2013 Temporary possession of a Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster

Good day dear readers.

Once again, I must apologise for the dearth of posts.

I have been side tracked by various pursuits, mostly maintenance and renovations to the family home.

This week I have been afforded the temporary custody of one Squier Jazzmaster J Mascis edition.

I had been looking forward to playing one of these guitars since they were first announced way back in 2011.

Sure there were other offset shapes on offer from Squier, but none of them offered the classic hardware that the Jazzmaster & Jaguar are known for prior to this release.

I think maybe all of us cash strapped guitarists interest was piqued when Squier began issuing their classic vibe and vintage modified editions. These in my mind laid the ground work for the introduction of a true budget Jazzmaster, which in turn has seen the development of Squier producing not only a budget Jaguar, but also a budget Mustang! 

Exciting times for paupers and mortgagees alike!

Anyway, that's enough free advertising. Er...

On with the review!

I found this at my favourite second hand dealer and knew that one of my old friends was in the market for one, but couldn't justify ponying up the price of entry (also he lives 725km away, where there is a lack of competition).

This one was a good price, not absurdly cheap, but too cheap to ignore. I jumped on it right away. Even before asking him if he was ready to buy (I'm not rich, but the price wasn't going to cause me to default on the mortgage), I put down a deposit and collected swiftly thereafter.

I have to admit it, I was sorely tempted to keep this find to myself.

But hey, I guess I'm nice enough chap after all.

The first thing I noticed about this guitar was that it is exquisite on the eye. Photographs do not do it justice. The vintage white is just classic.

The second is the weight.

Even though it's supposed to be made from a light timber (Basswood), it has some serious heft to it. Not uncomfortably heavy, but not model-aeroplane light either.

Neck:

Compared to the Mosrite, the neck width feels alien and broad. 

At the same time, it actually allows for my chubby digits to land in their accustomed positions with ease that always isn't possible on other guitars.

The finish allows the left hand to glide along the neck with less friction than a painted or gloss finish.

I suspect that the factory setup is still in place, the stings are higher than I am used to on my electrics, but easier to manage than those on my Goldtone Resonator.

Pickups:

They look like the classic Jazzmaster, but underneath is a lightly different beast. The coil is rumoured to be a little more like that of a P90, which by all reports is just a little hotter than the standard Jazzmaster.

Sure they're not some fancy pants set of pickups, but they are actually really quite nice.

I spent a number of hours A/B testing with various amps, effects and guitars.

I liked the neck best when playing a slightly hot clean tone, it has a nice aggressive country twang and good clarity across the board.

Compared to the neck pickup on my Mosrite, it does lose note definition when playing overdriven or fuzzed out settings.

I don't think this matters too much as it's great fun just pounding away with pretty much every setting.

The bridge pickup on the other hand, keeps its definition even with the amp on ten with the output tubes in overdrive. To bring back the Mosrite comparison, the bridge pickup on the JMJ has it beat, no question. Much more bass and not so much ear hurting top end fizz. Feels really god when pretending to be metal too!

Vibrato:

The vibrato isn't quite 100% faithful to the original Jazzmaster/Jaguar design as it lacks the lock button. I don't know if it's such a big deal as there isn't one on my Guyatone and it stays in tune just fine. In fact, this type of vibrato unit is my favourite, followed closely by the el-cheapo Teisco stamped metal and the Mosrite Vibrato (Teisco wins because it doesn't rely on a ridiculous roller bearing).

Bridge:

A simple tune-o-matic style. No rollers here.

Some people prefer a roller bridge, but I don't really know if they help or hinder tuning as my guitars with both styles keep their pitch fairly well (the Mosrite can be a bit sticky in the string guide).

This is budget guitar, but I don't think that it feels like one.

Anyone who has followed my blog for the last couple of years, will know that I am a habitual modder. This is one guitar that I wouldn't bother touching as I think it's pretty much perfect.

Can't think of a single thing to criticise at this price point.

Well done Squier/Fender!

Iso Booth, on a budget.

I've made some progress in the shed.
A fair bit of cosmetic work to be done, but the "studio" is in working order (more or less).

I had some building material left over, which enabled me to build a wee booth in one corner.
This is a bit of an upgrade from the iso cab in terms of utility & sonic quality.
Unfortunately, it's a step down in terms of actual isolation.

I had enough plaster board to do a double layer on the two segments of the booth that are up against the outside wall. But as I found out, was not quite enough.

When testing with Vocals & Acoustic guitar, the neighbours can't hear my horrid warbling and mistake riddled string plucking. Sound is audible in the main room (mostly via the door), but not outside the shed itself.

The local hardware store didn't have any solid core doors in stock, so I compromised & went with a hollow door, which is covered in various soft materials. It ain't perfect, but it is better than no door at all.
Bu as I said earlier, for the quieter instruments, the isolation is good.

The disappointment came when testing me favourite 15 watt valve amp.

At 2 on the volume dial, it was audible outside, though muffled and not likely to disturb the neighbours too much. And the amp does sound quite nice at this level, but there is a sweet spot between 3 & 4 where the amp is very responsive to dynamics. You can go from nice & clean, to breaking up depending on how hard you strike the strings. If you want more distortion, naturally, you turn up the volume.

