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Post by sumgai on May 4, 2016 14:01:01 GMT -5
To further explore some options with the Jazzmaster and such, maybe one of our esteemed Jazzmaster-owning colleagues could do some measurements, please? I'm just checking-out some old maths theory against the 'reality' and would like to know the dimensions illustrated below (to the nearest mm or 1/32"): I'm suggesting the larger distances be measured, so the measurement error is minimized - ever the engineer Many thanks, folks. John
Well, I have it on pretty good authority (M & M Guitar Bar, located in Seattle, WA, USA), that when measured from the bridge side edge of the fret nut:
A = 25 1/2" at the high E string;
B = 23 29/32";
C = 19 3/4";
and
D = 12 3/4".
The more astute viewer will recognize instantly that as the string diameter increases, so too does the length of Dimension A, by small amounts. And it shouldn't take Einstein to realize that an octave is half that of string's length, so Dimension D is very nearly half that of Dimension A, give or take a worn neck pocket and/or a misadjusted bridge....
The important factoid here is, the Jazzmaster's Neck pickup is not located precisely at the locus of the 24th fret, but instead at that of the 25th fret. The proof will be obvious, once explained: If one were to take most any other non-offset body guitar, select the Neck pickup only, and attempt to "chime" a string (any of them) at the 12th fret, the resulting sound will be almost nil - there may be something, but it won't be very strong, thanks to nodal cancellation*. In order to chime the 12th fret, the usual practice is to select another pup, or combination of pups.
In contrast, a Jazzmaster can do this in spades. Where it would fall down would be if one were to capo the first fret, then attempt to chime a string at the 13th fret - the result will be just as dead-sounding as our previous example. IOW, the Neck pickup is placed exactly and precisely one semi-tone towards the bridge, compared to most axes. Why? Who knows, and more importantly, who cares. The resulting Mojo Tone® is very exclusive to these kinds of guitars, to be sure.
As to the placement of the Bridge pup, I can't say. Most Fender examples of Bridge pickups are slanted, throwing a large monkey wrench into any calculations and/or testing procedures. Best to just take it as it comes, and be happy with the results.
HTH!
sumgai
* We've dealt with this topic in other threads here in The NutzHouse, I won't repeat it here yet again - the Search function at the top of the page should guide interested viewers to the relevant topics.
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Post by ozboomer on Jul 3, 2016 7:14:52 GMT -5
To further explore some options with the Jazzmaster and such, maybe one of our esteemed Jazzmaster-owning colleagues could do some measurements, please? I'm just checking-out some old maths theory against the 'reality' and would like to know the dimensions illustrated below (to the nearest mm or 1/32"): I'm suggesting the larger distances be measured, so the measurement error is minimized - ever the engineer Many thanks, folks. John
Well, I have it on pretty good authority (M & M Guitar Bar, located in Seattle, WA, USA), that when measured from the bridge side edge of the fret nut:
A = 25 1/2" (647.7 mm) at the high E string;
B = 23 29/32" (607.2 mm)
C = 19 3/4" (501.7 mm) ;
and
D = 12 3/4" (323.9 mm) . [...]The important factoid here is, the Jazzmaster's Neck pickup is not located precisely at the locus of the 24th fret, but instead at that of the 25th fret. The proof will be obvious, once explained: If one were to take most any other non-offset body guitar, select the Neck pickup only, and attempt to "chime" a string (any of them) at the 12th fret, the resulting sound will be almost nil - there may be something, but it won't be very strong, thanks to nodal cancellation*. In order to chime the 12th fret, the usual practice is to select another pup, or combination of pups.
