« A Pair of stripped down Jazzmasters »

The Sonic Youth Jazzmasters are a set of Jazzmaster guitars used by the guitarists in the band Sonic Youth. This review will be for both guitars as they came as a set to the shop. You get the Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo Jazzmasters. The guitars are basically the same apart from the color and pickups they use. These guitars are both stripped down Jazzmasters. They do not have any of the complex switching and splitting knobs. These guitars just have a 3 way toggle switch with a volume knob. The necks on these guitars are very fast as they are stripped bare of any glossy finish that may slow your hand down or become sticky. The Thurston Moore model is the more traditional of the pair. It comes with a very thin see through green nitro finish. The pickups in it are Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Jazzmaster pickups, which have a great, powerful punch and glassy highs. They have a very similar sound to P90s. The pickups have a great single coil top end clarity to them. With just a volume knob it is very sensitive to that one control. It is super sensitive to the volume control adjustments on the guitar. This guitar even more sensitive to this because of the single coil pickups. The Lee Ranaldo model has a set of Fender Wide Range humbuckers from the 70s. These are the pickups that you got if you got a 72 Telecaster Deluxe. These pickups feature Alnico magnet instead of the original CuNiFe or Ceramic magnets. The humbuckers are pretty hot and can drive most every amp. You do not have to be a fan of Sonic Youth to enjoy these guitars. I am not very familiar with their music but these are good guitars overall. I love the Jazzmaster design but I do not have much use for all the extra switching and whatnot. So these stripped down models have better tone and playability which I love in a guitar. If you like humbuckers or the traditional Jazzmaster pickups there is a guitar for you in the Sonic Youth Fender set.