Another GAS Attack

I tend to suffer from GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), though it’s mostly been in remission for a while (mostly out of financial necessity, as well as for reasons pertaining to the laws of physics, with regard to multiple objects not occupying identical space-time). Recently though, I have sinned in my mind, after hearing that Fender is coming out with not zero, not one, but two Sonic Youth signature Jazzmaster guitars, one designed by Thurston Moore and one by Lee Ranaldo.

Jazzmasters are great guitars, and their offset-waist design makes them very comfortable to play standing up or sitting down, not to mention looking really cool, but they are also extremely quirky compared to more pedestrian models like the Telecaster or Les Paul. To start with, their pickups are large single coil soapbars with very wide but shallow coils, producing a warmer sound, albeit with more hum than usual. A lot of the guitar’s other quirks pertain to the unique tremolo and bridge design. The tremolo has a much smoother action than most other types, but doesn’t have that wide of a range, and tends to pull the guitar out of tune fairly frequently.

The bridge itself is apparently designed to catch and pivot somewhat with the strings, as opposed to most other designs, in which the aim is to minimize friction. Also, the bridge has a bunch of little screws to set the height of each string, but they tend to rattle so much that the setup will change, or sometimes the screws will actually fall out. The angle as the strings go over the bridge is fairly shallow, leading to good attack but poor sustain. This also leads to a sort of built-in plate reverb, as the strings produce ghostly reverberations in the long space behind the bridge, over the tremolo plate. Additionally, the guitars have a strange alternate signal path circuit that hardly anyone ever uses. To top it all off, the face of the guitar is wider than most, making it really difficult to find a case that’ll fit.

But despite or because of all those things I, and a certain number of others, love ‘em. No other guitar sounds or plays like they do. Various of their quirks do get annoying at times, however, which is why there’s a hunger for customized versions. The Sonic Youth models incorporate modifications SY & their guitar techs typically perform on stock Jazzmasters. They’ve removed the alternate signal path and tone control, put in a different bridge (a tuneomatic on Thurston’s, a Mustang bridge on Lee’s), changed the pickup selector switch to move laterally, so it’s less likely to get inadvertently switched when you’re strumming (pickup selector switch position is a big pet peeve of mine; I wish they had just moved the thing to the rear of the guitar, where it belongs, like on a SG). Thurston’s model has jumbo frets, though not sure why. Lee’s “Jazzblaster” has two Fender ’70s style humbuckers that he came to love on his ’70s Telecaster Deluxe. These are supposed to be brighter than your typical Les Paul humbucker. I have to say though, forest green and sapphire blue are not colors I would’ve chosen for the finish.

Anyway, I’m really GASsing on the Lee model, mostly because of the pickups, since I already have a Japanese Jazzmaster reissue. But they haven’t been released yet, and there are a number of details I don’t know yet, which could be deal-breakers. For one thing, Fender recently and inexplicably raised their prices across the board, which seems like a rather stupid thing to do given the current state of the economy. No idea how much the guitar will cost. One determining factor is where the guitar is made, with American models being most expensive, followed by Mexican and Asian versions. I wouldn’t necessarily care that much where a guitar is made, except that foreign made Fenders tend to be equipped with crappy components, just to save a few bucks. If it turns out the pickups are crap, for instance, that would be a big bummer.

Sometimes they also change the wood used, as in the case of the old Japanese reissues, which used basswood instead of alder, giving different, and most would say worse, tonal properties. Then there’s the matter of the finish. Some American models use the old method of nitrocellulose finish, which typically lets the guitar “breathe” and resonate better. Cheaper polyurethane finishes are more durable but inhibit resonance, and polyester finishes are the worst. In recent years, Gibson has been selling guitars with “worn” or “faded” finishes, which use stain instead of paint and have fewer coats of sealant. These SY guitars almost look like that, but it’s hard to tell. I certainly wouldn’t mind that, as it’d probably keep the cost down and resonate well. Still, those colors are damn ugly. Maybe they’ll look better in person. Can’t wait for July 1st to find out.

Anyway, my hope is that lots of people will buy these up, realize they don’t like Jazzmasters, then sell them cheap to people like me!