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-THE FENDER STRATOCASTER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -The Fender Stratocaster is a model of electric guitar designed in 1954 by Leo Fender, William Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Corporation has manufactured the Stratocaster continuously from 1954 to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top "horn" shape for balance. Along with the Gibson Les Paul, it is one of the most often copied electric guitar shapes. "Stratocaster" and "Strat" are trademark terms belonging to Fender.
Originally the Stratocaster was offered in a 2-color sunburst finish on a solid, deeply contoured ash body, a 21-fret one-piece maple neck with black dot inlays and Kluson tuning heads. In 1956 Fender began issuing solid Stratocasters with alder bodies.[4] In 1960 the available custom colors were standardized, many of which were automobile lacquer colors from DuPont available at an additional 5% cost. The unique single-ply, 8-screw hole white pickguard held all electronic components except the recessed jack plate—facilitating easy assembly. Despite many subsequent Stratocaster models (including copies and the Superstrat), vintage Fender models are highly valued by collectors for their investment potential and players who prefer the timbre of older models.
Stratocasters have been used in many genres, including country (the genre Fender intended for), rock, pop, soul rhythm and blues, blues, jazz, and even heavy metal. Fenders where the type of guitars that where used for almost anything and as surprising as it is some very famous country players use Fender Stratocasters for most of there songs.
-THE FENDER STRATOCASTER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -The Fender Stratocaster is a model of electric guitar designed in 1954 by Leo Fender, William Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Corporation has manufactured the Stratocaster continuously from 1954 to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top "horn" shape for balance. Along with the Gibson Les Paul, it is one of the most often copied electric guitar shapes. "Stratocaster" and "Strat" are trademark terms belonging to Fender.
Originally the Stratocaster was offered in a 2-color sunburst finish on a solid, deeply contoured ash body, a 21-fret one-piece maple neck with black dot inlays and Kluson tuning heads. In 1956 Fender began issuing solid Stratocasters with alder bodies.[4] In 1960 the available custom colors were standardized, many of which were automobile lacquer colors from DuPont available at an additional 5% cost. The unique single-ply, 8-screw hole white pickguard held all electronic components except the recessed jack plate—facilitating easy assembly. Despite many subsequent Stratocaster models (including copies and the Superstrat), vintage Fender models are highly valued by collectors for their investment potential and players who prefer the timbre of older models.
Stratocasters have been used in many genres, including country (the genre Fender intended for), rock, pop, soul rhythm and blues, blues, jazz, and even heavy metal. Fenders where the type of guitars that where used for almost anything and as surprising as it is some very famous country players use Fender Stratocasters for most of there songs.
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Fender Telecaster
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The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele is the world's first commercial solid-body, single-cutaway electric guitar made by Fender, typically dual-pickup in configuration. Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music. Introduced for national distribution as the Broadcaster in the autumn of 1950, it was the first guitar of its kind produced on a substantial scale. Its commercial production can be traced as far back as March 1950, when the single- and dual-pickup Esquire models were first sold. The Telecaster has been in continuous production in one form or another since its first incarnation. The Fender Telecaster has been mostly used in music genres such as country and rock, but is also sometimes used in blues and jazz.The Fender Telecaster was developed by Leo Fender in Fullerton, California in 1950. In the period roughly between 1932 and 1949, several craftsmen and companies experimented with solid-body electric guitars, but none had made a significant impact on the market. Leo Fender's Telecaster was the design that finally put the solid-body guitar on the map.Fender had an electronics repair shop called Fender's Radio Service where he first repaired, then designed, amplifiers and electromagnetic pickups for musicians—chiefly players of electric semi-acoustic guitars, electric Hawaiian (lap steel) guitars, and mandolins. Players had been 'wiring up' their instruments in search of greater volume and projection since the late 1920's, and electric semi-acoustics (such as the Gibson ES-150) had long been widely available. Tone had never, until then, been the primary reason for a guitarist to go electric, but in 1943, when Fender and his partner, Clayton Orr "Doc" Kauffman, built a crude wooden guitar as a pickup test rig, local country players started asking to borrow it for gigs. It sounded shiny and sustaining. Fender got curious, and in 1949, when it was long understood that solid construction offered great advantages in electric instruments, but before any commercial solidbody Spanish guitars had caught on (the small Audiovox company apparently offered a modern, solidbody electric guitar as early as the mid-1930's), he built a better prototype. That hand-built prototype, an anonymous white guitar, had most of the features of what would become the Telecaster. It was designed in the spirit of the solid-body Hawaiian guitars manufactured by Rickenbacker – small, simple units made of Bakelite and aluminum with the parts bolted together—but with wooden construction. (Rickenbacker, then spelled 'Rickenbacker,' also offered a solid Bakelite-bodied electric Spanish guitar in 1935 that seemed to presage details of Fender's design.) The initial single-pickup production model appeared in 1950, and was called the Esquire. Fewer than fifty guitars were originally produced under that name, and most were replaced under warranty because of early manufacturing problems. In particular, the Esquire necks had no truss rod and many were replaced due to bent necks. Later in 1950, this single-pickup model was discontinued, and a two-pickup model was renamed the Broadcaster. From this point on wards all Fender necks incorporated truss rods. The Gretsch company, itself a manufacturer of hollowbody electric guitars (and now owned by Fender), claimed that "Broadcaster" violated the trademark for its Broadcaster