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Post subject: Fender Modern Player Jaguar Review
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:51 am
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Now that I’ve had my cheapie Jaguar for over a week now and had a chance to put it through it’s paces and compare it to my other guitars I thought I’d do a full review.


Initial Setup

Not bad at all and perfectly adequate for purpose, punk, old school rock rhythm playing, general noodling, all easily possible. That’s not to say though that it didn’t need a setup to my liking which improved things considerably. Suffice to say that I like my guitars with a very low action (read string buzz essential!) and hybrid strings (52, 42, 24, 16, 11, 9) I was able to dial it in with no issues and I haven’t as yet touched the truss rod. I’m shocked to be fair that I could get a £200 ($300) guitar to this type of setup without much time spent.

A setup like this would be easily achievable by any guitarist as it only really entailed changing the strings and dropping the bridge with the thumb screws.


Finish

No flaws on the body, I can’t even tell whether it’s one or two piece mahogany!

The quality of the fret dressing is high, the fret ends are as good as I’ve seen other than on custom guitars. The fret board REALLY needed an oil, it was dry as Ghandi’s Flip Flop. Not a big issue for me as I have fret board oil to hand but if you’re fairly new to guitar (which this type of guitar is aimed at) then you wouldn’t necessarily know and regard the fretboard as not very fast and a tad uncomfortable.

Unbelievable the neck and headstock has some flame in it! BUT it also has a very small knot next to one of the side position markers which I only noticed last night. It is a high gloss neck, make no mistake, and heavily (read cheaply) tinted.

All hardware is of a better quality than I expected and I wouldn’t want to change any of it yet. The nut is of good quality BUT is cut a tad too close to the sides (although bear in mind that I am nit-picking here on a relatively cheap Chinese mass produced guitar). I’ve tried two MP Strats which were the same but nothing that really hampers playability and it probably shows my shortcomings on fretting the low e string.


Pickups

Pickups are perfectly adequate for the price and better quality/sound than the ceramic single coils in many MIM standard Strats I’ve tried. This however will be my first point of call re mods as I’m used to better PUPs. BUT again I’m nit-picking and these are perfectly adequate for purpose if not better than I expected!


Electrics

Ah, here we are in the realms of cost cutting. Pots are full size but feel cheap. One pot was loose and so was the jack socket so final QC isn’t great. Also, there is a cold solder joint on the tone pot which, as it was loose, and touched the side of the cavity when the knob was turned too hard and caused signal loss. Not an issue for me as I worked out what it was pretty quickly but annoying for someone without anyone without guitar tech knowledge as they would have to take it back to the supplier or pay a guitar tech to sort it. I’m going to upgrade the pots eventually but as I’ve tightned the bolts I no longer have any issues.


Playability

Can’t fault it, once setup to my liking it honestly plays as well as my Strat Plus Deluxes and, shock horror, my USA Standard Les Paul. I love the 24inch scale although spending time on my Jaguar then going to my 25.5 in Tele was an eye opener! The overall feel is great, I didn’t even notice the high gloss neck going between them. I really enjoy playing the Jag which is what it’s all about.


Sound

I A/B’d my Tele and the Tone is much more complex on the Tele (you’d expect it due to the Custom Shop Pickups and the different styles as well (and my Tele was almost 6 times the price) but the Jaguar growled like good-un and I’m now in love with P90 style pickups. The body isn’t resonant to be fair and it is heavy guitar (9.2 lbs) although my Number one Strat has a similar unplugged tone. Once I put the new pickups in I’m expecting to hear more of what the guitar actually sounds like. The current sound is in a word, Generic, not bad but it can be improved.


Summary

Like any guitar below that of custom builds there was some setup needed and a few niggles BUT I would put this guitars worth closer in value to £400 ($600) and as it cost half that I think it’s an absolute steal!!! Greta guitar, it’s a keeper for me and discounting a small setup fee from a guitar tech (which every guitar should really have on first purchase) I would highly recommend this and the Modern Player series in general.

I seriously feel that these first batch of Fender branded Chinese made guitars are hitting the same spot as the original 80s MIJ Fender branded Strats. Great quality at a low price.

Well I hope that this was helpful to others out there considering one of these.

Cheers

Sacha

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MP Jag
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Charvel SDI Lacewood US
Tokai V
Hondo II LP Jnr
Martin 00028-EC
Hand-made 000 acoustic

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Post subject: Re: Fender Modern Player Jaguar Review
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:05 pm
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Thanks for the great review! It is a nice looking guitar, as for the weight the off set bodies have always been a bit heavier due to their size. Glad you like the P-90s sound even though they are not great P-90s...everyone should have at least one guitar with em!

