11 Sep Hot(s) for Jazzmaster

I always loved the stock pickups on this American Vintage Jazzmaster, they are the Fender ’65 Pure Vintage Jazzmaster pickups. Nothing wrong with them, they are actually extremely good. But, being a tinkerer and experimenter, I could not resist buying these Seymour Duncan “Hot for Jazzmaster”. They are supposed to be a bit hotter than standard Jazzmaster pickups, but not as hot as the Quarter Pounders. I don’t like pickups that are too hot, I prefer the more “breathy” sound of lower output pickups. But since these are a bit in between, and since the bridge pickup of a Jazzmaster could improve with a little more output (as I’ve been told), I decided to try these.

Anyway, I installed them, and the results were mixed. I loved the bridge pickup, much better for distortion. But the neck sound was meh, a bit too boomy for me. And more importantly: the heavenly middle position lost all that luscious clean chime the original pickups had.

So, what do do?

I ended up leeking the Seymour Duncan for the bridge, and reinstalled the Pure vintage back in the neck position. This way I have best of both worlds: a good overdrive in the bridge position, and the great chime in the middle and neck positions. Me happy!