line of drums and banjos, and as a newcomer to the industry, Fender decided to bend and changed the name to Telecaster, after the newly popular medium of television. (The guitars manufactured in the interim bore no name, and are now popularly called 'Nocasters.') The Esquire was reintroduced as a one-pickup Telecaster, at a lower price. In 1951, Fender also released the Precision Bass as a stablemate to the Telecaster. This was later released as the Fender Telecaster Bass when Fender updated the Precision Bass to more closely resemble the Stratocaster. Leo Fender's simple and modular design was geared to mass production, and made servicing broken guitars easier. Guitars were not constructed individually, as in traditional luthiery. Rather, components were produced quickly and inexpensively in quantity and assembled into a guitar on an assembly line. The bodies were bandsawn and routed from slabs, rather than hand-carved individually, as with other guitars made at the time, such as Gibsons. Fender did not use the traditional glued-in neck, but rather a screw-on neck (often erroneously called a bolt-on). This not only made production easier, but allowed the neck to be quickly removed and serviced, or replaced entirely. In addition, the classic Telecaster neck was fashioned from a single piece of maple without a separate fingerboard, and the frets were slid directly into the side of the maple surface—a highly unorthodox approach in its day (guitars traditionally featured rosewood or ebony fingerboards glued onto mahogany necks). The electronics were easily accessed for repair or replacement through a removable control plate, a great advantage over typical construction, in which the electronics could only be accessed through the soundholes in the case of hollow-body instruments, or by taking off the pickguard after removing the strings (in a design popularized by Fender's own later guitar model, the Stratocaster).In its classic form, the guitar is simply constructed, with the neck and fingerboard comprising a single piece of maple, screwed to an ash or alder body inexpensively jigged with flat surfaces on the front and back. The hardware includes two single coil pickups controlled by a three-way selector switch, and one each of volume and tone controls. The pickguard was first Bakelite, soon thereafter it was celluloid (later plastic), screwed directly onto the body with five (later eight) screws. The bridge has three adjustable saddles, with strings doubled up on each. The guitar quickly gained a following, and soon other, more established guitar companies (such as Gibson, whose Les Paul model was introduced in 1952; and later Gretsch, Rickenbacker, and others) began working on wooden solid-body production models of their own. A large chromed cover, often called the "ashtray", was fitted over the bridge for improved shielding, but this is rarely seen as most players find it impedes their style. A huge range of aftermarket components is manufactured, including bridges with three vintage-look brass saddles, compensated (by having two separate string separation points on each saddle) to improve intonation. There are also "vertical stack" humbuckers which fit into a standard bridge in place of the traditional single-coil units and maintain the original appearance. The original switch configuration used from 1950 to 1952 allowed selection of neck pickup with treble tone cut in the first position (for a more bass like sound), the neck pickup with its natural tone in the second position with no tone, and in the third switch position both pickups together with the neck pickup blended into the bridge, depending on the position of the second "tone" knob. The first knob functioned normally as a master volume control. This configuration did not have a true tone control knob. In 1952 the pickup selection circuit was modified by Fender to incorporate a real tone control. Between 1953 and 1967 the neck could be selected alone with a pre-set bass like sound and no tone control, in the middle switch the neck could be selected alone with the tone control and finally the bridge could be selected with the tone control. Although this provided the player with a proper tone control, this assembly did away with any sort of pickup combination. Eventually from late 1967 Fender again modified the circuit for the final time to give the Telecaster a more traditional twin pickup switching system: neck pickup alone with tone control in the first position, both pickups together with the tone control in the middle position and in the third position the bridge pickup alone with the tone control. Typical modern Telecasters (such as the American Standard version) incorporate several details different from the classic form. They typically feature 22 frets (rather than 21) and truss rod adjustment is made at the head stock end, rather than the body end, which had required removal of the neck on the original (the Custom Shop Bajo Sexto Baritone Tele was the only Telecaster featuring a two-octave 24-fret neck). The three-saddle bridge of the original has been replaced with a six-saddle version, allowing independent length and height adjustment for each string. The long saddle bridge screws allow a wide range of saddle bridge positions for intonation tuning. The stamped metal bridge plate has been replaced with a plain, flat plate, and the bridge grounding cover (which, while helping with the shielding, impedes players who like to mute strings at the bridge with the side of the palm, and makes it impossible to pick near the saddles to produce the characteristic Telecaster 'twang') has been discontinued for most models.During the CBS era in the 1970's, the Telecaster body style was changed to a new "notch less" shape, having a less pronounced notch in the crook where the upper bout meets the neck. The notch less body style was discontinued in 1982. The short-lived Elite Telecaster of 1983 incorporated two specially designed humbucking pickups powered by an active circuitry that featured a "TBX" guitar expander and an MDX mid range booster with 12 dB of gain. Other features included a "Freestyle" hard tail bridge and die-cast tuning machines with pear load buttons. This guitar was among the latest CBS-era Fenders to feature a BiFlex truss-rod system, low-friction Easy Glider string trees and active electronics. After CBS sold Fender to a group of employees led by Bill C. Schultz in 1985, production ceased on the Elite Telecaster and other Elite models. Fender Japan made its own version of the Elite Telecaster in late 1984, which featured a 22-fret neck with medium-jumbo fret wire and a modern 9.5 inch fingerboard radius. Notable Elite Telecaster players include Johnny Hallyday, Dave Davies of The Kinks, Michael Houser with Widespread Panic, and Andy Summers of The Police.