In contrast, a Jazzmaster can do this in spades. Where it would fall down would be if one were to capo the first fret, then attempt to chime a string at the 13th fret - the result will be just as dead-sounding as our previous example. IOW, the Neck pickup is placed exactly and precisely one semi-tone towards the bridge, compared to most axes. Why? Who knows, and more importantly, who cares. The resulting Mojo Tone® is very exclusive to these kinds of guitars, to be sure. Some more thoughts... FWIW (For what it's worth, new folks ), nowadays I have a couple of Squier Strat-type guitars and a 2012 VM Jazzmaster... With thanks to JohnH for his quite exceptional spreadsheet, I sat for a while ( "Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?")... and came-up with a simpler spreadsheet that mapped fret number and frequency and distance from the nut/bridge for a given scale length on the A string (which does NOT have a frequency of 440Hz but 110Hz... nutcase me... but the relationships are still the same), viz:- For the curious, the formula used was something like: nut-to-fret distance (d) as a function of the scale length (S) and the fret number (n)... d = s - (s / (2^(n/12))). Now, this would indicate that the Jazzmaster pickup is located at the 26th fret, whilst the Stratocaster has its neck pickup at the 25th fret position... but I would still say sumgai's facts are correct, as I'm guessing there's a bit of a question of what the '25th fret' actually is in my numbering scheme and the 'general' numbering scheme (I have troubles with 'end points' sometimes(!)). The factoid remains the same, though, that the neck pickup on the Jazzmaster is further from the nut (by a semitone) than on the Stratocaster, which we are guessing is something that contributes to the way the neck pickup sounds on a Jazzmaster. Note, however, that all the poles in the bridge pickup on the Jazzmaster are located the same distance as the 'middle' of the (slanted) bridge pickup on the Stratocaster (at approximately what would be the 48th fret in my numbering system)... hence the difference in sound of those pickups (isolated) are likely to be 'similar' (notwithstanding electronics, string, bridge materials, blah, blah). Anyway, as the above discussion illustrates (and the 'overlay' picture I posted above), positioning the neck pickup one 'fret' closer to the bridge is almost certainly going to be important to the sound. John
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Post by sumgai on Jul 11, 2016 0:23:16 GMT -5
ozzy,
Yes, you are suffering from a malady known as the "off by one" syndrome. What you did was, you counted the "open" position of a string (unfretted) as if it were a fretted position - sort of like calling it a "Zero Fret", if you will. Nothing truly wrong with that, except that it tends to lead to 'need for clarification', such as this post.
To get an octave, we need to go up 12 frets, but that starting point in our counting sequence conveniently forgets that we already have a starting point, namely the 'Zero' position. By way of fracturing our English language (and confusing the Hell out of everyone), the "first fret" is correctly called the zero position, and what we normally call the first fret is really the second position along the line. But if we do that in everyday parlance, then we end up with 13 frets, not 12, right? Well, the answer to that is, 1 and 13 are really the same, only an octave apart. But we have to admit, it's a hell of a lot easier to say "12th fret" is the octave, because we can physically see 12 narrow strips of metal on that fingerboard - "Hey, there're 12 frets, right?". No, bunky, there really are 13 frets, only the first one is not metal (yes, there are exceptions, but work with me here), it's bone/plastic/teflon/whatever, but not a thin strip of metal that we normally associate as being a fret.
I get this 'off by one' thing all the time in programming, but I first encountered it in a mathematics puzzle book, written so far back in the times of antiquity that I've forgotten the author's name. Probably Isaac Asimov or someone like that.... But in the end, it's all a matter of perception, and not everyone (thank Gawd!) has the same way of perceiving concepts like this. No one particular way is the "only correct" way to look at these kinds of things, there are good reasons for having different ways to observe and report on the phenomena around us.
HTH
sumgai
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Post by gumbo on Jul 11, 2016 4:06:00 GMT -5
Gotcha! ...so when the Financial Controller counts all your guitars and decrees that six is TOO many, you can argue that you've REALLY only got FIVE... !!! ..thanks so much for that tip... g-f-b
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Post by newey on Jul 11, 2016 22:11:10 GMT -5
Well, I only have 5, if one doesn't count the secret closet, about which the Financial Controller knows nothing . . .
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Post by sumgai on Jul 11, 2016 23:58:55 GMT -5
Well, I only have 5, if one doesn't count the secret closet, about which the Financial Controller knows nothing . . . Did you perhaps take a page out of ChrisK's notebook, and locate that closet in another city.... in another state?
