have in mind tonight!

echelon

Elias78 said:
Oh, congrats on your purchase of a HH Jag! So, what's your plan with the pickups again, echelon? 1 single coil and 1 single coil-size humbuckers in replacement of the bridge humbucker? 😛

bypassing the tone pot is a great idea!! thanks for that! Did you do your jag rewiring yourself?

and no the pot is not 500k it's a special 50k one. check out the wiring diagrams:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/sc ... aguar.html

http://www.jag-stang.com/JaguarHtml/Ima ... ematic.gif

50k is what makes it soo bassy...problem is, im not sure how easy that pot would be to change (cos it has to fit the tone roller)

thanks...i cant really afford this new guitar - im gonna have to sell one of my amps and one of my guitars to pay for it (lucky i got a huge

Pedro

I love the idea of putting 4 pickups in! And I have to kind of agree about the HH, I've had mine 3 weeks now, gigged once and had a couple of loud practices, and I can't see myself using the rhythm circuit as it stands. Echelon is right, it's got no brightness to it at all and just sounds like the treble on the amp is off.

I quite like the lead circuit - but found exactly the same thing with the strangle switch, it's a waste of space! The pups don't really sound like humbuckers unless you've got both on but I think on their own they have a decent tone (I'm playing through a 70's bassman, though it sounded great thru an Orange in rehearsals, and then ear-splittingly sharp through a borrowed twin for the gig. Odd).

The thing is, it just doesn't seem very versatile in terms of tone - which jags are supposed to be famous for! (Well, with single coils). At the moment I can get a better range from my strat just switching from bridge to neck. Echelon's idea is really interesting, though I might go for a hotrail+jagAV in neck and just leave the dragster in the bridge to start with. Or do I mean the other way round....

Either way, it won't be for a while. Maybe persevering with the stock setup will work out, but at the moment I doubt it.