Fender Telecaster
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The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele is the world's first commercial solid-body, single-cutaway electric guitar made by Fender, typically dual-pickup in configuration. Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music. Introduced for national distribution as the Broadcaster in the autumn of 1950, it was the first guitar of its kind produced on a substantial scale. Its commercial production can be traced as far back as March 1950, when the single- and dual-pickup Esquire models were first sold. The Telecaster has been in continuous production in one form or another since its first incarnation. The Fender Telecaster has been mostly used in music genres such as country and rock, but is also sometimes used in blues and jazz.The Fender Telecaster was developed by Leo Fender in Fullerton, California in 1950. In the period roughly between 1932 and 1949, several craftsmen and companies experimented with solid-body electric guitars, but none had made a significant impact on the market. Leo Fender's Telecaster was the design that finally put the solid-body guitar on the map.Fender had an electronics repair shop called Fender's Radio Service where he first repaired, then designed, amplifiers and electromagnetic pickups for musicians—chiefly players of electric semi-acoustic guitars, electric Hawaiian (lap steel) guitars, and mandolins. Players had been 'wiring up' their instruments in search of greater volume and projection since the late 1920's, and electric semi-acoustics (such as the Gibson ES-150) had long been widely available. Tone had never, until then, been the primary reason for a guitarist to go electric, but in 1943, when Fender and his partner, Clayton Orr "Doc" Kauffman, built a crude wooden guitar as a pickup test rig, local country players started asking to borrow it for gigs. It sounded shiny and sustaining. Fender got curious, and in 1949, when it was long understood that solid construction offered great advantages in electric instruments, but before any commercial solidbody Spanish guitars had caught on (the small Audiovox company apparently offered a modern, solidbody electric guitar as early as the mid-1930's), he built a better prototype. That hand-built prototype, an anonymous white guitar, had most of the features of what would become the Telecaster. It was designed in the spirit of the solid-body Hawaiian guitars manufactured by Rickenbacker – small, simple units made of Bakelite and aluminum with the parts bolted together—but with wooden construction. (Rickenbacker, then spelled 'Rickenbacker,' also offered a solid Bakelite-bodied electric Spanish guitar in 1935 that seemed to presage details of Fender's design.) The initial single-pickup production model appeared in 1950, and was called the Esquire. Fewer than fifty guitars were originally produced under that name, and most were replaced under warranty because of early manufacturing problems. In particular, the Esquire necks had no truss rod and many were replaced due to bent necks. Later in 1950, this single-pickup model was discontinued, and a two-pickup model was renamed the Broadcaster. From this point on wards all Fender necks incorporated truss rods. The Gretsch company, itself a manufacturer of hollowbody electric guitars (and now owned by Fender), claimed that "Broadcaster" violated the trademark for its Broadcaster line of drums and banjos, and as a newcomer to the industry, Fender decided to bend and changed the name to Telecaster, after the newly popular medium of television. (The guitars manufactured in the interim bore no name, and are now popularly called 'Nocasters.') The Esquire was reintroduced as a one-pickup Telecaster, at a lower price. In 1951, Fender also released the Precision Bass as a stablemate to the Telecaster. This was later released as the Fender Telecaster Bass when Fender updated the Precision Bass to more closely resemble the Stratocaster. Leo Fender's simple and modular design was geared to mass production, and made servicing broken guitars easier. Guitars were not constructed individually, as in traditional luthiery. Rather, components were produced quickly and inexpensively in quantity and assembled into a guitar on an assembly line. The bodies were bandsawn and routed from slabs, rather than hand-carved individually, as with other guitars made at the time, such as Gibsons. Fender did not use the traditional glued-in neck, but rather a screw-on neck (often erroneously called a bolt-on). This not only made production easier, but allowed the neck to be quickly removed and serviced, or replaced entirely. In addition, the classic Telecaster neck was fashioned from a single piece of maple without a separate fingerboard, and the frets were slid directly into the side of the maple surface—a highly unorthodox approach in its day (guitars traditionally featured rosewood or ebony fingerboards glued onto mahogany necks). The electronics were easily accessed for repair or replacement through a removable control plate, a great advantage over typical construction, in which