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Post subject: Lee Ranaldo vs. Thurston Moore Jazzmasters
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 7:47 pm
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I now own one of each. :) So thought I'd post my observations in case anyone else was considering getting one.

The Thurston sounds more like my '62 Reissue Jazzmaster. The pickups have pretty high gain, and the neck pickup has a great growl, a bite to it, like my '62. I'm not impressed by the tone of the bridge pickup, it sounds thin to me. My '62 bridge pickup sounds better. Note that the Thurston model uses Seymour Duncan, not Fender Jazzmaster, pickups. But I use the neck pickup on my '62 98% of the time anyway, so it doesn't matter.

The Lee Ranaldo Fender humbucker neck pickup has a great bell tone. It doesn't have the bite of the Thurston, but instead has its own beautiful tone. The bridge pickup has great twang. You could play country lead and fool people into thinking you're playing a Tele. These Fender humbuckers have more high end than Gibson humbuckers, but not as much as single-coils. So they're in-between tone-wise. But, they are very low output; much lower than the Thurston single coils. I had to raise them up closer to the strings from the factory setting to get them to sound good.

The Thurston has jumbo frets, the Ranaldo small frets. I find the Ranaldo more playable for that reason.

Both are beautiful colors. The Ranaldo is a beautiful blue, the Thurston a very unusual green color, but I find it quite appealing. It occurred to me that green is a rare color for guitars. I don't know why.

And of course I didn't stay in standard tuning for long on either. I've currently got the Thurston tuned to CGDGCD and the Ranaldo to DDGGDD. They are going to be my weird tuning guitars; they're designed for it. :)

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Website: http://www.robroper.com
Fender Guitars: Am Std Tele, EC Strat, AVRI '62 Jazzmaster, Lee Ranaldo Jazzmaster, Thurston Moore Jazzmaster.
Fender Amps: '61 Brownface Deluxe, '65 Champ, '59 Bassman Ltd, Tweed Champ clone, Tweed Deluxe clone.


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Post subject: Re: Lee Ranaldo vs. Thurston Moore Jazzmasters
Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 5:30 am
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Joined: Tue May 15, 2012 2:49 am
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Location: Perth, Australia
Thank you for the side by side comparisons. That was enlightning. I do love my Lee Ranaldo. I was considering putting in a CURTIS NOVAK WRHB into it's bridge position to get the output higher and to balance more with the Neck pickup output level.

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Post subject: Re: Lee Ranaldo vs. Thurston Moore Jazzmasters
Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 2:15 am
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I was considering getting the Thurston Moore one, but decided they better of it, as it costs $1500 and doesnt have tone control. It sure is beautiful, though! The pickups are nice, too.


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Post subject: Re: Lee Ranaldo vs. Thurston Moore Jazzmasters
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2012 11:03 pm
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I had a Jazzmaster and Sonic Youth-loving guitar tech set them up for me, including setting pickup height, and it made a big difference in the quality of the sound. Both these guitars are really great. I currently have the Thurston tuned to D D# A# D# G G and the Renaldo tuned to C G D G C D. The guitar tech routed out the nut for the thicker string gauges and adjust the neck and set the intonation. I learned a few SY tunes from the Rather Ripped album. Now I'm creating my own riffs in the SY tunings. Fun. :) No need need for a tone control, I adjust at the amp.

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Website: http://www.robroper.com
Fender Guitars: Am Std Tele, EC Strat, AVRI '62 Jazzmaster, Lee Ranaldo Jazzmaster, Thurston Moore Jazzmaster.
Fender Amps: '61 Brownface Deluxe, '65 Champ, '59 Bassman Ltd, Tweed Champ clone, Tweed Deluxe clone.


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