USA 62 ri pickups or Seymour Duncan antiquity?

jeromegreenday

Hi guys,

i was unlucky enough to get one of the bad jaguars from japan the bridge, the saddles the string spacing and the pickups my god they are thin, watery scratchy weak excuses for pickups. But now i have the money im gonna get it worked on, Please bear in mind ive never heard a decent jaguar tone as mine sucks, but could i have your views on whether to get some 62 usa reissue pickups of some seymour duncan antiquity 2's what can i expect? any and all comments appreciated

Cheers Jerome

Malik

Judging by the fact you have "Green Day" in your name, I'm going to presume you're actually getting the correct Jaguar tone and you just don't like it. I'd kill for a Jaguar, the fact it has "imperfections" just makes it even more different. You're meant to work around the sound you've got to make it better. If you don't like something, that's fair enough, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

As for pickups, I don't know, but I can recommend you get a Mustang bridge if you play too hard for the saddles, and again "Green Day" says you probably do. Maybe you should've just got a Les Paul Junior? I hear they're doing a Billie Joe Signature Model.

jeromegreenday

no jeromegreendays just a nickname, i dont play any greenday on my jaguar

Malik

In that case, excuse my rudeness.

Any chance you could post some sound clips of the Jaguar? I'm sure there are plenty of Jaguar experts on here who can tell you if your sound is bad or not, but of course if you don't like it, then you should go ahead and try new pickups. The only problem is, if you don't like your Jaguar tone (that could in fact be "normal") then you might not like the replacements either, just a though.

The saddles can be replaced by buying a Mustang replacement instead, that seems to be the most popular mod.

Rick

if you go for those antiquities, i think you'll find they might be even more brittle than the japanese jaguar pickups. they are meant to be brittle, thin and harsh sounding like an old jaguar. i used to have an old jaguar, and the pickups could sound like a couple of amorous screeching cats at midnight.

the american reissue jag pups are a bit more like glassy modern strat pups. quite balanced. but yeah, they are still single coils. the japanese are pretty normal examples of what a single coil should sound like. if you want something even hotter, then you might be best off with the seymour duncan quarter pounders, or even a single coil sized humbucker

jeromegreenday

where the strings sit in the grooves on the saddles some are right at the end in the last groove and the strings miss the pole pieces totaly! with the tone, its is bright ( i know thats to be expected) but it is to bright, thin and wire-ry and very piercing. and stiff if that makes sense and muddy, i just want a bright with bite warmish and jangly? clean sound and i cant get a descent driven crunch sound for anything, i dont use it for gain so could new pickups help?

Zekk

Also, what AMP do you use? If you still use some ####ty 15 WATT ss starter amp, you need to sell the jag and improve that first.

jeromegreenday

It must be me then i have a vox ac30, fender bassman, marshall bluesbreaker and a laney tfh800 and a marshall 30th anniversary head, so its not like im using ####e equipment. I hear great things about the jag but i dont! im gonna try getting some us vintage pups and see if that does the trick i'll let you guys know how it goes

Zekk

I would go with the duncans. Fender Pups tend, in my experence, to be fairly trebly and weak.

Elias78

Personally, AV reissue pickups work for me. I had the same impression like you when I first got my CIJ jags. The stock CIJ pickups were a tad too thin and 'scratchy' and tends to feedback too easily on higher gain applications. I swopped them with the AV reissues and they sound much more balanced.

For a preview of how the AV reissues sound with a Vox AC30, here's a clip of my band's performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0byeoU6pDIs

handen

Get the Antiquity II Jet models for Jaguar and you'll be glad you did when you're guitar has the best tone on earth.

Dana

AV in the neck and a SD sjag2 in the bridge is just as good as a Dimarzio super distortion humbucker,i got both in my guitars so i know from experience.

With a AV & SJAG2 you will have a real nice jaguar tone and if you want to play some metal type stuff just back the tone off to about 2/3 and you'l loose ALL the the brightness of a jag,but keep plenty of tone to have a cool sound.

As for the Jaguar bridge,there is not 1 thing wrong with it and those who say strings jump saddles have no idea how to set up a jag cause i play Hard and ive NEVER had it happen.

The solution is as easy as file a groove on the 6,5,4,3,2 saddles-geting smaller as you go,file it directly over the intonation screw for the center point.

Intonation and Saddle Screws: Simply set the action,intonation and 2 bridge height adjustment screws EXACTLY as you like it,dont stop messing with it until your happy,then get a cheap super glue and put 1-2 drops in the top of all 12 grub screws.(its reversable,just "crack" the seal)

This will solve ALL buzzing problems,your intonation screws dont need glue and chances are your bridge height will never need it either.

IMHO a muastang bridge is a complete waste of money because once you have filed grooves you essentialy have a mustang bridge(FREE).

If you need help just pm me and il help you out with close up photos of anything concerning jaguars,jazzmasters or mustangs.

goodluck dude.