the electronics could only be accessed through the soundholes in the case of hollow-body instruments, or by taking off the pickguard after removing the strings (in a design popularized by Fender's own later guitar model, the Stratocaster).In its classic form, the guitar is simply constructed, with the neck and fingerboard comprising a single piece of maple, screwed to an ash or alder body inexpensively jigged with flat surfaces on the front and back. The hardware includes two single coil pickups controlled by a three-way selector switch, and one each of volume and tone controls. The pickguard was first Bakelite, soon thereafter it was celluloid (later plastic), screwed directly onto the body with five (later eight) screws. The bridge has three adjustable saddles, with strings doubled up on each. The guitar quickly gained a following, and soon other, more established guitar companies (such as Gibson, whose Les Paul model was introduced in 1952; and later Gretsch, Rickenbacker, and others) began working on wooden solid-body production models of their own. A large chromed cover, often called the "ashtray", was fitted over the bridge for improved shielding, but this is rarely seen as most players find it impedes their style. A huge range of aftermarket components is manufactured, including bridges with three vintage-look brass saddles, compensated (by having two separate string separation points on each saddle) to improve intonation. There are also "vertical stack" humbuckers which fit into a standard bridge in place of the traditional single-coil units and maintain the original appearance. The original switch configuration used from 1950 to 1952 allowed selection of neck pickup with treble tone cut in the first position (for a more bass like sound), the neck pickup with its natural tone in the second position with no tone, and in the third switch position both pickups together with the neck pickup blended into the bridge, depending on the position of the second "tone" knob. The first knob functioned normally as a master volume control. This configuration did not have a true tone control knob. In 1952 the pickup selection circuit was modified by Fender to incorporate a real tone control. Between 1953 and 1967 the neck could be selected alone with a pre-set bass like sound and no tone control, in the middle switch the neck could be selected alone with the tone control and finally the bridge could be selected with the tone control. Although this provided the player with a proper tone control, this assembly did away with any sort of pickup combination. Eventually from late 1967 Fender again modified the circuit for the final time to give the Telecaster a more traditional twin pickup switching system: neck pickup alone with tone control in the first position, both pickups together with the tone control in the middle position and in the third position the bridge pickup alone with the tone control. Typical modern Telecasters (such as the American Standard version) incorporate several details different from the classic form. They typically feature 22 frets (rather than 21) and truss rod adjustment is made at the head stock end, rather than the body end, which had required removal of the neck on the original (the Custom Shop Bajo Sexto Baritone Tele was the only Telecaster featuring a two-octave 24-fret neck). The three-saddle bridge of the original has been replaced with a six-saddle version, allowing independent length and height adjustment for each string. The long saddle bridge screws allow a wide range of saddle bridge positions for intonation tuning. The stamped metal bridge plate has been replaced with a plain, flat plate, and the bridge grounding cover (which, while helping with the shielding, impedes players who like to mute strings at the bridge with the side of the palm, and makes it impossible to pick near the saddles to produce the characteristic Telecaster 'twang') has been discontinued for most models.During the CBS era in the 1970's, the Telecaster body style was changed to a new "notch less" shape, having a less pronounced notch in the crook where the upper bout meets the neck. The notch less body style was discontinued in 1982. The short-lived Elite Telecaster of 1983 incorporated two specially designed humbucking pickups powered by an active circuitry that featured a "TBX" guitar expander and an MDX mid range booster with 12 dB of gain. Other features included a "Freestyle" hard tail bridge and die-cast tuning machines with pear load buttons. This guitar was among the latest CBS-era Fenders to feature a BiFlex truss-rod system, low-friction Easy Glider string trees and active electronics. After CBS sold Fender to a group of employees led by Bill C. Schultz in 1985, production ceased on the Elite Telecaster and other Elite models. Fender Japan made its own version of the Elite Telecaster in late 1984, which featured a 22-fret neck with medium-jumbo fret wire and a modern 9.5 inch fingerboard radius. Notable Elite Telecaster players include Johnny Hallyday, Dave Davies of The Kinks, Michael Houser with Widespread Panic, and Andy Summers of The Police.
