Best Jazz Guitar Under $1000 (Jan 2023 Update)

The only thing I'm not entirely happy with is the action. It's just a little too high. Other than that, I love it. It's a very nice looking acoustic for the money. It stays in tune extremely well and I was shocked at how full the sound was even with such a thin body. Sounds even better plugged in. The thinner body is super comfortable to handle and hold. It makes the transition from electric to acoustic very easy. The built in tuner is one of my favorite features. It works great and seems to be as accurate as any other tuner I've ever used. Overall, I would recommend this acoustic to anyone on a budget looking for a great sounding and feeling acoustic who doesn't mind the action a little on the higher side. (Side Note – I might be too critical on the action since I'm used to my electrics set up for such low action.)

I bought this guitar because I needed a backup for tour. I also did a lot of research and wanted something that was affordable, but had all of the bells and whistles that I needed. This guitar sounds amazing through my Boss GT100 pedal board. It’s super clean, but also has just the right OD when I need it. I would recommend this guitar to anyone. It’s super sleek, and the Hardware is black and beautiful. The pickups are fantastic. There are three setting to apply to your pickups. Each sounds great, and really all work for any sound you need. I’ve been playing for over 20 years, and I truly believe that although it’s the player that makes the instrument sound good, you also need a tool that brings it all together to make the magic take place. Rock solid, gorgeous guitar.

Sound: Today's guitars are all made on cnc's unless you get something like a US made G&L, those are cut out with bandsaws and routers, like fenders in the 50s up to the 70s. The neck pocket in mine is very clean and neat, the body routing is very clean, the frets were nice out of the box, no misaligned screws or parts, no blemishes in the finish or anything. Features: The least useful feature for a majority of people will be the rhythm circuit, it has its own volume and tone pots and is neck pickup only, with a much darker tone than the neck pickup on the lead circuit, leave the switch in the down position, and you never have to worry about it unless you want an old school jazz guitar tone. Then push that switch up. (It does old jazz guitar really well) Ease of Use: The jazzmaster has quite a bright bridge pickup, makes it well suited for surf, or spaghetti western guitar, but it also means distortion on the bridge pickup will cut through rather well. the neck pickup is strat like, but bigger and thicker. Like a strat neck pickup on steroids. Both pickups together results in a sweet soft sort of quack tone, due to the pickups being so far apart, it's not the same as a strat quack tone, but its very nice sounding. Then of course there's the neck only rhythm circuit which is very much like an old jazz tone (hence the name Jazzmaster)The pickups are generally higher output than most other fender pickups, and work well with distortion. A lot of people still think jazzmaster pickups are p90s. Nope, real jazzmaster pickups are roughly the same size, but thats where the similarities end. They don't even sound similar. This confusion is furthered by the old mexican player jazzmasters, the j mascius, and others that have P90's. Quality: Fender mexico didn't skimp on the electronic parts, the pickups are very much like a mid 60s jazzmaster in sound, even down to the gray bobbins and enamel coated coil wire. Pots are CTS, both switches and the jack are switchcraft, just like they are supposed to be. They should last forever. The trem is built well, but not exactly the same as the old ones, the trem arm is screw in, it really should be a push in arm, like all the old ones. Also, I think the hole of the trem arm in the top plate is way way too big, it only needs to be slightly bigger than the trem arm collet.The tuners are kluson like split shaft, loke fender used from the very earliest days until 68, they're not made by kluson but it doesn't matter the design is too simple to screw up. The frets are vintage, they're always described as tall and thin. They're not tall, but they are thin, it is a 60s styled guitar after all. But I think a lot of people used to 9.5 and flatter radiuses will have problems, it's a 7.25" radius fretboard, requires a bit higher action but a half hour or so of playing, you get used to it. It also has a truss rod nut at the heel of the neck, its a correct feature for all fender's prior to 1971, but man was that a bad design choice on leo fender's part. You either have to loosen the neck a lot or take it completely off to adjust neck relief, and hope you got it right.Now when I got my guitar I took it completely apart (I always do). What I found on the inside could be improved. First was an excessive amount of wire. There is a lot of wire in a jazzmaster, but they didn't even bother cutting the pickup leads to length. Both pickups had about a foot of unnecessary lead wire, so I fixed that.The other issue was a bad conductive paint job in the cavities. The jazzmaster is an electrically noisy guitar, they need all the shielding they can get. The conductive paint was one thin coat, and didn't even go up the sides of the cavities, it wasn't doing anything. From 1958 to the end of the original run around 1980 each jazzmaster had brass tubs in all the cavities, all soldered together and grounded. I don't expect that in a new jazzmaster, but they knew then that it needed shielding. The pickguard in 58 was also gold anodized aluminum, which was excellent for shielding. But the anodizing wasn't good, and the gold wore off after a few months so and looked awful. In 59 fender switched to plastic tort pickguards, with a thin pickguard sized aluminum shield underneath. Anyway I properly shielded the cavities. Also the pickguard only had aluminum tape for the toggle switch to the jack, and another piece for piece for rhythm circuit switch and pots. That ain't going to do it. I added more shielding, put it all back together and it was a major improvement. Recently I decided to see what a proper gold anodized aluminum pickguard would look like on ice blue metallic, and its VERY cool, looks like a 1960s california speed shop modded my guitar, might put some tele knobs on it sometime.I also made another modification, I had a 65 reissue trem and bridge laying around, so I put them on it. In the old days, the lock button, trem

What a wonderful instrument! I have had this guitar for a few weeks now and been addicted to playing it. This guitar plays like something in the $350-$500 range. The build quality is really good. I do find that the 3 way pick up selector is a little wobbly but it hasn't been an issue for me so far. The Tone/Volume pots have a smooth action and they look nice to boot. The neck is super comfortable and a joy to play. The pickups sound awesome. I bought the Baltic Metal Blue version and it was a little darker in person than the images show so keep that in mind if you are looking at that specific model. Overall I really don't have any major complaints with this guitar. For $199.99 you can't beat it. This would make an excellent first guitar if you are learning, which is what I did. The thin neck will make learning easier as well.

Overall: My first electric guitar so not much to compare it to but I feel like it's heavy. But it's so pretty :-)! Also the frets are a bit Sharp on the outsides this parts where the finish doesn't completely cover the surface. A big reason why I got an Ibanez was because of an ex-boyfriend getting one some years back and he was in love with it. A big part of that was because of the awesome sweatshirt and three picks that came with it. He must have bought from someone else or Ibanez just isn't with it anymore but it would have been nice to have any kind of accessory, even a thank you card. Did I say it was beautiful guitar though! Also it doesn't stay in tune for s***. But it is really pretty.

I already own a classic vibe jaguar and jazzmaster, and I have to say this third one is easily the best out of the 3. The fit and finish is beautiful, one of the best looking i've ever seen, its crazy to see this color and matching headstock at this price point. The sound is, as you would expect from the classic vibes, very close to their fender counter parts and I can barely hear the difference if im honest. I would also like to point out how great the particular guitar I had was setup. And I am pretty sure I have the guys at Music Store to thank for that. In my experience, these guitars come with 9 gauge strings, but this one had 10's already installed, the bridge setup proprely, and the guitar played like a dream out of the box, didnt need to tweak a thing. Best experience i've had with offsets, I had to go and proffessionaly setup my other 2 before they became playable I very much recommend this guitar 🙂