Young Miles' new Squier Mini Jazzmaster! | My review, and subsequent pop punk mod!
Rewind to January and the Winter NAMM show, which seems like a lifetime ago now! One of the coolest(and fun) product announcements I saw was from Squier, introducing another classic shape to their 'mini' series, with my beloved Jazzmaster! I was incredibly keen to see these hit UK shores as our young son loves to strum the guitars in the house. Needless to say though, he finds it incredibly difficult to sit with the full sized counterparts, so I have been on the lookout for a 'mini' 3/4 or 1/2 sized guitar for him to have a go with. Inspiring a young person to want to play an instrument is such an important thing to me, and I must say, Miles has known many guitar-savvy words from a very early age, 'Jazzmaster' being one of them, so this little mini version was the perfect fit!
Fast forward to May, a good few weeks into Covid-19 lockdown here in the UK, and the Squier Mini Jazzmaster was officially released, so I couldn't resist getting one for Miles. Of course I had already had some modding ideas bouncing around my head too, as Miles has become obsessed over the past year or so with Pop Punk music, Blink 182, Sum 41, New Found Glory to name a few. He's even wearing his favourite T-Shirt, a Blink 182 one, in his last School photo! So me being me, modding it so he had a little mini pop punk guitar was on the cards all being well... But it wasn't looking promising...Around the same time, after a discussion over on an Offset Guitar group/forum, it seems there was already some incredibly bad press doing the rounds on YouTube about how bad these new Mini Jazzmasters were. I was gutted to say the least after months of waiting, but wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt and see one for myself first hand, so I took the risk & ordered one. Luckily for me, I didn't have to go through the refund procedure and I'm very glad I did order as my experience was a far far cry from those negative ones on YouTube. So I thought I'd share my thoughts on it, the good bits, some of the bad bits too in case it helps others out there interested in these cool little offsets for their children too.
*Please note, the photos are all after my little bit of modding, if you're wondering why it looks different to the standard model.
Initial impressions
I bought ours from GAK for £139 including shipping. The guitar arrived, and straight out of the box I was already impressed, the relief! First of all, Squier have done a great job with the overall look. Some mini or 3/4 versions of guitars can look odd, dimensions sometimes don't look right, or pickups and controls can look too 'busy' on the pickguard making it look all bloated or squashed. But this looks superb, and for a Jazzmaster fan like myself, it certainly brought a big smile. Sure, it comes in the non traditional HH configuration, but I don't think hinders the aesthetic particular for a 3/4 sized guitar primarily for the younger generation. My son asked for the olympic white one when I first shown him the photos of them, which upon box opening looked to me like the slightly yellower version of Olympic white rather than a very bright white you sometimes get. They do offer these in a nice Daphne blue and seafoam green though which look equally superb I must say.
Overall weight was a little over 5lbs, so sure, not the lightest guitar in the world, but it's comfortable, not cumbersome and the little man could pick it up, just about anyway.
Naturally you grab the guitar by the neck to pick it up, and when it comes to a budget, £100 ish guitar you fully prepare your palms to get shredded to bits on sharp fret ends...But that didn't happen here! Very neatly finished, with the tangs shy of the fretboard edge and seemingly filled with either the satin neck lacquer or glue, either way, it feels very smooth on this particular guitar which was a pleasant surprise considering my usual experience of budget instruments. Also a relief for me, knowing my son was going to be holding this that he wasn't going to cut his hands on sharp frets (also one less job I'd have to do with a fret end dress!). So very impressed by this, and hopefully others out of the factory are equally as well finished.
Finish/Pickups
Speaking of the Olympic white colour previously, the paint finish is very good. Nice and flat, no orange peel effect anywhere on this example and the maple neck/board is nice too. From the factory, these come with a white pickguard, loaded with 2 generic spec humbuckers, a 3 way toggle switch, single volume, single tone and the jack socket. My son was super eager to plug it in (as he loves to 'rock and roll' in his words), so a quick tune up and we were hearing those humbuckers for the first time. I personally thought, for a mini sized, essentially youngsters budget guitar, the sound was way more than acceptable. Sounded nice clean across both pickups, and it took drive fairly well too. I didn't experience any negatives regarding the guitars tone considering it's intention. If I'm being picky, which is natural when I specialise in guitar electronics, the volume pot acted more like an on/off switch which is more common with linear taper pots(this guitar has logarithmic volume and tone though) or with low quality import type pots, but they operated without crackling and everything felt pretty solid so not the end of the world all things considered. I would very happily have left the wiring and pickups as they were, they are more than capable of the task at hand, and certainly fine for a youngster to plug in and enjoy playing.
