Fender Jag-Stang

Unsure as to year - bought it second-hand from Sam's Music, Franklin, TN. 22 fret, rosewood neck, small scale makes lead work an adventure osrta like putting 16 ounces of liquor in a 12 ounce glass...it's a solid basswood (whatever THAT is) body, "Sonic Blue". The reason I bought it was that it was odd looking - never had seen one before, knew nothing about KC designing it, don't care. It was totally different looking, and that's what I was looking for. Came with a single coil at the neck and a humbucker at the bridge. Sounded OK in the store (isn't that always the case?) but in a live jam session, their shortcomings became immediately evident. Two selector switches for the pickups, putting each pickup on-off-on(reversed polarity), no evident change in tone except when the single coil is out of phase with the humbucker. The bridge is a horrible weird vibrato unit that wouldn't let the axe stay in tune when I got it even though I never Dive-bombed it. The tuners are "vintage" style - God, I hate that word...no case or gig bag included, Sam's did throw in a set of strings

We play classic rock, little country, some new stuff, bought guitar as a backup for my Les Paul Classic. Ok for rhythm work, but lead work is really tough, especially around the upper frets 'cause they are so close together...Use with two Peavey Deuce amps running stereo with Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS-10), Rat pedal, DOD Flashback Fuzz, and Arion Fat Chorus. Originally, the sound was thin, and if I changed from the LP to the Jag, I'd have to turn the amps UP. A LOT. As I said, the selector switches don't really make any difference except when you have both pickups on and switch the single coil out of phase with the humbucker. The pickups were really crappy, so I changed them to a Seymour Duncan Vintage Flat for the neck and a Dimarzio Tone Zone for the bridge, now I can get some good tones, especially with the single coil and the humbucker together.

The setup sucked. Had to set the intonation, pickup height. The action is surprisingly good, but still it is better suited for rhythm work 'cause of the short scale neck. The vibrato/tremolo would let the guitar go out of tune if you even looked at it, so I opened up the guitar and tightened the tension as tight as I could and lowered the weird "barrel" that serves as the tailpiece down really low and just work the vibrato with my hand without the tremolo arm, and the axe stays in tune

The finish so far seems to be ok, but then I don't drop my guitars, I know how to hold onto them so even if a strap comes loose, I'm not standing there looking at it like a drummer looking at a drumstick flying across the room...but that's another story...don't use it as my main axe, IT is the backup - use it for rhythm work on Sultans of Swing, etc.

most unfriendly folks I've ever dealt with, sorta like the folks at Gruhn Guitars; won't ever go back THERE again, either...

benn playing guitar 26 years, own Gibson LP classic 1960 reissue, a late '80s SG, a homemade Strat copy (one good guitar), numerous pedals (including homemade), PA equipment (mostly Peavey, they've always worked for me) - if it were stolen or lost, would probably get one of those Fat Telecaster thingys - never owned one. I really think the guitar looks cool, and it does play well, but it should have come with better pickups and a longer scale neck.

It has two 3-way pickup selectors, a single coil at the neck, and a humbucker at the bridge. It has a volume and a tone control, and its got 22 frets.

I play a lot of heavier stuff like metallica and Rage against the machine, but I also play a lot less heavy music at times. It sounds good for all the styles. The humbucker gives you a fuller sound, while the single coil gives you a much higher pitched sound. Also, if you use a distortion pedal, it buzzes on the single coil so I almost always use just the humbucker.

The action was a little too high so I lowered it, but I lowered it too much on the high E string, so it buzzes there on the first fret. Also the pickups are a litte too high. I play some Korn and Limp Bizkit, and I have to tune down like 6 whole steps cause they use a 7 string, and the string clicks on the pickup and sometimes gets stuck to it. Also, the Pick-guard was starting to peel when I got it, but I fixed that with some super glue.

I don't see any problems with the reliability.

I really like this guitar, and once I fix the little problems I'm sure it will be great.

