Fender Jaguar

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Fender Jaguars

The Jaguar is an electric guitar . It has been manufactured by the American musical instrument maker Fender since 1962 .

history

The model came on the market in 1962 as the successor to the Fender Jazzmaster , which came out in the late 1950s. With a shortened neck and "lots of chrome" (original quote from Leo Fender ), it should be the new top model. However , it was not up to the competition from the electric guitar models Fender Stratocaster and Fender Telecaster . Fender stopped production in 1975 for lack of success. In 1999 production was resumed with the "1962 Reissue Jaguar". Jaguar models are now also being offered by the Fender subsidiary Squier.

construction

The Jaguar follows as before the Jazz Master the basic design principle of the Fender company: At a massive body of alder - or ash wood one is neck from Maple screwed. In contrast to the Jazzmaster, the Jaguar has 22 frets (Jazzmaster 21) and a short scale length of 24 inches . The tuning machines are in a line on the upper side of the asymmetrical headstock . In contrast to the Jazzmaster, the electrical system is not mounted on a pickguard, which is usually made of plastic, but sits under the chrome-plated plates in which switches and potentiometers are mounted. The pickups of the Jaguar are two of the single coil type , which were only installed in the Fender models Jaguar, Bass VI and Cyclone II . Although optically similar to the pickups of the Stratocaster, the pickups are custom-made, which produce a higher power and a warmer sound, similar to that of humbuckers .

The Jaguar was probably the first electric guitar that enabled out-of-phase switching as standard (note: switching two pickups in opposite phase results in a low-bass, brilliant to sharp sound; see below: "Surf music"). Each of the two three-way cartridge slide switches offers the settings positive, off, negative .

The Jaguar and Jazzmaster have floating bridge - bridge systems with many overtones , see also Third bridge guitar .

The jaguars in music

Guitarist with a Fender Jaguar

At the beginning of production in the 1960s, the Jaguar was particularly popular with surf music bands like the Beach Boys .

After the surf wave subsided and production ceased, the guitar fell sharply in price in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Used models were available for $ 100 to $ 200. This was an incentive for up-and-coming punk and grunge bands to get Jaguar-type guitars. Kurt Cobain and the band Sonic Youth were among the pioneers of this trend . In the music video for Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers you can see the intro being played on a Jaguar. Because of this new popularity, Fender launched the "1962 Reissue Jaguar" in 1999 . Another well-known Jaguar player is Johnny Marr , guitarist for the English indie rock band The Smiths . Fender released a signature model of the Jaguar dedicated to Marr .

Kurt Cobain also used the Jaguar as a template for his own signature guitar: When asked what a possible "Kurt Cobain special model" should look like, Cobain photographed his Fender Mustang and a Jaguar, cut the two photos in half, glued the top of the Jaguar to the underside of the Mustang and presented the result with the word "So!" . Logically, the guitar went into production with the artificial name Jagstang ( Jag uar and Mu stang ).

literature

Web links

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