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Post by ozboomer on Jul 12, 2016 5:34:51 GMT -5
Fanx! for helping to clarify my 'end point problem', my dear sumgai ...and as you say, 'tis most often found when programming with arrays/hashes/other data structures I think this vizzo with 0/1 probably started for me with John Wallis, a 17th century English mathematician, being the person who invented the numberline. O'course, this added more fuel to the fire of argument between Newton, Leibniz, Bernoulli, Euler, amongst others, talking about "zero" and logarithms (Sheesh.. I've spent way too much time mucking about with slide rules)... Anyway, p'raps you're also thinking of Martin Gardner and/or Ian Stewart, both prolific writers of articles for "Scientific American" and other light, easily-digestible, lunchtime reading for me when I was at primary school... So long, an engineering geek, me.
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Post by ozboomer on Jun 24, 2017 6:14:58 GMT -5
I'm still thinking about the notion of fitting Jazzmaster pickups into a Stratocaster... but with various things going on with me at present, I'm wondering if my thinking is scatterbrained... Considering this:- This means the major 'control' measurement is the distance between the end of the neck/fingerboard and where the Stratocaster tremolo plate rests on the body. In this example, the distance is 169mm. From the distance table in an earlier post, for the Strat, the poles of the Neck pickup are located at the 25th fret = ~495mm from the nut. This would place the tremolo plate edge at: 495 - 22 + 169 = ~642mm from the nut to ensure it clears the bottom of the Bridge pickup opening. For the Jazzmaster, the poles of the Neck pickup are located at the 26th fret = ~503mm from the nut. This would require the tremolo plate edge at: 503 - 36 + 167 = ~634mm from the nut to ensure it clears the bottom of the lower screw cutouts for the Bridge pickup. The arithmetic would say that we have ~8mm space then... and the idea is doable... but can I get another (few) sets of eyes to verify my thinking, please? Fanx! John
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Post by newey on Jun 24, 2017 8:33:46 GMT -5
Apart from your dimensions, I think the issue with doing something like this will be the amount of wood that you would need to remove between the Strat's neck heel and the topmost part of the neck pickup rout. You need a certain amount of wood for strength there, and it looks to me like quite a bit would need to be removed to get the Jazz pickup in there. Unless you were willing to slide the neck pickup back a bit, which then negates the fret positioning you're looking at.
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Post by sumgai on Jun 24, 2017 10:18:17 GMT -5
ozzy,
Hey, long time no post!
I hate to disillusion you, but the Strat's Neck pup locates the pole pieces under the virtual 24th fret, the second octave. The Jazzmaster's Neck pole pieces are under what would be the 25th fret.
This is easily proven: simply select the Neck only on any Strat (SC version, not something with an Hb) and try to sound a chime at the 12th fret. Can't do it, it'll be dead. That's because of the 'node cancellation' effect. We've gone into that before, sometimes right here in this thread, but also elsewhere in The NutzHouse.
For a Jazzmaster, that chime sounds out cleanly, no matter what pickup is selected (or combo thereof). But, place a capo on the first fret, then try again (but you'll need to strike the chime at the 13th fret).... the chime is dead, just like the Strat example.
Next up.....
newey speaks to the strength of the remaining wood adjacent to the neck pocket, after hogging out some additional cavity space for the new Jazzmaster Neck pickup. I'm not so certain that this particular area is under that much duress, mainly due to the four neck screws. Some will argue that this portion of wood is necessary for vibrational transfer, and thus to obtain "correct" tone. All I can say to that is "show me the proof", and not just a proof of concept via a SPICE of some sort. But worse....
What about that area adjacent to the bridge, aka the whammy unit? If you take out too much wood there, you're screwed, simple as that. The only solution, for testing your theory, would be to use a hard-tail body, not a whammy type.
The main problem here is the location of the pickup cover screws. Recall that we once discussed Leo moving the Jazzmaster Neck pickup away from the neck, for this very reason - between the neck pocket and the downswept curve for the lower horn, there ain't much strength left, should someone decide to get all 'hacky' in that region. The same will hold true if you attempt to place a Bridge pickup too close to the bridge - not enough strength left, meaning the bridge posts/screws will eventually cave in towards the pickup.