This guitar was made in Japan and I wish they would have kept it there, it has 22 tiny frets, solid top, volume tone, and in and out of phase on the pickups. The "vintage style" strat pickup must have been so vintage that it was around before the invention of electricity because even with the gain on my amp turned up it sounded like a mellow acoustic. The special design humbucker should have been called the "milquetoast", or the "sh!tsucker 4000" or some clever name that would better describe the awful sound that it bruised my eardrums with. The neck was ok, for a penis. I would be proud if my d!ck was this big around, but not my guitar neck, it made playing every solo a special new adventure. The material itself was ok, the neck was gloss maple, (very pretty) and the fretboard was rosewood (wish they offered it in maple. My only complaint about the neck besides size and fretboard material is that they were two cheap to put the trademark fender "skunk stripe" on the back of the neck. The body wood was bass wood which I thought was great until every other screw in the pickguard stripped out and the straplocks I installed began to wrok their way out, it would have been easier and better if fender would have just used poplar or ash. The finish was a bit thin, but I could live with that...The thing that bothered me the most was the "fiesta red" was the color of a crayola red/orange crayon, not the way it looked in the magazine I ordered it from. The only way I could descirbe the body style is just imagine a guitar that missed a couple of chromosomes in it's developmental stages, it has a weird front point, and right after that the guitar is like 7 inches across, and then it goes back out to normal until the big retarded hump on the bottom. It looks like it started to melt and drip or somthing. The bridge style was a fender dynamic floating vibrato....I would like to throw it in a lake and see if it floats then. The tremelo arm was put in a sh!tty way too, it had a screw you had to adjust with a alan wrench, and it would either be too tight or would fall out. It has fender vintage tuners which are alright I guess. the neck was too thin as I said before, the frets were small, inadaquately spaced and seemed to be constructed from aluminum. I got two nifty alan wrenches and a fender manual that didn't have my guitar in it from the factory...and that was it.

It origionally went with my music style (grunge) about as well as liquid drano goes with mastrubation, I put in a seymour duncan sh-6 super distortion (which is a great pickup by the way) it made this guitar almost playable. The pickups from the factory would make good objects to throw at cars on halloween and that is about the extent of their use, and the noise they would make flying through some glass would be much more satisfying than they would ever make plugged in. They had a tone as warm as a eskimo's ass, and as bright as the underside of a burnt iron skillet. Now this gutiar can scream, I can't find a thing wrong with the sound, which is absofu(kinglutely great after my operation. Sound before -1,000,000,000 after 9, plan on buying some pickups....

The gutiar came from the factory set up like a log with rubber bands on it. The action was so high I could walk in under it, and the bridge rattled with a sound that could be compared to a wood bee. The three ply pickguard was splitting apart and I had to apply super glue which immeadiately pissed me off. The so called "pickups" were set ok, and everything else was ok except for the dynamic vibrato, speaking of which I ripped out the springs, turned it backwards and set it flush with the tremelo cover so it would stay in tune.

This guitar was actually tolerable after I worked on it, if you liked the color and could stand the size of the neck, you could easily play it live. The hardware seems plenty sturdy enough and the finish is fine as long as you don't abuse your gutiar like a idiot. The strap buttons need some work becasue they are starting to strip out from the crappy wood. I would depend on it and would play it at a gig without a back up.

???? Don't know, I am pissed at fender for making this thing so damn cheaply from the factory.

I have been playing for a while, I have owned or still have some crappy gutiar with no name, a harmony discovery, a encore, a squier strat, a fender acoustic, and a yamaha acoustic, and the Jag-stang. If I was freezing to death the only guitars I would hesitate to turn into firewood would be the squier strat and the fender acoustic. I think the Jag-Stang was and is Kurt Cobains curse, it was his practical joke of a gutiar, he played lots of pieces of crap and was even quoted as saying whoever designed the fender mustang should be shot. If it was stolen I would find the guy that stole it and beat him with the retarded hump on the end until the orange paint came off on his head. I love the guitar to death because it is so fu(king cool, but it really is a curse and I hate it at the same time. I wish it had (here we go) 1. a maple fretboard 2. a skunk stripe on the back of the neck, 3. a contour cut in the body 4.real pickups from the factory, 5.real switches so I wouldn't cut my knuckles on it. 6.a hardtail so it would stay in tune 7. chemotherapy to remove the cancerous lump from its body 8.poplar or ash wood body so the screws would stay in 9.a high quality pickguard that won't split apart10 a color besides orange11 basically that it was another guitar, like a strat......I guess thats it, one last word of advice, I posted the cost of this guitar at 299, but you had better be prepared to spend double that in time and money, I would want anyone to play this guitar straight from the factory and if I was fender I wouldn't have put my name on it, however fender was just trying to make a cheap piece of crap that people would shell out $$$ for because Kurt Cobain designed it.

Japanese, basswood body, retarded, unstable bridge, had to pay $100 extra for a case.

The different positions did a decent job at covering the sounds I needed. Pick-ups didn't sound bad, but they weren't great either. I used it with a axsys212 and a rolandjc120, good clean through the roland.

It played good off the rack but the bridge is terrible. The string guides move around like nothing and throw out the intonation. Poor string response, high action coupled with somewhat small frets. Cheap paint.