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Fender Mustang
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The fender mustang is one of the most famous fender guitars made but not the most well known the most well known fender is the fender stratocaster. The Fender Mustang is an electric guitar by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, introduced in 1965 as the basis of a major redesign of Fender's student models then consisting of the Music master and Duo-Sonic. It was produced until 1982 and reissued in 1990. It attained cult status in the 1990's largely as a result of its use by a number of alternative rock bands. Early examples are generally seen as the most collectible of all the short-scale Fender guitars.The Mustang features two single-coil pickups with an unusual switching configuration, and a unique tremolo arm. It was originally available in two scale lengths.Fender also issued a series of amplifiers named the Mustang in 2010.The Mustang has an offset waist, reminiscent of the Jazzmaster, but its overall styling closely followed the existing student models the and Duo-Sonic, the slight waist offset being the main change. After the release of the Mustang, the Music master and Duo-Sonic were redesigned using the Mustang body; These were branded the Music master II and Duo-Sonic II but the decals were not consistently applied.All three Mustang-bodied models (Mustang, Music master II and Duo-Sonic II) were offered with optionally the 21 fret 22.5-inch (or 3/4 scale) neck, or a 22 fret 24-inch neck, but the 24-inch was overwhelmingly more popular and 3/4 scale examples are rare. A 24-inch scale is still relatively short, the same as the Fender Jaguar but a full inch and a half shorter than the Stratocaster and three-quarters of an inch shorter than the Gibson Les Paul. The short scale may improve ease of use for people with small hands, and also enhances the ability to use the tremolo arm for up bends. This short scale, combined with a unique and extremely direct tremolo arm would make the Mustang a cult guitar in the 1990's. Before that, its relatively low cost and marketing as a student guitar made it an obvious candidate for aftermarket upgrades, particularly pickup changes and also amateur finishes. Its wiring with the original pickups also led itself to custom modifications.In 1966 Fender issued the Fender Mustang Bass. A new bass body was designed for this with a similar offset body style to the Mustang guitar, and a short (30-inch) scale was used.In 1969 Fender released the "Competition" Mustang with a "racing stripe" paint job and painted headstocks. Body contours were also added at this time. The competition mustangs came in Competition Red, Competition Blue (known as Competition Burgundy in the Fender catalog), and Competition Orange. This paint scheme was heavily influenced by the Shelby Mustang cars of the late 1960's.In 1982 Fender discontinued both the Mustang and the Musicmaster II. These were the last of the offset student models to be made. Fender replaced the Mustang line with the short-lived Fender Bullet line of guitars and basses before relegating production of their student guitars to their Squier division.
Fender Mustang
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The fender mustang is one of the most famous fender guitars made but not the most well known the most well known fender is the fender stratocaster. The Fender Mustang is an electric guitar by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, introduced in 1965 as the basis of a major redesign of Fender's student models then consisting of the Music master and Duo-Sonic. It was produced until 1982 and reissued in 1990. It attained cult status in the 1990's largely as a result of its use by a number of alternative rock bands. Early examples are generally seen as the most collectible of all the short-scale Fender guitars.The Mustang features two single-coil pickups with an unusual switching configuration, and a unique tremolo arm. It was originally available in two scale lengths.Fender also issued a series of amplifiers named the Mustang in 2010.The Mustang has an offset waist, reminiscent of the Jazzmaster, but its overall styling closely followed the existing student models the and Duo-Sonic, the slight waist offset being the main change. After the release of the Mustang, the Music master and Duo-Sonic were redesigned using the Mustang body; These were branded the Music master II and Duo-Sonic II but the decals were not consistently applied.All three Mustang-bodied models (Mustang, Music master II and Duo-Sonic II) were offered with optionally the 21 fret 22.5-inch (or 3/4 scale) neck, or a 22 fret 24-inch neck, but the 24-inch was overwhelmingly more popular and 3/4 scale examples are rare. A 24-inch scale is still relatively short, the same as the Fender Jaguar but a full inch and a half shorter than the Stratocaster and three-quarters of an inch shorter than the Gibson Les Paul. The short scale may improve ease of use for people with small hands, and also enhances the ability to use the tremolo arm for up bends. This short scale, combined with a unique and extremely direct tremolo arm would make the Mustang a cult guitar in the 1990's. Before that, its relatively low cost and marketing as a student guitar made it an obvious candidate for aftermarket upgrades, particularly pickup changes and also amateur finishes. Its wiring with the original pickups also led itself to custom modifications.In 1966 Fender issued the Fender Mustang Bass. A new bass body was designed for this with a similar offset body style to the Mustang guitar, and a short (30-inch) scale was used.In 1969 Fender released the "Competition" Mustang with a "racing stripe" paint job and painted headstocks. Body contours were also added at this time. The competition mustangs came in Competition Red, Competition Blue (known as Competition Burgundy in the Fender catalog), and Competition Orange. This paint scheme was heavily influenced by the Shelby Mustang cars of the late 1960's.In 1982 Fender discontinued both the Mustang and the Musicmaster II. These were the last of the offset student models to be made. Fender replaced the Mustang line with the short-lived Fender Bullet line of guitars and basses before relegating production of their student guitars to their Squier division.
