Fender Player Jaguar, a modern take on the Jag

This is an interesting modern take on a Jag. But whether players take to it remains to be seen.

My pros and cons of this guitar are as follows:

Pros

Available in Sonic Red as shown above. Great color for this guitar shape. The other good color is Tidepool, which the Jag body also takes to very well. Black and Sunburst are also available, but are decidedly boring.

Satin urethane finish on the back of the neck. Very comfortable for long play sessions, doesn't get squeaky/gummy from sweat.

Medium jumbo frets. This suits the Jag better than jumbo.

Center-grooved string saddles. Great choice by Fender here for this particular guitar.

Splittable humbucker with alnico 3 magnets, and a Jag-specific alnico 2 single-coil. Good combo, good brightness without being screechy. Does have that "sounds like a Jag" tone to it.

Cons

The "JAGUAR" is not the stylized Fender Jaguar logo, and it's itty-bitty. That's a let-down.

Slider switch to toggle humbucker split has a stupid position at the upper horn, which is exactly where guitarists don't want it. The switch should have been eliminated entirely, the upper horn left blank, and the toggle assigned to a push-pull on the tone knob.

POSSIBLE PHOTO GOOF BY FENDER: The Sonic Red version seen above does show a vibrato plate with a lock switch and traditional Jaguar knobs, while every other color like the Sunburst shows skirted amp knobs and no vibrato lock switch. Fender considers a locking vibrato a highfalutin option reserved for American models, so if you order a Sonic Red Jag, don't be surprised if the vibrato has no lock switch and the knobs have the switcheroo done to them.

Buy or not buy?

It's a buy, provided you like short scale guitars. The Jag does have a 24.0" scale, after all.

The best part about this guitar is that because of the pickup combo, it's a pedal-friendly guitar. You can pretty much throw any sort of effect at this Jag and wrangle a good sound out of it. This means it will work well with most if not all overdrives and distortions, but also take well to the more unique effects like uni-vibe and phaser.

I'd personally go for the Sonic Red or Tidepool color as mentioned above. Those are the eye-catcher colors.

Published 2018 Jun 20