Boy did this thing fall apart. You barely bump it and there was a huge dent. Straplocks stripped out within a month too. Might as well have built it with balsa wood. Either the switch or the single coil itself just went. Tuning pegs rusting. I always had a backup when playing live.

The guy at the music store I bought it from went to jaill for tax evasion so i didn't bother to get it fixed.

I was really fooled by how it played brand new. The thing broke down just like it's designer. I'm seriously going to give it away because i'm embaresed to try and trade it in. If somebody tried to steal it i'd brobably beat the crap out of them for fun then let them take it. CHeaply made with cheap components and the switches are a pain. I cant believe I traded in a perfectly good Fender amp for it.

This is a Japanese made Jag-Stang. Think it was made in 97. Basswood body, single coil (SRV strat) in neck position humbucker (Dimarzio H-3) in the bridge. Jaguar style body with Mustang style 3 way pickup selectors. Standard strat strap buttons and tuners. Oversized headstock with 'Designed by Kurt Cobain' on back. Mine is fiesta red but is also available in sonic blue.

I play pretty much 60s pschedelic rock (Jimi Hendrix & Led Zeppelin) to 90s grunge (Nirvana & Silverchair) and does well. I usually use the humbucker with the single coil off. Humbuckers average but I'm going to get a Seymour Duncan JB. By the way my setup is a Fender Princeton 112+(65 watts) through a DOD Ice Box Stereo Chorus-Boss DS2-Electro Harmonix Big Muff-Morley wah. Wide variety of pickup combinations. Very bright and midrangey.

When I received this guitar (through Musicians Friend) it had already been adjusted *perfectly*. Awesome. Only thing the tone and volume knobs can change during songs if your not careful.

I'd gig with this only if you get strap locks since these buttons are cheap. Paint looks thin but I'd never drop this so everything is as good as new.

I think this has a 2 year warranty. Never dealt with Fender but Musician's Friend is good.

I've been playing for 2 years and have 6 guitars. This one is my favorite with my Epiphone SG. Way better than my crappy Ibanez RG40. I also have a Harmony beginner's guitar and an Alvarez classical acoustic and a Carlo Rebbeli regular acoustic. I'd definately get another Jag-Stang if it were stolen. If I saw one in sonic blue I'd probably get it too.
P.S. Hurry up and find one as they are discontinued.

I think this guitar is a 22 fret '96 Japenese made. The main feature is the Fender Vibrato which is an awesome little piece. I love the neck on this guitar. It is so thin and perfect for solos. It has mainly the same features as a Mustang.

The sound is pretty good, of course I am comparing to my first guitar a Fender Squier Strat, but I like it has many different settings. I am playing it through a cheap Peavey Bandit(one 12). It is not a noisy guitar, it's pretty quiet compared to my old one. The pickups that came with it are kinda crappy, it is a look alike of a Strat pickup and a cheap humbucker, but if you adjust them just right it sounds good. Oh yeah I had to raise the bridge a whole lot because the strings were rattling an awful lot.

The guitar setup from the factory sucked! I had to fiddle with it a couple of hours to get it right. Like I said above the bridge was setup bad, but it comes with allen wrenches to set it up right. Other than that the guitar was in great shape.

I haven't had any problems with it scratching or falling of the strap.

In all I would say I love this guitar, but I was a huge Nirvana fan so I would do anything to get that sound, and it does a good job of getting it. I would reccamend buying some better pickups for it though.

22 frets, basswood body (I think), small scale rosewood fretboard, fender dynamic vibrato, neck humbucker and bridge single coil with mustang style switches, single tone and volume, disgustingly gaudy bright red finish.

I bought this guitar cuz I liked the small neck (like a duosonic or a mustang) plus someone told me it had good feedback)... then i found out kurt cobain made it (was i the only one who didn't know?) and i didn't want to touch it. I play lots of rock and roll music though, like the Smiths and other hard rock like Sunny Day Real Estate and Unowund and also I play everything else like jazz and classical so i gotta say that eventually i figured out that this guitar doesn't sound half bad, even if people keep telling me to play the chords to smells like etc... I modified the vibrato so it would stay in tune and have more sustain by fitting wooden dowels over the screws that go into the body. usually, they just rest on the screw tip inside that little hole, so the strings are only connecting to the body where it touches, but if you put wood all around the screw you get more connection, plus the screw doesn't move around when you whammy.(email me if you have questions about this) This whammy's actually pretty good -- it's real subtle. The pickups aren't too great. I have to raise the bridge pickup way closer to the treble strings than the bass strings. I don't even touch the single coil because it's too muddy. But the humbucker will really give you a wide range of sounds. And if you want, the out of phase position on the pickup switches will give you even more. I always keep the tone know all the way up. This is one of the best guitars i've heard aside from the duosonic, which actually sucks but is way cool -- of course all my other guitars are epiphone les pauls and sgs and one classical guitar with like four strings. I use a roland jc-120 to get my johnny marr sound happening and i use a lot of effects when i'm not doing johnny marr. sometimes there is mad feedback but then i tell it to shut up and it does, so there. sounds good.