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Fender Jaguar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Fender Jaguar is an electric guitar by Fender Musical Instruments characterized by an offset-waist body, a relatively unusual switching system with two separate circuits for lead and rhythm, and a medium-scale 24" neck. Owing some roots to the Jazzmaster, it was introduced in 1962 as Fender's feature-laden top-of-the-line model, designed to lure players from Gibson. During its initial 13-year production run, the Jaguar did not sell as well as the less expensive Stratocaster and Telecaster, and achieved its most noticeable popularity in the surf music scene. After the Jaguar was taken out of production in 1975, vintage Jaguars became popular first with punk rock players, and then more so during the alternative rock and indie rock movements of the 1980's and 90's. Fender began making a version in Japan in the mid-1980's, and then introduced a USA-made reissue in 1999. Since then, Fender has made a variety of Jaguars in America, Mexico, and China under both the Fender and Squier labels. Original vintage Jaguars sell for many times their original price.Both the Fender company and vintage guitar authorities date the introduction of the Jaguar to 1962. One writer states that the model was introduced in December 1960, but a 1962 ad featuring a Jaguar automobile in the background referred to the "new" Fender Jaguar. 1960's advertising for the Jaguar often had beach themes, underscoring the guitar's appeal to surf musicians. Photographs for the campaign, done by Bob Perine, included photographs of bikini-clad girls on sandy beaches holding Jaguars—many of these featured Perine's daughter and his friends. The guitar was not, however, heavily publicized by surf players themselves, although The Beach Boys' Carl Wilson is featured in one early publicity photo. The Jaguar never enjoyed the popularity of its Stratocaster and Telecaster siblings. After several upgrades - which included custom finishes, a bound neck, pear load block inlays, maple fingerboard with black binding, and block inlays - the Jaguar was discontinued in December 1975 after a thirteen-year production run.Punk and early New Wave rockers such as Tom Verlaine of the band Television (who can be seen playing a Jaguar on a 1978 album cover) adopted the Jaguar for both contrarily and economic reasons; its lack of mainstream use made it both a style statement and less expensive than guitars of comparable quality. Robert Smith of The Cure certainly used a Jag throughout the 1980's, and possibly beyond. In the 1990's the popularity of the Jaguar and Jazzmaster exploded after they were used by guitarists such as John Squire, Kurt Cobain, Kevin Shields, Black Francis, J Mascis, Thurston Moore, and John Frusciante. Despite this, Jaguars still fetch considerably less than Telecasters and Stratocasters of similar vintage. One of the reasons the Jaguar was used by indie rock artists is the sonic possibilities offered by the bridge construction. The bridge and tremolo of the Jaguar and the Jazzmaster help produce sympathetic resonance since there is a considerable length of string between the bridge and the tailpiece. On top of that, when the strings are strummed behind the bridge, a characteristic chiming sound is created, which has been exploited by artists like Sonic Youth.Fender reissued the 1962 version of the Jaguar in 1999 as part of its American Vintage Series (lower cost Japanese-made versions have been available since 1986/87, originally made of basswood, now of alder like their American counterparts). Several other variations have been released within the last decade, including several hum backer versions and a Jaguar bass guitar in 2006. Fender of Japan also produces Jaguars for its own domestic market with numerous special editions including an accurate version of Kurt Cobain's modified model. As of 2007, the main difference between Japanese and American models is the electronics - American models use higher quality chrome rather than stainless steel parts and have brass shielding plates installed in the cavities (Japanese guitars made before 96/97 also have brass shielding). American Jaguars have nitrocellulose lacquer. No standard US made AVRI Jaguars sport matching headstocks unlike their vintage counterparts, however many Japanese models do, and also offer some custom colors not found on American models. Although Fender has many signature Stratocasters and Telecasters designed in conjunction with famous players and the first signature Jazzmasters were introduced in 2007, Kurt Cobain's signature Jaguar was introduced in 2011 (20th anniversary of release of Nirvana's Never mind album). In the past, a Kurt Cobain replica Jaguar was made for the Japanese domestic market and the Fender Jag-Stang, intended as a Mustang/Jaguar hybrid, was built for Kurt Cobain with his design input. In May 2008 Fender introduced the Classic Player Series Jaguar and Jaguar HH with dual Enforcer humbuckers, which are made in Mexico and sold for under $1000. Fender have made numerous changes to the classic design, however, replacing the bridge with a Tune-o-matic type, giving it a 9.5" fret board radius, moving the tremolo plate closer to the bridge and installing high output pickups. This Classic Player guitar is also available as a "1966" limited-edition version with a bound neck featuring rectangular block inlays and CBS-style decals as of 