Like most people my age, Kurt Cobain is the one responsible for garnering my interest in the Jaguar, but unlike most my age I've let go of all the restricting points of view laid out by Fanboyism, and focused more on what works for ME. That's a big part of it. Unlike a lot of players, who choose to change their choice of instrument whenever their taste changes, I choose to take em' along with me to cut some new ground in tonal choices, because it's more fun for me that way. And the Jaguar is a prime example of that.

I had two Jaguars picked out, a Foto Flame 1994, bone stock, not unlike the Jazzmaster I was after when Iwas 12, and then a modified CIJ for $650. The Foto Flame had long since sold, so I bought the CIJ and waited the longest 2 weeks of my life. The plan was, to remove the "hot Rails" from it, put in a stock bridge, and maybe a black pickguard, pickup covers, and claws.

Then it arrived in time for Christmas, so in December 2005 - Bettie came to be, named after one of the most famous pinups, and immediatley taking over as my main axe for awhile (now usually shared with quite a few in the stable now, lol), as Nikki's tuners were bad.

The Jaguar remained stock between December 05' and August 2006. As the guitar was originally, it had 2 Seymour Duncan SCR1B Bridge Position Cool Rails in both positions, a Gibson ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic Bridge, 500K pots in the lead circuit with a push/pull on the lead tone control for coil split - the rest was standard Fender Jaguar from Japan.

Initially, the sound was 100% PERFECT. It sounded like the 1963 Jaguar I played years ago that was my benchmark of the "perfect" Jag. So I decided to leave the pickups and pots alone. It also was loud and fast.

But there were some improvements to be had. First off would be I needed a vibrato bar. So I went to the Lynnwood Guitar Center on 99 south and asked for a Jaguar/Jazzmaster vibrato bar. They said they did not have one, then I looked over, and like kismet...well....there's a Jaguar and Jazzmaster whammy bar in the bag in the "Clearance Bin". So for $5 I bought a whammy bar for it.

The problem is though, with a Tune-O-Matic bridge and me using the whammy like I did on a Jaguar, this meant I was literally SAWING through my guitar strings. So early on I was changing strings every 3 months because I was rubbing them against those saddles like I was trying to saw through the saddles. So the first modification that was done (besides me messing with various types of knobs), was to pull the Tune-O-Matic and put that on the 1999 Rogue H804 guitar, and put in a Japanese import Jaguar/Jazzmaster rocker bridge with thimbles. Luckily, the luthier that set this up filled the holes with some dodgy wood-filler and I was able to pull the mounts and recover the original holes drilled by Dyna Gakki. Pressed in the thimbles, and put in the bridge. This was after the first three or four tracks on "Agent Blue" demo that were recorded, as Hermit, Travel By Sewer, and Cerulean were all that Jaguar in it's original setup as it came from Guitar Hangar with the Tune-O-Matic and naked Cool Rails.

The guitar felt and sounded better to play, and stopped breaking strings after the bridge upgrade. Now came time to protect those Cool Rails from damage. So I bought 2 Fender Jaguar pickup covers as cheaply as I could find them, and decided first to try them "stealth" - ie, I'd stick the cool rails underneath and then make it look like a Vintage Jaguar with noiseless pickups. Nope. I found there were two problems with this. First off, the original screws did not offer enough adjustment because the Cool Rails are shorter than regular Jaguar pickups, and with the tops on the covers did not allow them to get close enough to the strings for my taste. So I went to Home Depot and bought $4 in 2" Long screws - taking a cue from Edward Van-Halen, and screwed the pickups into the wood with these big screws, and no foam - the THREADS hold the pickups up. So with these big "Tone Stakes" in the body, the guitar became VERY lively and reactive with the rest of itself.

Then a curiosity of using the Claws came about, so I installed Claws on the Cool Rails, using waxed foam from pickup packaging to insulate and deaden the claws from inside the custom pickup surrounds against Microphonic feedback. It seems taht was teh last 1% I needed to get that Jaguar sounding 100% like a Jaguar, because the magnetic field was diffused and a bit spread out, and it took some edge off - and while I still had a tight, focused, lows and bright highs, the highs were tamed a tad bit.

As an experiment, and an act of defiance against Hipsters who at that point, on Shortscale, OSG, and Jag-Stang were chastising me about my choice of music, I took the neck shim out and found out I could get the action REALLY low without choking on huge bends. So my neck on the Jaguar is 100% decked to the neck pocket. No shims. I also did not need it anymore since the bridge would drop low enough to almost kiss the frets with the strings - like a PROPERLY Designed guitar. So now I had a Fender Jaguar that was loud, could chugga chugga and shred, and was low and fast, but looked like something you'd see some surfer guy playing Beach Blanket Bingo on in the early sixties. This is what I wanted, a Shredder in Surfer's clothing. Jenner/Cobain's Jaguar was the fisrt "Super Jag" - Mine's the Second, in my mind at least.

In 2007 I bought a Jaguar Mute, foam, and screws, and associated hardware, and decided to try it out, and well....uh....the result was not exactly what I wanted. The problem with the Fender Jaguar Vibramute is that it was an afterthought pushed by marketing to compete with Gretsche, and therefore, I theoreticize Leo had little input on how it was executed, resulting in high action, tricky setup, and undesired results. I used it some on the EGA Stereo Demos - most notably on Time (the intro is played on the Jaguar with the Vibramute engaged) but I did not like how it killed the whole "low-sleek-fast" thing the Jaguar had before, so in 2008, this was all removed and put back in the original Hardshell Case with the original invoice.

For that time period, my standard setup of strings was Fender Bullet 250XL .009-.042 gauge. The reason I used these was that I did not get hte unraveling of strings at the tailpiece like I did with every other brand I used with that trem. Because of how the "Bullets" are anchored, it also allowed the strings to ring out behind the bridge a lot, adding more resonance. So I had a literally SLAMMED action, with hyper-resonant string path - nice.

Sometime around 2021 the Jaguar got slammed around in a bit of a dispute and the push/pull tone control was broken. Both pots were replaced with full sized 500Ks with no push/pull switch, the coil split (series link connections for the cool rails), were taped off for the time being, and a set of Gibson Speed Knobs with knurling installed from a Memphis A2-TR.

In 2024, Tri-Mode switching was added to the Jaguar using the series links after prototyping the idea on my Jagmaster. This is one of my most complicated wiring mods. Basically, it involves installing 2 on/off/on 3-way single pole switches, and then running the series link to the center lug of both, and on one side, the wire goes to ground for coil split, and the other way, the signal from the series link is fed back into the pickup's switching mechanism(s) -in this case the rhythm/lead circuit switch for the neck pickup, and the bridge into the bridge pickup slide switch. This gives the Jaguar an INSANE tonal viariety. Getting those toggles in there WITH full sized pots was tough, but I pulled it off. When in one position, the coil is split, and it gives the Jaguar more of a "Teisco" like tone, or a sound similiar to a late Sixties Jag with lower output pickups, while the other way brings the pickups closer to something like a Stratocaster. It's pretty wild.