the neck is like the best ever! the body sucks. that's the one thing i hate. it's lopsided and heavy and it smells funny...well... anyway, i guess it probably gives it more sustain than the duo-sonic, but if sustain was a problem i'd buy a compressor. i put 12 gauge flatwound jazz strings on this guitar (remember to adjust your truss rod). it plays really great... and it never goes out of tune. You'll definitely need to change some stuff around when you get it. I'm going to tryu fitting the guitar to a duo sonic body--just for fun.

The single coil got busted and my friend fixed it, but now it makes the dreaded hands-off noise!! I've dropped it a bunch and i've probably made it suck way more. my advice is don't drop it.
maybe i'm just paranoid...

i don't know

i've been playing since i was born -- i came out with a les paul but it got busted, so i replaced it with this guitar. i also got a roland jc-120 and pro co rat, and about seven other effects and a two-track and other stuff along the way. I wish i'd known about the whole kurt cobain thing beforehand, but hey, what can you do? i wouldn't get another one if it was stolen but that's just because i'd get a duosonic or a hollowbody. -- pretty good deal for the money though.
Good things: neck, vibrato bad things: single coil, kurt cobain association, body
okay that's it.

1995,japan,22 frets, 2 controls(volume and tone), 5-way selector switch, 1 humbucking and 1 single coil, rosewood neck.

if youre looking for that nirvana tone, this could be the guitar for you. the reason why I'm saying this is that because it has the potential of sounding like kurts guitar only if you change a few things, such as tthe humbuckers. these pickups are okay, theyre just not beefy enough. Theyll provide the ac/dc sound though. to me it needs more mids, especially when you want to sound like kurt. another thing is that you cant hear the higher strings when put thru distortion as good. as for the single coil, you can get that twangy sound(think of stp's 3rd album) and that strat like sound( think of the opening for temple of the dog's "hunger strike", so that's not too bad. If you are familiar with kurts guitar sound, one thing youll be puzzled about is that this guitar doesn't feedback. ive got the big muff, the rat2, and the boss ds-2 and none of them give the feedback that you hear on their live shows. one more thing, needs more sustain. ps- put seymour duncan jb's in place of the stock

action was fine, pickups needed to be raised higher.

this guitar has done its job for me on stage. strum it as hard as you can and itll stay in tune. but, when youre about to get get new strings on them, be sure to get youre truss rod adjusted.

never had any problems with it.

Ive been playing for roughly 5 years. i own a marshall valvestate, a fender princeton chorus, 5 pedals( big muff, rat2, boss ds-2, boss super chorus, and a electro-harmonix deluxe electric mistress). if you want this guitar too shine, plug it thru a fender. if i were to lose this i'd probably get an epiphone les paul or a fender jazzmaster/jaguar not that there is anything wrong with this guitar. the only thing i wish this guitar could have is a better humbucker.

this review applies to my jag-stang *after* i modified it. i wanted to sell this guitar but i couldnt get a good price on it so i decided to make it at least tolerable...and i was nicely surprised. see my earlier submission for info on its pre-modified state. i suppose i'll use this space to describe the mods i made:
first i disabled the vibrato by taking out the springs. this made the guitar less plunky and gave it a little more sustain and much more tuning stability (which wasn't bad to begin with, but i never used to whammy bar...)
i then replaced the horrible stock humbucker with a seymour duncan jb. i played it with my boss ds-1 (these sound awful on small amps but great on cabs) through my crate blue voodoo halfstack and it sounded wonderful. so wonderful that i started thinking about modifying the guitar some more.
i wanted to add a mini toggle switch to the guitar, and i wanted to straighten out the humbucker (more on this in the next category). since the shell layer was peeling off of the rest of the pickguard, i figured it was time to buy a new pickguard and do just that.
i ordered an on/on/on mini toggle switch (chrome)from stew-mac, and a red tortoise shell pickguard from jeannie pickguards (http://pweb.netcom.com/~pickg/pw1.htm). i also changed the slide switches and the neck pickup cover to black (to match the jb).
i used a dremel multipro to route a space for the new switch, which is located where jazzmaster switches are. i also had to route the humbucker cavity a little to straighten it out. i made the humbucker and switch cut-out on the new pickguard myself to save $10.
the last thing i added was a mike christian black ice circuit from stew mac (see next section for more info).
i disconnected the neck pickup (which sux) and the two slide switches for now, but plan on wiring them back in when i replace the neck p/u.