On this amp, 5 (it goes to 10) is pretty much peak volume. Anything after there just adds to the amp's gritty overdrive. At peak volume, the amp was definitely audible outside the structure. I asked myself, would this annoy me if it were coming from one of my neighbours? The answer was yes.

I have spent the morning piecing together bits of scrap plaster board to make a 3rd layer on the smaller of the external walls. It turns out that I had almost a full 1200x2400mm sheet worth of scraps in the workshop.
Sure it's messy work, but at least I'm not adding to land fill and I am in fact reducing the amount of wasted material on this build.

When the new plaster is dry and the fittings are in place, I'll do some further testing.
Here's hoping that the 3rd layer will do the trick!

Goldtone PB GRE - A year on......

It's been a little more than a year since I made purchase of the slimline resonator.
The guitar has just gotten better & better.

I find myself going to it more than any other guitar in my collection (they're all nice guitars too).

The strings are still the original set from the factory, and naturally it's still sporting the factory setup.
Tuning remains solid and the tone is pleasing.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be enough ferrous material in the strings to give the pickup much to work with. I've been considering putting flat wound strings on there as I like them on my other guitars (Mosrite & Surfcaster). That is until I read about DR Zebra's. They're a hybrid of nickel and phosphor bronze. Which is meant to retain the bright acoustic tone and give the magnetic pickup, more to work with. I like this idea, but as it turns out, there's nowhere local that I can get the strings! So mail order it will have to be.

Anyway here's the official Goldtone video. Don't think it was on the site when I made purchase.

Xmas Present - Amplitube iRig Guitar Adapter

Amplitube iRig

Between tinkering in the shed and eating too much, I have been playing with my latest music toy.

The guitar adapter thingy from Amplitube.

It's the iRig adapter for iPad & iPhone.

It plugs into the headphone socket, with a pair of sockets on the unit to accommodate your headphones (or line out) and a guitar input.

Garage Band

With the stock Amplitube app the unit works flawlessly. If you've used their VST plugins, you'll know what to expect (I liked their Fender pack so much that I went out and bought a Fender Princeton).

Unfortunately the iRig doesn't work very well with Apple's Garage Band v1.3 Tested on an iPhone 5 (iOS 6.0.1)& a 3rd Generation iPad (iOS 5.1) and it happens on both units.

Garage Band Versions

The problem is that you can't monitor at a decent volume or use any sort of medium to high gain  setting what you are playing without horrible feedback (I've tested the iRig in an iPhone 4s running GB 1.2.1 and do not experience the feedback).

This is a real bummer, because Garage Band is a really nice bit of software.

Rumour has it, that the previous version of the Garage Band software worked just fine.
Hopefully it'll be fixed soon, otherwise it'll just be another FX toy that I don't use much.

*Update:
I've managed to downgrade Garage Band from 1.3 to 1.2.1 on my two iOS devices and the feedback problem has been cured. There is the issue of a "ticking" noise on the iPad, but I don't have this problem on the iPhone 5.

Preoccupation...

It has been about 6 weeks since my last post.
Sorry, I've been a bit on the busy side.

The last 3 weeks have seen me spend every spare moment, either wielding a mallet, drill, saw, shovel, etc...

Summer is nearly here and the rains have been less frequent.
A few weeks ago, I received a fair chunk of building materials for my new secret lair.

So far I've insulated it, added extra support for plasterboard, built a large work bench and a dividing wall.

Not much time for anything else. Definitely not blogging or tinkering with instruments.

We had a rather heavy downpour a couple of days ago, which to my horror, caused the slab to become rather moist. This is despite spending a couple of days sealing cracks and letting the filler cure.

Fortunately this happened before I went too far, as I now have to pull down the dividing wall to install a waterproof membrane on the floor.

The annoying thing is, I'd planned on putting in the damp course, but had forgotten.

Checklists are important.

Ibanez FL-9 Re-Repaired & Misbehaving

I've "fixed" this one before. But it didn't stay fixed.
The LFO wasn't doing much of anything after a few weeks and sat in various places for more than a year awaiting some attention (I really do have too many hobbies).

My shed wasn't freezing and I had some clear space on my bench, so I decided to drag out the soldering iron and tinker for a bit. Not the easiest thing to do, when a small human is intent on using your legs as a storage compartment.

I cleaned the board, touched up some solder and pulled out the opamps.
Just in case this fails again, I decided to add some IC sockets to make it a painless fix in the future.

Anyway it's working again. Probably better than in any time I've owned it.
The trim pots were set from the last time and the flanger is able to self oscillate and do some really annoying noises.

If you share a house with someone who doesn't like the sound of sirens and sci-fi movies, maybe turn the speakers down when you check out the clip below.

FL-9 Test

my old work space

Since I showed a few pics of my new garage, I figured that you folks can't really appreciate what a boon it is.

These photo's illustrate where I'd been working for the last five years.

Wedged between a fire escape and a wall. About 1.2m x1.8m.

Not enough room to swing a cat.

To compound things further, it rained pretty much every weekend this year, so I was forced to work under a tarp, if I wanted to work at all. Not what I consider ideal conditions.

The new place has plenty of scope for improvement, but I've plugged most of the holes, and it's dry inside.