Hohner JT 60

I am not sure when this guitar was manufactured, but I bought mine about 6 years ago. I only bought this guitar cos I quite liked the quirky look of it and I thought it would be an original kind of shape to be associated with. There is no other reason to buy this guitar except for the look of it. It does look kinda cool. The guitar has a 22 fret configuration and has a rosewood maple neck with an obvious cheap hardwood for the body. The guitar is three piece and can be seen quite clearly through the finish of the guitar. It has a very thick coating of varnish with a white/cream finish and tortiose scratch plate. It is heavy as all perverbial, horrible thing to gig with, and not very well balanced. The tail of this guitar holds too much weight forcing the neck upwards. The overall design is a weird jazzmaster/stratocaster hybrid, i guess thats the selling point. Pickups, hardware, pots and tuners in a word, crap and useless.

It never suited anything until it was gutted. The original single coils that it had were in a word, muddy and just terrible, very little in the way of treble sustain, the whole thing sounded very muffled. Apparentley the wiring and the pickups wer supposed to be able to emulate a whole variety of guitars. But this poor attempt failed to nail anything and instead came up with its own sound, crap. When played through my heads (JCM 900 and Marshall V100) the feedback on the gain channel, especially in the neck position was almost frigtning. the action was pitiful and I dont care whether it was factory or not. If your gonna release a guitar that rolls out with action like this, how in gods name would you sell anything? I had to completlet block the tremelo system and file the saddles in order to get decent playability, yes it can be acheived. There is a tremendous amount of useless wiring, poor soldering and general poor craftmanship in the guts of it. All pickups were stripped and inside there are now three Fender SCN pickups with 500k pots. It has a great sound with these PUPs, very warnm and rich due to its very solid body.

ACTION: Poor very poor. Needs alot of neck adjustment, saddle adjustment, intonation and if you really want a whole new tremelo system.
PICKUPS: 3 x poor single coils. No insulation on pickups, just duct tape. Dont bother just change them.
BRIDGE/TREMELO: Poor. Tuners are very bad, this thing will just move out of tume the first use of the tremelo. Lock it down with 5xsprings should be okay. Does not use standard fender tremelo arms. too small a hole.
Nut has broken twice? Stress I dont know why. It is a graphite nut in there now. Cost me bloody fortune.

Dont play it live, you will be crippled if you try to play it for to long, very heavy, and not well balanced. A thick leather strap will help tremedously. I gig two songs with this thing thats it. It has a unique sound post the work and tolerates a capo well. The finish has withstood alot of drops, and has little in the way of damage.

the hardware will last, overall its built like a sherman tank, and sounds like one too.

Again, this guitar got me on looks. I knew it would play bad, but with a few really good alterations you can come out with a decent axe.. I wouldnt buy it again after all the alteration I had to make and I wuold definetly never use it as a main axe. I would not even give it to a begginer way to heavy. Overall this guitar is monet, look fantastic at a distance, but up close and personal its as ugly as your gran.

doesnt exist

I have been playing for 20 years. I play through a custom USA stratocaster with Fender Red lace in the bridge and 2xSCN pickups. I also play another strat with fender dual coil hunbucker in the bridge and dimarzio P83 telecaster pickups in the middle and neck (These have to be tediously altered to fit but sound awesome, highly recomend dimarzio) My main amps are JCM 900 and Valvestate V8100 (original 93, awesome amp, i love it! ) played through either a Lead 1960 or 2x15 Marshall config with Behringer 15x1 bass speaker. My effects are Boss Me 50, digitech rp100 (clean modulation) Boss Chorus, Boss Phaser and Jim Dunlop Wah into main input (no loops). So yeah this guitar is like crap standing next to my main axes. I would buy it again, although I would be very annoyed if i lost it as i have spent alot of time and money on it.
Again, I dhsoe it cos it looked pretty cool. I was 14. With a wee bit of work you can get it sounding pretty good

It looks like a Fender Jazzmaster with Strat pickup configuration. It was built in the 80s, the previous owner said. Got it in perfect condition, like brandnew! Cream white body with Tortoise pickguard, maple neck with rosewood fretboard, satin clear paint for smooth grip feeling. I don't use any tremolo, so I blocked it. The body is pretty heavy, so I suppose it is made of plywood?

The JT 60 fits most of music styles because of the tone variety. I play old stuff, like Beatles, Stones, Clapton and some Jazz. It is my Fender style guitar (among a few semi acoustics), sounding like Jazzmaster, Strat and everything in between. The tone is more fat, not as twangy as a Strat (which I like). It's 3 single coils, the middle one can be added with the center pot (sounds very stratty then). And - unlike a Strat - you can switch on all 3 pickups together! The tone control adds more bottom first, cutting treble more and more then. Big tonal range from funky to jazzy sounds.