i wired the mini toggle switch to the humbucker to give me series/split/parallel wiring options. they all sound great. now that the humbucker doesnt sit at a tilt, it sounds more even and has more sustain.
ok...the black ice. this thing replaces the capacitor on your tone pot and turns the tone control into an overdrive control, which sounds like a tube amp. i never used my tone knob, and was thinking of using that space for the toggle switch until i saw this in the stew-mac catalog. it doesnt add gain to your signal, it just clips it. the harder u strum the more overdriven it sounds. it's so sweet. when used on a clean channel it adds an excellent dirty kind of sound which is great for classic rock and radiohead type stuff. when used on top of distortion, it makes the sounds thicker. it really makes this guitar much more versatile.
with the new wiring options and black ice id have to give this guitar a 9 in the sound department(also since their is no electronic buzz except when the jb is in split mode). it's hard to give anything a 10...

great action, great intonation, very thin finish which cracks too easily. i'm thinking of having a contour added for the arm (there isnt enough wood to allow for one on the back...the cavity for the slide switches is too deep), then refinished with a much thicker, more durable finish.
im knocking this down to a 7 only because of the finish

again, the finish isnt very durable (either was the stock pickguard). but everything else is. i never trust any strap buttons so i got these strap lock things from stew-mac for $1.84. theyre really great. they didnt require any modification and they work really well.
i will definitely use this guitar in a band setting. one of the coolest things about this guitar is the saddles. theyre rounded and arent sharp at all so its nearly impossible to break a string. and it intonates perfectly. i dont know why people bother to put tune-o-matics on their jag-stangs. i always break strings on my les paul.

i hate how fender doesnt have an email address. but let me say that stew-mac and jeannie pickguards are fantastic. i ordered my supplies from stew-mac online and they emailed me the next day saying they recieved the order and it was on its way. i got it the *very next day* and i didnt even pay extra for overnight delivery. jeannie pickguards only took about a week to send me my new pickguard and it was *perfect*. i think the price was pretty good too. i had also emailed them before ordering it...they were great.
this rating is for those two companies
i'd also like to take the time to mention the names of people who were helpful in providing me with information about making some of these mods:
greg morlan (runs the jag-stang owners club http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stage/2925/) and angel romero for sharing the procedures they used to replace the stock pickguard on their jags; john flugel for the information about contours and refinishing; and a special mention for the customer service reps at allparts who completely ignored my email...

i used to hate this guitar, now i love it. i would be absolutely heartbroken if someone stole this. i put so much time and money into it, and its great. i wish it had a contour and a better neck pickup...and those are mods i plan on making sometime in the future. the only thing i really hate about this guitar is the thin finish. but that will also be taken care of.
as i said before, its hard to give anything a 10, but this guitar is fantastic. its interesting to think that all of this started with changing the humbucker...with the intention being to make the guitar tolerable. it really surpassed all of my expectations.

50th anniversary edition-japaniese made-22 frets, short scale neck-basswood body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard-1 volume 1 tone knob-birdge is floating dynamic wierd ass mustang stuff-tuners, contrary to what some others have said are great as far as i'm concerned vintage style and have no problems, they are very smooth-slim neck and short too i really like that cause i've got small hands

the sound of this guitar has tons of variety- although the humbucker is a bit weak-i use a dod hard rock distortion box and a shitty peavey amp-i like to play heavy stuff and that is why i will probably put in a seymour duncan invader pickup-

action is fantastic since i bought it a year ago-nothing wrong with it when i got it and nothing wrong now-ive heard that the paint chips easily but never had it happen so i can't judge that myself

this guitar seems reliable for me, it will go out of tune only if you use the whammy bar, which i don't and have no problems with tuning, the guitar seems sturdy the only thing is that one of the strap buttons stripped and the music place fixed it free, i'd use it for a gig with no backup anyday

never dealt with fender, but only with the music shop so i don't know about this one...

been playing for 3 years now and i'd buy this guitar again if it were lost i love the short neck and the versatile sound range but hate the selector switches and wish it was just a regular toggle...wish it had a tunomatic bridge