Set-up
From a player point of view though, man those strings were wayyyyy too light gauge for the tiny scale length. I imagine that will cause some less experienced owners confusion due the negative effect that has on playability and sound of this little guitar. This one came with 9s on and with the scale length in mind, they are way too floppy and do make for a difficult time playing notes cleanly, even for me, let alone a young beginner. I figured this would be the case though, most budget guitars come shipped from far east factories with 9s on, but worth bearing this in mind if you don't plan on changing strings straight away. I'll discuss this a little more when I get to the modding part of this article. The factory strings will feel really slack at standard pitch, but in terms of the factory set-up it was very impressive. Intonation was good, near enough anyway when you consider there really must not be much time (if any) at the factory to perform setup, nut slot height was comfortable at the 1st fret meaning the open strings vibrated cleanly, action was the usual 2mm at the bass side on the 15th fret, and just shy of 2mm on the treble side at the 15th, go to set-up measurements for most factories so no quibbles there at all. Even the string radius was achingly close to being set correctly, so I was pleasantly surprised by all of this. Whether all of them leave the factory like this, maybe not, but this particular one was playable out of the box for sure. Quick personal recommendation here, if you're looking to buy one of these and Set-Up is something you don't know anything about, perhaps ask the shop you buy it from for a price of a good set-up to help make sure it's playable straight away.
Hardware
Hardware wise, you're greeted with a 6 saddle, top loading hardtail bridge, and some modern type tuners which have vintage type buttons too. Sure, they're not going to be the greatest pieces of hardware in the world, it's a sub £150 youngsters guitar after all, but I feel they are perfectly acceptable for now. The 6 saddle bridge is essentially like a strat bridge, each saddle can be individually adjusted for both intonation and string height/radius meaning an accurate set-up can be achieved. The tuners, although feel fairly stiff to turn, work just fine and hold tuning on this particular guitar so far. Due to doing this little project as cheaply as possible, I probably won't be changing the tuners unless they prove to be troublesome in the long run. Aesthetically, the hardware choices do give the guitar a nice look, with a touch of vintage vibe to them due to the retro 6 saddle bridge and vintage style buttons on the tuners. The plastic nut on this particular guitar did definitely need a little work though. Despite the guitar only being shipped with 9 gauge strings on, the slots were still too small for the gauge, so what might initially seem like an issue with the tuners, was in fact just the nut 'grabbing' and snagging the strings when tuning and playing. So a quick refinement with my nut slot files and all was well, playing cleanly without any pinging and tuning issues, and allowed the tuners to do their job when needed too. Again, if you're looking at one of these guitars, then it may need the nut slots correcting to help with it's playability/tuning stability. But I have no real issues with the hardware choices on this model.
Comfort/Playability
Comfort wise, this guitar is great! They have retained the arm contour as well as the tummy contour, and the usual rounded body edges are present too meaning it's a lovely guitar to sit and play (even at my 6'5" stature!) so I have no concerns about it being uncomfortable for Miles to learn with. It has a little bit of 'neck dive', but overall it's comfortable to sit with. One thing I will note here though, is if you plan on buying a strap for your child to use with this guitar, bare in mind that for some reason the strap buttons fitted to this guitar are TINY. I'm not quite sure why they have even bothered to fit these as it's unlikely any strap will fit onto them easily. So the strap you buy will either have to have tiny strap button holes so it doesn't fall off, or you'll have to fit some regular strap buttons like I decided to. A small detail, but one I thought was important as I imagine many parents will buy this guitar, maybe an amp and a strap for their children and it would be a shame to see the guitar dropped due to the strap not fitting the guitar's tiny strap buttons. So something to bare in mind. I decided to just fit some old spare Schaller Strap lock buttons on there, zero chance of the strap slipping off then.
