’62 Fender Jazzmaster Reissue (Made in Japan)

Fender Jazzmaster and Line 6 Pod XT

The name says it all. Superb cleans from both of the Jazzmaster’s pickups, and add gain for a classic grunge sound. Just don’t try to go metal with this. But in 1962, I don’t think they anticipated the music of today. I used it a number of times on one of my more recent recordings for a Rise Against-ish punk band. For songs that required a very articulated rhythm guitar part we’d use a beefy toned Les Paul in one channel and a very distorted Jazzmaster in the other. Although the Jazzmaster sounded pretty terrible through a Mesa Rectifier, it blended very well with the Les Paul. The end result was a very thick and bassy guitar tone with individual string definition that cut through the mix without being twangy. Blending unlikely tone pairs is something I’m going to need to play around with more often.