Squier Vintage Modified Baritone Jazzmaster - Black Reviews
Low-strung Fenders have been a secret weapon of session guitarists for decades. And this Squier Vintage Modified Jazzmaster Baritone puts that same low-end musical power into your hands for an affordable price. The basswood Jazzmaster body is bolted to a maple neck with a 30" scale length — perfect for maintaining punch from the low A-A tuning. And a duet of Duncan Designed JM-101B single-coil pickups delivers a fat yet twangy tone that cuts right through. With its unique tone, the Vintage Modified Jazzmaster Baritone is a valuable tool to have in your guitar collection.
Highest Rated Reviews
The Awesome Missing Link
There's guitar, and there's bass. And then, there's this. This machine provides that "in between" sound in a professional high quality way. The Duncan Designed pups are great sounding. The controls are simple and elegant. The scale length (30") and body & headstock shape/weight result in great balance and true tuning reliability. The tuning machines are old school - tight, true and reliable. The one offering of finish (black, black, black) is ok by me. Classy & Tough and never goes out of style. Neck is really nice. Not much different than a standard Strat, but might take some slight getting used to (mostly length & radius) (nicely tinted... gets a bonus). Today I played styles ranging from "spaghetti western" to DK's Holiday in Cambodia. Baritones are all over music. They don't receive much fanfare -- but without them you'd notice. Thanks Fender/Squier for keeping this option alive. I don't like de-tuning, extra strings, etc. This is the real deal at a real affordable price.
Regarding Sweetwater: once again, great evaluation/set-up, delivery, and sales-follow-up.
For people who want to tune low on a budget, why wouldn’t you choose this guitar?
I play primarily metalcore/low tuned metal and I was looking for something to tune lower than A and lower. And this guitar definetely excels in that department. I am absolutely head over heels in love with this guitar. I got turned to it because of the band Loathe and they are able to tune to drop E and E standard (full octave down) with bass vi strings. One thing I was worried about was the singlecoil pickups but once I adjusted the noise gate on my eleven rack the noise from the pickups was easily taken care of. The tone in general is massive, clear, and bright. The 30 inch scale length definitely helps with the tone not being muddy at all.
I definitely recommend not only this guitar, but sweetwater in general for any or all musical gear.
Love it!!!
I'm incredibly happy with my purchase! Thank you to Justin Sunday for the excellent customer service!
Awesome purchase
I'm a long time customer, but this was the first guitar I've purchased through Sweetwater and I must say it's been a fantastic buying experience. Guitar arrived not only setup perfectly, but in tune! Played great right out of the box!
About the guitar
This being my first baritone guitar, I wasn't sure what to make of it. Was it a guitar? Was it a bass? It's a bit of both. All I knew it that I wanted something capable of producing heavy tones and this guitar delivered in spades. Looks great, feels great, and most importantly sounds great. Exceeded every expectation. This one is a keeper.
Spectacular
I've tried 7-8 string guitars before it always baffled me that most players solo with it. I was wanting a growling chord monster. I just didn't want more than 6 strings and I was sick of downtuning standard scale guitars. So the search began and most baritones cost the same as a running vehicle on Craigslist or they're genre specific or they've got more strings than frets. Enter, the Squire Jazzmaster Baritone. This guitar is the best of bass and guitar. I can rock it through a bass amp or a guitar amp. With some EQ tweaking, it'll do just about any tone you can think of. I can pull off all genres with this guitar. The P-90's have a rather wide range so that's very nice; jangly, clean, bitey, heavy... etc... Granted, if you wanna go hardcore heavy I suggest Seymour Duncan black winters and a new pickguard. But after tweaking my amp I really didn't see the need for changing pickups. They're quite good. It's a slight learning curve after playing a traditional scale for 30 years. The overall construction is spot-on. Perfectly balanced and still lighter than an LP. The bridge threw me for a loop at first. It's odd but non obtrusive. I'd have wanted a string through but this thing sustains for days and there's amazing tone. Once you get your amp dialed in its amazing. The finish is just pure black glass. Not a single flaw on it. In conclusion: I have nothing negative to say. It's a lot of fun to play and I can't wait to get on stage with it. Thanks to sweetwater for literally having it set-up, intonated, tuned, and ready to play out of the box.
Oh, almost forgot the standard issue dork statement... yes, the stock strings stink. Gonna have to get the brand you like at some point.. welcome to guitar purchasing.
Way Cool Guitar, great customer service.
Solidly built, frets and neck feel good, stays in tune, electronics work smoothly and quietly. That pretty much checks all the boxes for a budget friendly guitar. And Jeez Louise, this thing sound cool. I'm by no means a pickup snob, but these Seymour Duncan single coils hit this amazing sweet spot between twangy and fat. The scale length (30") is a hair longer than most other baritones I checked out, and it's recommended native tuning starts at the A a fifth below a standard tuned E guitar, whereas most others start at B a fourth below. I was a little worried that the extra step down would sound either too flabby or weak, but no worries necessary, it rings out clear and strong. I'm just loving playing this thing, low down gut bucket sound that works for so many genres, blues to indie to country to stoner rock.
And the customer service I got on this order was really impressive. My sales rep emailed a a tailored quote, and let me know more specifically when they were expecting them (they were out of stock at the time). He also said they were only getting a couple and they might not be around long. This helped me decide to pull the trigger on this rather than another piece of gear I've got my eye on when they came back in stock. And he wasn't just blowing smoke about it, I took delivery of mine yesterday, and today they're out of stock again.
Couldn't be happier with the guitar, and the customer service I've been getting with Sweetwater is definitely making them my go to first option for all my gear purchases.