2009. In September 2010 the Black Top Jaguar HH was introduced as part of the Mexico-made Black Top series. Features include a solid alder body with gloss polyester finish, chrome hardware, dual Hot Vintage AlNiCo humbucking pickups with chrome metal covers and black skirted amp knobs. Other refinements include a maple neck with a 9.5”-radius rosewood fingerboard, 22 medium-jumbo frets, 24"-scale length, an Adjust-o-Matic stop tailpiece and a 3-way toggle switch.The Jaguar built from ideas first incorporated in the Jazzmaster, with a similar "offset waist" body and "floating tremolo" system. Unlike the Jazzmaster, the Jaguar was fitted with a shorter 24-inch scale, 22-fret neck and featured smaller single-coil pickups with notched side plates that improved RF shielding, making the Jaguar less prone to interference than the more popular Stratocaster and Telecaster. The Jaguar and the Jazzmaster also shared a dual-circuit setup, one circuit for lead and another for rhythm, each with separate controls, allowing for two pre-set tone and volume settings between which the guitarist could rapidly switch. The Jaguar, however, had a more complex lead circuit consisting of three switches and two dials on the lower bout: the first two switches were on/off switches for the neck and bridge pickups, respectively, while the third switch engaged a capacitor that served as a high-pass filter. The rhythm circuit, set into operation when the upper bout switch is flicked upwards, had individual volume and tone rollers but no option to choose between pickups. This rhythm circuit has a bassier, neck-pickup only range. Another new feature was a spring-loaded rubber string mute, which was flipped upwards from under the strings by a lever. The mute was designed for guitarists who had to palm mute for extended periods, which was difficult or impossible on the Jaguar's floating bridge without knocking the bridge out of position. This feature proved unpopular and became known as a "tone killer"; the cover and its foam were usually quickly removed. Like the Jazzmaster and Bass VI, the Jaguar has an unusual floating tremolo arm mechanism that was a complete departure from the "synchronized tremolo" system found on the Stratocaster.Leo Fender believed that this new design was superior to previous designs since the bridge actually moved backwards and forwards along with the strings during tremolo use, thereby maintaining proper intonation even under duress, and preventing strings from binding. This floating bridge concept was also later used on the Fender Mustang. The floating tremolo mechanism also features a built-in tremolo lock, which helped the player preserve the guitar's tuning in the event of a string breakage and easing removal of the tremolo arm.
Fender Jaguar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Fender Jaguar is an electric guitar by Fender Musical Instruments characterized by an offset-waist body, a relatively unusual switching system with two separate circuits for lead and rhythm, and a medium-scale 24" neck. Owing some roots to the Jazzmaster, it was introduced in 1962 as Fender's feature-laden top-of-the-line model, designed to lure players from Gibson. During its initial 13-year production run, the Jaguar did not sell as well as the less expensive Stratocaster and Telecaster, and achieved its most noticeable popularity in the surf music scene. After the Jaguar was taken out of production in 1975, vintage Jaguars became popular first with punk rock players, and then more so during the alternative rock and indie rock movements of the 1980's and 90's. Fender began making a version in Japan in the mid-1980's, and then introduced a USA-made reissue in 1999. Since then, Fender has made a variety of Jaguars in America, Mexico, and China under both the Fender and Squier labels. Original vintage Jaguars sell for many times their original price.Both the Fender company and vintage guitar authorities date the introduction of the Jaguar to 1962. One writer states that the model was introduced in December 1960, but a 1962 ad featuring a Jaguar automobile in the background referred to the "new" Fender Jaguar. 1960's advertising for the Jaguar often had beach themes, underscoring the guitar's appeal to surf musicians. Photographs for the campaign, done by Bob Perine, included photographs of bikini-clad girls on sandy beaches holding Jaguars—many of these featured Perine's daughter and his friends. The guitar was not, however, heavily publicized by surf players themselves, although The Beach Boys' Carl Wilson is featured in one early publicity photo. The Jaguar never enjoyed the popularity of its Stratocaster and Telecaster siblings. After several upgrades - which included custom finishes, a bound neck, pear load block inlays, maple fingerboard with black binding, and block inlays - the Jaguar was discontinued in December 1975 after a thirteen-year production run.Punk and early New Wave rockers such as Tom Verlaine of the band Television (who can be seen playing a Jaguar on a 1978 album cover) adopted the Jaguar for both contrarily and economic reasons; its lack of mainstream use made it both a style statement and less expensive than guitars of comparable quality. Robert Smith of The Cure certainly used a Jag throughout the 1980's, and possibly beyond. In the 1990's the popularity of the Jaguar and Jazzmaster exploded after they were used by guitarists such as John Squire, Kurt Cobain, Kevin Shields, Black