Vintage Fender Jaguar Shootout!

The Fender Jaguar™. Much misunderstood due to either being considered an 'indie' guitar and plugged into a sea of effects pedals or a guitar played by wanna-be Beach Boys surf people, the main downfall of this top-of-the-line Fender was Jimi Hendrix. As soon as Hendrix strapped on his Strat, the Jaguar's days were numbered.

Later on, players looking for something cheap picked them up and the reputation of the Jaguar being an 'indie' guitar arose - beloved of effects pedal jockeys and hipsters.

However, all of this is tosh. As wrong as suggesting the Jaguar is 'short scale'. It isn't. If it was then a Gibson Les Paul should be as the scale length is almost the same.

Anyway, I was turned onto Jaguars by Kurt Vile and the tremolo swoops he does just sounded incredible so I bought an old one as the price wasn't that much more than a Fender Custom Shop.

I have bought more in the intervening years and I have done this shootout of 5 Jaguars:
1962 slab board sunburst
1965 original Olympic White
1965 original Black
1965 original Candy Apple Red
1967 original Lake Placid Blue CBS era block and binding.

Just to see what the differences were and just because it was a cool idea to do!

I recorded this with a Two Rock Classic Reverb into a Two Rock 2x12" cabinet using an SM57 and Rode NT1-A. Then into a Presonus Studio 68C and Studio One with no post processing or effects.
The reverb is from the amplifier entirely.

I do an intro for each then some examples of the guitars. The last section is a sequence of each guitar back to back for each pickup combination.

I love Jaguars. I use 11-52 gauge strings and Staytrem bridges. 4 of the 5 have Staytrem tremolo bars and collets too. They stay in tune perfectly and you can really rip on the tremolo bar and tuning remains rock solid.

Try THAT on a Stratocaster Mr. Hendrix!

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www.gringopig.com

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