The Instrument Recommendation thread

[lucifer_sam]

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

What about a solid body Vox (Series 33, 55 or 77) w/ switchable Humbucker/P-90s? I've only seen them in mags and youtude but I think they look sharp and I would get them over a Gibson if I was in the market for buying a guitar.

The Classic Player Jazzmaster Special seems like a decent guitar, what I like about this is that it has a tune-o-matic bridge, if you get a regular Jazzmaster with the oringal bridge it rattles apart. One way of getting around that is using nail polish on the hex screws to set them in place but that seem like a lot of time spent tweeking just to set up your guitar. Another choice if you think you might like a Jazzmaster is Thurston Moore's it has the soap bar pick-ups (by Seymore Duncan) and it also has a tune-o-matic bridge but the guitar doesn't have a tone knob, you can get around that and warm up the sound of your guitar lowering the volume.

You might also want check out some some stomp boxes too like Death by Audio (Fuzz War) or Home Brew Electronics (HBE Germania).

I suppose I should have been more explicit in my original post. I'm not really looking for anything with humbucking pickups, or any solid body guitar which has a predilection to arrest feedback. Which is kinda why I was straying towards a hollowbody in the first place. And even if I had the money for a Gibson, I wouldn't buy one.

I'm very familiar with Jazzmasters and I'm aware of most of the idiosyncracies they possess. For instance, the Tune-O-Matic bridge which you made reference to is an early noughties creation, but people have been retrofitting Mustang bridges on Jazzmasters for decades to avoid the "string pop" issue they are prone to. Additionally the Custom-In-Japan (CIJ) models don't have quite the same soapbar pickups and are generally lower in quality than American models, resulting in an atypical 'buzz' rather than the typical 'hum' that is the traditional Jazzmaster sound, but the Made-In-Japan (MIJ) models are actually superior to many American Jazzmasters, as they weren't manufactured for export. The AVRI Jazzmaster is an attempt to reconcile those initial issues while retaining the classic sound that graced the originals, which is what I'd be aiming for if I actually decided to buy one.

I plan on getting a fuzz box (most likely a Big Muff) and a compression pedal in due time, but for now I just want an electric guitar.

But thanks very much for the input.