If you fashion new pickup covers, placing the screws towards the bouts instead of inline with the bridge/neck centerline, you may be able to get away with this mod. I'm not sure, of course, but it's an interesting thought. OTOH, what's the point, other than to mess with a few fellow guitarists' heads as you take the stage? For my money, the Jazzmaster body is a better design all the way around... why discard it in the first place?
sumgai
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Post by ozboomer on Jun 24, 2017 22:01:29 GMT -5
HidyHo again, folks... ...the amount of wood that you would need to remove between the Strat's neck heel and the topmost part of the neck pickup rout. You need a certain amount of wood for strength there, and it looks to me like quite a bit would need to be removed to get the Jazz pickup in there. Acshually, most of the Strats I've been fiddling with have the 'swimming pool rout' already (so would only need a little extra timber removed 'east-west' rather than along the 'neck-bridge' direction for the larger Jazzmaster pickups)... and the likely final position of the Neck Jazzmaster pickup is actually closer to the bridge than the Strat Neck pickup (as dear sumgai explains, re: virtual fret positions)... so the 'solid timber' dimension from the pickup cutout is ~15mm (36 - 21) with the Jazzmaster pickup in place, compared to the ~13mm (22 - 9) with the Strat pickup in place... so there's actually more 'theoretical' timber between the Jazzmaster pickup and the end of the neck compared to the Strat pickup... but all of this is moot anyway 'coz of the swimming pool rout... I hate to disillusion you, but the Strat's Neck pup locates the pole pieces under the virtual 24th fret, the second octave. The Jazzmaster's Neck pole pieces are under what would be the 25th fret. As we discussed some months ago (see above) -- it's the ol' boundary value problem I'm using my fret numbering... but the distances are Ok and we're talking about the same phsyical locations, I think. [...about wood removal...] This was the whole point of my writing about the 'major control measurement' -- these are dimensions that don't change, 'coz both the Jazmmaster and the Strat have a 25.5" scale length, so the bridge (trem plate) position on the Strat mustn't change... and all we're doing is taking the Jazzmaster '2 pickup block' position and moving it DOWN toward the bridge (compared to the Strat pickup position) so the Jazzmaster Neck pickup poles are ~503mm from the nut, instead of at ~495mm. Theoretically, we should get the same Jazzmaster-y sound (haha) as the pickups are in the correct position on the same scale length, hence are boosting the same harmonics, etc. ...and this is exactly what I have in mind - the pickups, while larger, are placed further toward the middle of the guitar (neck-bridge direction) and by the calculations above actually give us *more* clearance from the horn curve/cutouts... This is where I still have the greater concern... As shown in my diagram above, the dimension from neck end to the bottom of the pickup (screw) cutouts with the Jazzmaster pickups installed only gives us a few mm before we get to the line where the trem screws are installed (6 of them in a vintage trem unit)... and this was where I was thinking the trem might actually tear out. So, I dunno... ...which is something I've read a few times before... and is playing on my mind even more so now, after thrashing this all out again these past couple of days... I also find the Jazzmaster more comfortable to play and Pffft to the slightly bigger overall dimensions... Awww, nutz. Maybe I'll just simplify the whole mess and get a spare VM Jazzmaster via one of my esteemed GuitarNutz colleagues across the pond ...and save all this silly heartache... Pffft. [...rethink in progress...] John
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Post by sumgai on Jun 25, 2017 0:13:22 GMT -5
ozzy
When you said "Jazzmaster pickup block", that triggered me - you can get an exact idea of what will go where, and to what end effect, by merely hoisting the JM pickguard off of its homebase, and laying it over the Strat body... VOILA! Instant confirmation of all you suspected, doable or otherwise.