Francis, J Mascis, Thurston Moore, and John Frusciante. Despite this, Jaguars still fetch considerably less than Telecasters and Stratocasters of similar vintage. One of the reasons the Jaguar was used by indie rock artists is the sonic possibilities offered by the bridge construction. The bridge and tremolo of the Jaguar and the Jazzmaster help produce sympathetic resonance since there is a considerable length of string between the bridge and the tailpiece. On top of that, when the strings are strummed behind the bridge, a characteristic chiming sound is created, which has been exploited by artists like Sonic Youth.Fender reissued the 1962 version of the Jaguar in 1999 as part of its American Vintage Series (lower cost Japanese-made versions have been available since 1986/87, originally made of basswood, now of alder like their American counterparts). Several other variations have been released within the last decade, including several hum backer versions and a Jaguar bass guitar in 2006. Fender of Japan also produces Jaguars for its own domestic market with numerous special editions including an accurate version of Kurt Cobain's modified model. As of 2007, the main difference between Japanese and American models is the electronics - American models use higher quality chrome rather than stainless steel parts and have brass shielding plates installed in the cavities (Japanese guitars made before 96/97 also have brass shielding). American Jaguars have nitrocellulose lacquer. No standard US made AVRI Jaguars sport matching headstocks unlike their vintage counterparts, however many Japanese models do, and also offer some custom colors not found on American models. Although Fender has many signature Stratocasters and Telecasters designed in conjunction with famous players and the first signature Jazzmasters were introduced in 2007, Kurt Cobain's signature Jaguar was introduced in 2011 (20th anniversary of release of Nirvana's Never mind album). In the past, a Kurt Cobain replica Jaguar was made for the Japanese domestic market and the Fender Jag-Stang, intended as a Mustang/Jaguar hybrid, was built for Kurt Cobain with his design input. In May 2008 Fender introduced the Classic Player Series Jaguar and Jaguar HH with dual Enforcer humbuckers, which are made in Mexico and sold for under $1000. Fender have made numerous changes to the classic design, however, replacing the bridge with a Tune-o-matic type, giving it a 9.5" fret board radius, moving the tremolo plate closer to the bridge and installing high output pickups. This Classic Player guitar is also available as a "1966" limited-edition version with a bound neck featuring rectangular block inlays and CBS-style decals as of 2009. In September 2010 the Black Top Jaguar HH was introduced as part of the Mexico-made Black Top series. Features include a solid alder body with gloss polyester finish, chrome hardware, dual Hot Vintage AlNiCo humbucking pickups with chrome metal covers and black skirted amp knobs. Other refinements include a maple neck with a 9.5”-radius rosewood fingerboard, 22 medium-jumbo frets, 24"-scale length, an Adjust-o-Matic stop tailpiece and a 3-way toggle switch.The Jaguar built from ideas first incorporated in the Jazzmaster, with a similar "offset waist" body and "floating tremolo" system. Unlike the Jazzmaster, the Jaguar was fitted with a shorter 24-inch scale, 22-fret neck and featured smaller single-coil pickups with notched side plates that improved RF shielding, making the Jaguar less prone to interference than the more popular Stratocaster and Telecaster. The Jaguar and the Jazzmaster also shared a dual-circuit setup, one circuit for lead and another for rhythm, each with separate controls, allowing for two pre-set tone and volume settings between which the guitarist could rapidly switch. The Jaguar, however, had a more complex lead circuit consisting of three switches and two dials on the lower bout: the first two switches were on/off switches for the neck and bridge pickups, respectively, while the third switch engaged a capacitor that served as a high-pass filter. The rhythm circuit, set into operation when the upper bout switch is flicked upwards, had individual volume and tone rollers but no option to choose between pickups. This rhythm circuit has a bassier, neck-pickup only range. Another new feature was a spring-loaded rubber string mute, which was flipped upwards from under the strings by a lever. The mute was designed for guitarists who had to palm mute for extended periods, which was difficult or impossible on the Jaguar's floating bridge without knocking the bridge out of position. This feature proved unpopular and became known as a "tone killer"; the cover and its foam were usually quickly removed. Like the Jazzmaster and Bass VI, the Jaguar has an unusual floating tremolo arm mechanism that was a complete departure from the "synchronized tremolo" system found on the Stratocaster.Leo Fender believed that this new design was superior to previous designs since the bridge actually moved backwards and forwards along with the strings during tremolo use, thereby maintaining proper intonation even under duress, and preventing strings from binding. This floating bridge concept was also later used on the Fender Mustang. The floating tremolo mechanism also features a built-in tremolo lock, which helped the player preserve the guitar's tuning in the event of a string breakage and easing removal of the tremolo arm.