Sounds like this one is a keeper and that is always a sign of a good guitar!

T2

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Post subject: Re: Fender Modern Player Jaguar Review
Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 4:00 pm
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Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:56 am
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Update

Gigged it last night and I was only going to use it for the first couple of songs and ended up using it for the first half of our set. Even though I was more than impressed at the performance of this £200, guitar at a gig no less, I still feel it will benefit from a pickup swap. As soon as funds allow I'll be ordering a set of Bare Knuckle Nantuckets.

Keep on rock in' y'all!

_________________
89+91 Strat+Dlx
MIM FSR Strat
LP Std
MIM Tele
Tele Lite-Rswd
MP Jag
Homebuild Colt
Dano U2
Charvel SDI Lacewood US
Tokai V
Hondo II LP Jnr
Martin 00028-EC
Hand-made 000 acoustic

Marshall DSL100H/TSL100/MA100H
Fender Bls Dlx
Bugera V5
Orange Micro-terror


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Post subject: Re: Fender Modern Player Jaguar Review
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 4:24 am
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Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:56 am
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Further update:

My Bare Knuckle Nantuckets arrived on Friday and along with the new BKP 550K pots and a Sprague 333k orange drop cap, I installed into them into my Jaguar yesterday.

Results: Spectacular!

There is no harshness to the guitar anymore at all, just tone, sparkle, and nuance.

The guitar itself is a heavy beast (9lbs 2), is has a very subtle but also very sweet tone unplugged, (it doesn’t vibrate like mad as per lighter guitars). These pickups really bring that out when plugged in whereas the originals just sounded raw. The tone is now clear with real note definition and real touch sensitivity.

What I’m shocked with is way the pups pull out the inherent tonal properties of the pickup placements. When changing from Neck to bridge I can now really notice the way the different placements enhance certain frequencies. I’m obviously used to the difference but the way these pups pull out the frequencies beggers belief!

The only one minor issue I had was that I needed to run the bridge pickup a lot higher than the neck to get a good balance. Not really an issue with most guitars but the cavity in the neck position (probably due to cheapness of build!) isn’t really deep enough to give enough of a movement with the slightly deeper BKPs. They still sound great though!

Another nice little extra with the BKP pickups is all the ancillary little bits in the box, new set of strings, pick and sticker are a real nice touch and unbelievable considering the price they are selling boutique pickups for.

Cheers all

Sacha


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_________________
89+91 Strat+Dlx
MIM FSR Strat
LP Std
MIM Tele
Tele Lite-Rswd
MP Jag
Homebuild Colt
Dano U2
Charvel SDI Lacewood US
Tokai V
Hondo II LP Jnr
Martin 00028-EC
Hand-made 000 acoustic

Marshall DSL100H/TSL100/MA100H
Fender Bls Dlx
Bugera V5
Orange Micro-terror


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Profile
Post subject: Re: Fender Modern Player Jaguar Review
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 5:19 am
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Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:56 am
Posts: 99
Another little update.

As happy as I am with my Bare Knuckle pickups, after using my Jag for a while now I did find the treble a bit on high side with too much clarity, I decided that I wanted the P90s to be a touch warmer. So I whacked in some CTS 250k audio pots and hey presto very subtle but great change to the tone! Nothing wrong with the 550k bare knuckle custom CTS pots but I just felt like I wanted these p90s to get a little closer in sound to my lace sensors in my Strats than humbuckers. RESULT!

I now think I'm wholly satisfied with my Jag.

Cheers

All

_________________
89+91 Strat+Dlx
MIM FSR Strat
LP Std
MIM Tele
Tele Lite-Rswd
MP Jag
Homebuild Colt
Dano U2
Charvel SDI Lacewood US
Tokai V
Hondo II LP Jnr
Martin 00028-EC
Hand-made 000 acoustic

Marshall DSL100H/TSL100/MA100H
Fender Bls Dlx
Bugera V5
Orange Micro-terror


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Profile
Post subject: Re: Fender Modern Player Jaguar Review
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 12:45 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2013 9:59 am
Posts: 420
Agree about most of that. I'll say that my fret board over the body on the top (where your fingers never go) appears to have been finished with a machette. The rest of it is lovely. It even took the brutal winter dryness better than any other guitar in the house other than the PRS.

I kind of like the pickups. But then I'm not that familiar with p90s.

I also don't trust the tuners to live forever. I don't know if that is because they are cheap or if I just don't like the type.


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