sumgai
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Post by ozboomer on Jun 25, 2017 0:46:50 GMT -5
you can get an exact idea of what will go where, and to what end effect, by merely hoisting the JM pickguard off of its homebase, and laying it over the Strat body... VOILA! Instant confirmation of all you suspected, doable or otherwise. ...and 'tis what I tried to do originally (although, without dismantling the Strat and its pickguard, etc)... and it sorta looked feasible... but there's still some question about how close the bridge pickup mounting holes are to the trem plate.. and I'm still nervous about whether the trem plate screws will rip out... there's some non-trivial forces in these things and I don't fancy playing a guitar where the layout is highly dodgy (= dangeroos)...(!) ... ... *erk*
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Post by ozboomer on Jul 25, 2017 6:14:46 GMT -5
Seeing how close things are to edges of cavities, etc, particularly near the tremolo, I think I'll make the executive decision to modify the distance between the pickups (*horrors*) ... Of course, the sound will be different... but I still have these wider, thinner pickups... so hopefully, I might still achieve something of the Jazzy sound I'm looking for...
The process continues... however slowly...
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Post by ozboomer on Jul 16, 2018 6:26:09 GMT -5
...and here we are again, still toying with this CrAzY idea... just to get the Jazzmaster sound in a Strat-type guitar... approximately.
I intend to organize some sort of Dremmel-type gadget... so I can cut/clean-up where I intend to drill out some extra space in the cavity of a crappy Strat copy...
...but as we're talking about a "swimming pool route" thing, I'm not quite sure how to deal with the mounting of the pickups. Time to glue some blocks of wood in the cavity and rest the pickups on them (with what sort of foam?) and then place the pickup covers over the pickups and fix them in place with screws through the cover holes and into the blocks? What sort of pressure on the foam are we talking about? Sufficient to be able to undo the screws to push the pickups+covers up to let me tune the pickup height? ...or is that something that you just don't do with this sort of mounting?
Boggling the mind a bit more than usual on this...
John
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Post by ozboomer on Jan 17, 2020 10:26:31 GMT -5
To anyone currently attending NAMM 2020... P'raps you might be able to check the availabilty of the new 'Parallel Universe' 'Jazz Strat' that's on show there... if they're coming to Australia.. and what their list price might be... Then I won't have to keep wrecking my eyes and fingers and keep trying to get somewhere with this project of mine (!).
Unfortunately, I expect the same issue as we had with the Jazz Tele... being the price.. as I'll never justify AUD2500 AUD3200 or so.
FANX!
Edit: Price update I've found so far...
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Post by sumgai on Jan 17, 2020 16:03:40 GMT -5
ozzy,
Lemme get this straight.... you want a non-offset body Jazzmaster? Is that right?
I'm floored. The Jazzmaster was Fender's first offset-waist body guitar, started in 1958. To negate all of that rich tradition and history, they're now rendering the parts and pieces into a Strat body? WTF?
I mean, they now do a more-or-less standard Jazzmaster with a Strat vibrato (or "Trem-o-Leo, as ChrisK would call it), and that's a fine modification. I'd be interested in that myownself. But this PU getup? That's not just sacrilege, that's downright stupid. Fer'Chris'sake, just raise one of the legs of the bleepin' guitar stand so it sits upright correctly, and be done with it. (That's what I did, anyways.)
Bah! Humbug!!
sumgai
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Post by ozboomer on Jan 18, 2020 4:23:39 GMT -5
Apologies for the horrible notion ...but I've had it in mind for some years now, as most of us know ...but I'm always up for a useful/non-conventional thought (as I've frequently tended to find the most complicated solution to a problem) -- to simply prop-up one leg of the guitar stand to stabilize everything -- Oh my... ..and nowadays, Jazzmaster hard cases are no longer 2.5 times the price of a Strat case (which they were back when I was first looking at Jazzmaster alternatives)... so that argument is dead... ...but the original issue remains... that even in the Squier realm, a 'full' Jazzmaster is still double the price of a perfectly serviceable Stratocaster (with Tonerider pups, for instance, which sound good to my non-super-critical, non-edumacated ears) -- I *still* like the sound of Jazzmaster pickups better than anything else... and I'm hopeful of getting something like TheSound™ in a more affordable form. Ya, I know.. I already have my Squier Vintage Modified Jazzmaster from 2012... but y'gotta have a spare in everythin', dontcha!?
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