Framus Jazzmaster Copy

The features on this put a real jazzmaster to shame. after reading the review below i am sure that fellow has one just like mine. i have to agree with everything he says but i wanted to add more detail on this guitar.

lets start with the vibrato. It has a roller bar. the strings go under bar to create a steeper breaking angle. it seriously looks like this is where the "buzz stop" for jazzmaster/jaguar idea came from.

the angle of the vibrato arm is adjustable. i like the arm nice and high. i usually bend them up. no need here, just turn the thumb wheel. The spring is nice and firm so you have a lot of control.

moving on to the bridge. it looks very similar to the modern schaller roller bridge where the saddles roll on screw threads. the gretch space bridge also worked on this idea but it is much better executed here with all the features found on the modern schaller style roller.

This is a vast improvement over the earlier framus bridge which was a tunamatic with serated saddles. That bridge seemed like it was actually designed to go out of tune because the strings caught on the serated edge and could not possibly return to pitch.

zero fret. yes! between the zero fret and the roller bridge this guitar can help but stay in tune.

framus got it right on this one.

The pickups are something special (bill lawrence?). imagine all the thwack, spank, dynamics and clarity of a strat pickup, but with a fuller bottom and higher output than a p-90. the pickups are very quiet do to proper sheilding. These pickups make it sound like you are playing a big hollow body. if you can believe this, it's even closer to the acoustic sound of a full hollowbody than what a real hollowbody electric sound like plugged into an amp (minus the sustain of course), but the sound is coming from a solid body with a bolt on neck! damn, now that is tone.

Oh yeah. it is a jazzmaster all the way. not kinda jazzmaster shaped. it is shaped just like a jazzmaster. it even has a fender shaped headstock. The paint is the three color "target" burst that you always see on fenders after 1964 (black, red, bright yellow). The only thing i would fault here is the pickguard. It doesn't match to well with the finish, but is just gives it more vintage kitsch character.

Neck is thick for a framus. think 50's tele. it is all the the good. fat necks rule for tone and feel. i have big hands and always seek out the fattest necks i can find.

It's about 35 years old. i think it has proved it's steel at this point.

yeah right.

can you tell i love this guitar. it is the best. i have two japanese jazzmasters and a '65, this one kills 'em dead even after all the money i spent upgrading them. this one is better stock. for my real jazzmasters i use seymour duncan pickups. i stop the bridges and install graphtech saddles and nuts. i put on the buzz stop and they still sound like crap next to this. well they sound great, but this has got a bit a more mojo and tone and it doesn't need anything. it is exactly everything it needs to be and nothing that it doesn't.

This Fender Jazzmaster-like guitar is probably made in the year 1972/73 in Bavaria, Germany. Though it's not a Strato Deluxe!!! It's got a lovely sunburst finish with a red perloid pickguard. Looks nice! It's maybe an alder body with a multi-laminated bolt-on maple neck with a rosewood fretboard and 21 frets on it. Both pickups look like Gibson P-90/94 and are single-wound. Also there's a bigsby-style whammy on this funky guitar. The tuners are stock. One volume and one tone control, combined with a three-way selector. Nothing special but all you need...

I play Funk, Rock 'n Roll, Jazz, Soul and Blues. This guitar fits just well especially for Funk (this Chili Peppers style) and Rock 'n Roll (yeah, Franz Ferdinand etc...) through a Fender Blues Deluxe. Its sound is very bright and clear, like a mixture of a Stratocaster and a Telecaster, but it doesn't sound like a Jazzmaster, though it looks so... I love it...

The action of the very thick neck is just fine and low. But I have to say, that I love thick necks. You get much more tone out of it! Even this weird whammy works just fine and doesn't get this guitar out of tune. But this is probably the result of this very hard usin' tuners... I'll replace them by the way...

This guitar seems to be built for a whole lifetime and you can count on it! Krauts did a very nice job...

...ahm...

I love this guitar and I won't get lost of it. I play for 12 years now and I got a lot of guitars, like Fenders, Crafters, Epiphones and other vintage Framus'. I like this guitars, but you have to be lucky when trying to purchase one. Some are crap and some are just beautiful like this one...