The setting was poor when I received the guitar. The previous owner had not touched it. I had to correct the bowed neck and to set up the bridge. On the nut, I had to deepen the string slots. The pickups needed height adjustment. All in all - a lot of work, that is done by professionals normally! The action cannot set up perfectly flat as I like it, because of some buzzing on the B and E1 string then. But still O.K.. The fretwork, the hardware and the overall finish is satisfactory if you think of the price.

I play at home mostly, so all my guitars are in mint condition. But the Hohner is robust enough for hard use on stage, I suppose. I would use it on a gig without backup.

No experience so far. I never need any repair from a dealer, because I do it all myself, as a hobby so to say.

I've been playing since 1968. I own around 10 guitars and basses. For example 3 Hofner Verythin (1968 - 2002 models), a Hofner New President, a bass 185 (1964) and an Ibanez ATK 300 bass. For the guitars, I use a Roland Cube 30 and a Micro Cube, for the basses a Trace Elliot Boxer 65. Loud enough to nerve my wife and the neighbors!
If the JT 60 were stolen, I would buy a new one. I used to have a Fender Strat and for my taste, the Hohner sounds better! The ergonomic Jazzmaster body shape with the wide tone range makes it a prefect axe for me. The neck shape could be less wide and thicker, but I can live with it. Summary: Great guitar for little money!

? Strat type tremelo;
? 3 single coil pickups;
? 3 way pickup selector;
? Hohner ATN tone system;
? 22 jumbo frets;
? Offset Jag/Jazzmaster type body;
? Flat Rosewood fingerboard.

The ATN circuitry was supposed to emulate lots of different guitars, using different combinations of pickup selection, tone and volume settings.
This worked, to some extent, but there was no depth to the tone, it always sounded muffled and woolly.

So, as Tim Allen would say, I rewired it!
(Then my bassist re-wired my re-wiring, 'cos my soldering is Sh*t!)

The guitar now has two Kent Armstrong, P90 type, single coil pickups with a 3 way selector, volume and tone. With this simple layout, the guitar sounds much better.

ATN ? 5/10
Rewire ? 8/10

All that needed doing to set the guitar up, was to lock the tremelo (which I did by jamming the cork from a wine bottle in it!)

I couldn't live with the headstock, so a wood carver friend made me an insert, which was glued & screwed to the original, to give it the scrolled fender-ish look.
From a distance the guitar looks like a Jazzmaster!

The guitar has been gigged, as a main guitar, backup, and alt tuning guitar.

It has sustained numerous attacks, and has continued to work.

Amps ? Two Laney LC30ii valve combos; 70s Fender Silverface Bassman (hot rodded); 60s Klemt class A valve head; Marshall 1936 2 x 12" cabinet.

Guitars - '97 Japanese Fender Jazzmaster Reissue; '70s Japanese Electra Tele copy; '70s CSL Les Paul copy.

If the guitar was stolen or lost, I would be gutted, because I have a great guitar for a total outlay of #110! I would have to buy another Jazzmaster to replace it!

My guitar one of the originals when My Bloody Valentine were FAB and Hohner cashed in on a budget Jazzmaster style guitar which everyone wanted at the time...its guitar is a nice light green although reminiscent of school toilet walls green. The fingerboard is rosewood which dosen`t go with the green and the thing is WAY too long so it dosen`t fit in a standard guitar case...The tuners are rubbish but the body paint is absolutely ROCK-HARD and has survived being dropped, burnt and general fallings over many time. The neck despite looking like more stratty is more akin to a Gibson SG and its possible to get a really nice action out the thing...

This was the big selling point of the guitar, it featured Hohners supposedly `ATN` Advanced Tonal Network, or something like that, so it can imitate virtually any other guitar using subtle variations of the tone controls and different pick up combinations. This dosen`t actually WORK of course but it offers a wide selection of differing sounds suitable for most styles of music. Everything from a heavy sound to sounds almost not detectable to the human ear are possible...It needs to be said that these tones are of course let down by the cheapish pick-ups which compromise the overall output to the amp. Nice try though.

Bought mine second hand so wouldn`t know how Hohner allowed these guitars to leave the factory. By the look of mine, it had a twisted almost completely goosed neck so they probaly cut costs and didn`t set them before they left.
The tremelo is absolutely AWFUL and I blocked it off as soon as I thought of a way how to. One half decent wang bar dive will leave you having to tune the whole guitar again and possibly reset the whole chuffing instrument...Very POOR! Probably this would happen mid-set as well, so to avoid the onlslaught of beer cans or plastic glasses and chants of `why are we waiting?`unscrew the wang bar and leave it at home.

