Fender Vintera '60s Jazzmaster Modified

review
FENDER VINTERA SERIES FENDER VINTERA SERIES
92
Guitarist october 2019
I
n recent years Fender has refreshed,
refocused and renamed virtually all
of its key series. The creation of the
American Professional range, which gave
the long-running American Standards a
considerable reboot, was one of the most
inspired we’ve seen. Then it was the turn
of the American Vintage guitars; they
became the decade-specific American
Originals – and that’s the style we have
here. The new Mexican-made Vintera
series amalgamates the previous Classic
and Classic Player ranges into one, creating,
says Fender, “a line of vintage-inspired
models that embody a period-specific vibe.
Each model delivers the authentic look
and feel of its era, as well as decade-specific
tones from the 50s, 60s and 70s.”
The reorganised range comprises seven
Telecasters, five Strats, a pair of both
Jazzmasters and Jaguars, and a single
Mustang. Notably absent are any left-hand
models. The Classic series replacements
are the standard vintage-spec models – all
21 frets with 184mm (7.25-inch) fingerboard
radius – while the Modified models replace
certain Classic Players, vintage hot-rods
if you like. These reflect numerous player
mods: improved hardware, a flatter
fingerboard radius, bigger frets, hotter
pickups and some switching additions.
Price-wise, we kick off at £749 for the
vintage models, adding £100 for the
Modified models, while the Thinline Tele
unsurprisingly tops the range at £999. All
include gigbags. Either side of these are
the Mexican Player series (previously
the Standards), priced between £599 and
£729, excluding gigbag, and the start-up
American Performer series, which
refreshed the American Specials, with
a tighter price span of £999 to £1,049,
including a gigbag.
So, with considerable choice, let’s take a
closer look at three (rather familiar-looking)
Vintera Modified models…
’50s Telecaster Modified
The Classics and Classic Players had plenty
of fans, and models such as the Classic
Player Baja Tele achieved almost cult status.
It’s renamed here as the ’50s Telecaster
Modified. It’s important not to equate
‘modified’ with ‘modern’, however. There’s
nothing modern-looking about this 21-fret
Tele, and while the vintage model has an all-
glossed neck with an early 50s ‘U’ profile,
our Modified version has a satin neck back
and a Thick Soft ‘V’ profile. In keeping with
vintage spec, the unmodded model has a
184mm (7.25-inch) radius fingerboard with
vintage small frets contrasting the flatter
241mm (9.5-inch) radius and medium
jumbo frets of our modded model.
This same duality extends to the pickups;
throughout the range, they’ve been tweaked
and reorganised by Fender’s Tim Shaw.
So while the unmodded model shoots for
vintage-style 50s single coils, our Modified
version retains the Custom Shop-designed
vintage-style single coil at the bridge and
the Twisted Tele at the neck that we saw on
the previous Baja Tele.
Control wise, the vintage model has
the classic (post-1967) wiring: bridge,
both (in parallel), and neck selections via
a three-way lever switch. Our Modified
version uses a four-way lever selector,
adding both pickups in series, plus in- or
out-of-phase for the combined pickups via
the S-1 switched volume pot – again, exactly
the same as the Baja Tele.
There’s a slight upcharge on this deeply
honeyed Butterscotch Blonde model and
you can clearly see through the translucent
finish that the body wood is ash. The other
two opaque colours – Daphne Blue and Surf
Green – use alder.
’60s Stratocaster Modified
Again offered in vintage and Modified
versions, our 60s-era Strat replaces the
historical rosewood fingerboard with pau
ferro. This Modified model is essentially
the same as the previous Classic Player
version with a Modern C profile neck (the
vintage model has a mid-60s C), although
the 305mm (12-inch) fingerboard radius of
that previous model has been reined back to
241mm (9.5 inches).
Both new versions use vintage-style 60s
single coils; our modded versions are classed
as ‘hot’. On both we have a tone control for
the neck and middle (tone 1) and the bridge
(tone 2). This Modified version also uses
an S-1 switch, adding the neck pickup to
position 1 (bridge) and position 2 (bridge
and middle). Here, the vibratos also differ:
from the six-saddle vintage-style of the
vintage version to the ‘improved’ two-post
style of our modded model.
The vintage model comes in three colours,
3-Colour Sunburst, Surf Green and Ice Blue
Metallic; our Modified model is available in
just two – the Burgundy Mist Metallic we
have here and the returning Olympic White.
’60s Jazzmaster Modified
This model might have first surfaced in 1958
and continued throughout the 70s, but it’s
just the obvious 60s-decade Jazzmaster
that’s celebrated here, and this Vintera
Modified is pretty much identical to the
previous Classic Player Jazzmaster Special.
The neck style differences mirror those of
the ’60s Stratocasters; likewise, the hotter
single coils of the modded model. The
Modified model uses a fixed tune-o-matic-
Like the Classic Player Baja Tele, we
have a four-position selector switch
that adds both pickups in series and a
S-1 switch to offer out-of-phase sounds
The ’50s Tele Modifi ed uses the
same pickups as the out-going
Baja Tele, including this Twisted
Tele at the neck. Both were
designed in the Custom Shop
The bridge captures
a good Tele’s bite
and shifts effortlessly
from country clean
to gnarlier roots-rock
VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra
GIT451.rev_fender.indd 92 05/09/2019 17:33