The hardware on this guitar is dissapointingly cheap and nasty. It really looks the part and is dressed to kill but the metal bits on it are woefully inadequate, mine came with a supposed `gold` finish which quickly got irreversibly corroded with sweat (I`m not a sweaty person by the way) and all needs replacing.
The finish is about 16 layers thick of paint and will survive a direct nuclear attack on your stage, when you obviously won`t.
Although its me main guitar it snaps string for no reason like a snappy string thing. A slight drop or rise in temperature will result in a string change and if you haven`t learnt the way it creaks yet very probably a facial injury to boot.

Rang Hohner, cos originally it came with a booklet about how to get the best out the ATN and how to get the other guitar sounds. Spoke to someone impossibly slow from Wales who 3 weeks later sent me an advert for the guitar cut out of a magazine!

I think overall I have been a little harsh on the thing. It looks fantastic and despite initial problems is nice to play. The hardware is really dissapointing but if you stay away from the Tremelo bar its well world-tour worthy (just) although it may come back in kit form.
It has a wide variety of sounds of which most are usable and there are some only my cat can hear and you won`t get a more versatile, handsome guitar for your money in this price range full stop.
They are cheap to buy 2nd hand and are a real viable alterative to Fenders cheaper Jazzmaster/Jaguar style guitars.
Mine sounds purely excellent clean with compression and thru a Rat pedal and really pretends to be more expensive than it actually is. Get one.

I got this in the guitar shop where i worked for a while, it came in a cream finish but i painted it with blue checks (god only knows why)
I wanted a single coil strat sound as my other guitars are a les paul, a 335 and a tele. I found that clean this guitar does sound pretty damn amazing for the price and that the controls are responsive and useful. However, distorted it is very muddy and has very little natural sustain.

I played this guitar with the high school jazz band at the finals of the NFMFY in London, i used it for a jazz tune and with an FX25 auto wah for the funky numbers, I had to switch to my Les Paul for anything bluesy however. I use it for clean guitar parts on recordings and occasionaly with a fully open wah if i wanna go a bit crazy, with treble boosted the dirty sound is much improved

It is a pretty well built guitar, set up nice, it suffers from cheap pickups and several dodgy home refinishes (i am a fool!!!!!!)

very heavy so also solid as a rock

nice thing to have, goodprice, can't complain

Dont know a lot about this guitar. was white, jaguar shape (why i bought it). i got this guitar when i had some money, wanted a real fender jaguar, but couldnt afford it. It was basically jaguar shape with wierd jazzmaster / strat features. the pick-ups and bridge were start, with tremolo sytem. the slector was like on a jazzmaster, with a position for each pickup (ie 3). 2 pots if i remember- volume and tone. fender style headstock, fairly pointed unlike other fender guitars so that it would'nt fit in a standard size case. this was a pain in the ass as i had to lug it around (and the jaguar that eventually replaced it) in a huge bass case. it was alos quite wide as well. i cant imagine any of this stuff was very expensive equipment. pretty much a budget guitar.
I know the body was 3 pieces with a bolt-on neck. cant say what the wood was. what i do know is that it weighed more than a nuclear submarine. finished in cremey white colour with a reddy brown mother-of-pearl pick-guard.
Anyway this gutar has long since gone in p/x for a real fender jaguar which i think i also reviewed on this site.
overall- did the job. crap strat style trem a let down. deserves an 8 i spose.

Im not a fan of single coils, but i used it wuith a Proco Turbo Rat which it worked well with. this went into a Marshall valvestate 80w.
this setup was useful for a grunge-rock sound, but with a twiddle of the controls on the rat it could get really badass. and i mean really. my favoutie way of working this was to use the bridge p/u, then switch on the distortion pedal all the time, and roll off the volume pot for clean sounds. this made switching between clean and distortion harder, but i nailed the Nirvana live tone.
overall sounded very good for the money. and considereing the p/us were probably cheapish stuff

Good finish. i kinda thrashed it a bit. this made a mess of the pickguard, which was quite dark. they always show up scratches a lot worse i find. otherwise the finish seemed tough enough. stood up to my attempts at playing. action was high. too high. but i think it was 2nd hand. so it seems unfair to judge the factory set-up. the pickups were very high which i think is good, as it contributes to a dark, fat tone like h/b pickups. which i much prefer btw.
i hated the trem. impossible to tune easily.

seemed solid enuff. nice solid wood. plenty tough to the knocks.

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Good gear overall. cheap stuff really. ideal guitar to thrash the lifee out of. howerver it doesnt compare to the real Fender Jaguar i swapped it in for on a lot of things. Good value though- one of the better budget guitars i have played. definatly better than all those crappy squire strats out there. and those lovely lines ala Jaguar are literally 2nd to none.