In Summary
I would say realistically, a 5 or 6 year old upwards is going to comfortably be able to learn with one of these Mini Jazzmasters and enjoy doing so. Size wise, the scale length, etc is ideal for them and the guitar looks achingly cool which I'm sure would help a youngster feel inspired to pick it up and learn to play. In terms of overall quality, the instrument I received from GAK is brilliant and I'm personally very happy with the purchase. No regrets, no real frustrations with quality at all and do feel it is good value for money. Sure there are cheaper mini sized guitars out there, but it is nice to have a licensed brand/product here which overall is of great quality for the money. I have mentioned a few of the minor issues in my summary above which hopefully helps those interested in one of these guitars for their children, but overall this guitar is great. The hardware is up the the job, I personally would highly recommend a higher string gauge, to help with string tension and make it a little more controllable to play! The factory 9 gauge strings feel way to floppy on this guitar and do indeed make it feel a bit of a challenge to play. It's difficult to play notes cleanly, and string bends/vibrato on notes is nearly impossible with the factory gauge. You could tune up a pitch to increase the string tension of course, but my personal recommendation is to increase the string gauge which is vital on short scale guitars anyway, let alone one this short. Set-up wise out of the shipping box, this particular guitar was pretty much ready to go and play. All of them out of the factory might not be as good as this one was, but If you are unsure though, either ask the store when you purchase it to give it a set-up, and in particular I would highly recommend getting the nut slots addressed as chances are, they will need a little adjustment to ensure the strings aren't snagging there which can cause tuning and playing issues. This was a quick 2/3 minute task for me to do, and instantly made the guitar play nicely in tune. The factory pickups and electronics are absolutely fine, I played them through my amp and it genuinely sounded nice. But the good news is, that the bridge string spacing is pretty standard (52mm) meaning you could always fit other pickups easily in the future if you do so wish.
Main question really is would I recommend the Squier Mini Jazzmaster given the experiences of buying one myself? The answer is yes. But if you're still concerned by some of the more negative reviews online, perhaps when the world is in a better place, head to your local Squier dealer and try one in person and see for yourself. I essentially wanted to do that, but given the situation at the time of shops being closed I took the risk and ordered online, and was very happy I did and am 100% happy with the guitar I have bought for my son to learn with.
Onto the modding fun!
As mentioned earlier in the article, my son is a huge Pop Punk fan, even at his young age which is both brilliant and hilarious to me! 'Chip off the old block' as I spent my youth loving the very same. So I wanted to further encourage him to want to learn when he's inspired to, and decided to make the guitar a little more 'him' and a little more Pop Punk! A pickup synonymous with Pop Punk thanks to Blink 182's Tom Delonge in particular, is the Seymour Duncan Invader. After realising the string spacing on the Mini jazzmaster was regular, I spotted one 2nd hand for a superb price, so snapped it up comfortably knowing it would fit into this guitar fine. I took the pickguard off to find that the control cavity for the electronics is routed pretty closely to the controls, but the pickup routing is 'bathtub' style meaning you could realistically put any combination of pickups into this without any further routing. Something some of you modders might find useful anyway.
The 2nd hand Duncan pickup arrived, and it was in great condition which was a nice bonus. Should I want to sell it on in the future this makes things a little easier. I lifted out the original fully loaded pickguard and have kept that safe should I want to put it all back in the future. As I needed a new pickguard for the single pickup set-up, I would have to make this myself as replacements (especially modded ones) aren't readily available (yet). I have a fair few scraps of pickguard material in my office, and found a single ply black sheet with enough space to cut this mini JM item from, so set to work drawing the outline and cutting out. I just used a coping saw for this, which is time consuming but easy enough. I wanted this to be Pop Punk inspired where less is definitely more, so a simple bridge humbucker, one volume and the jack socket was all I needed here. It certainly isn't perfect, but overall looks great and I love how much it has changed the look of the guitar! I do intend on changing this in the future though, but for now it looks great. Fun little project and Miles is very smug that he has the same pickup as 'Blink 182' haha!
I just wired the Invader pickup to a CTS 500k pot, and a Pure Tone jack socket, super simple and low in cost with my access to those parts. I also decided to fit 11 gauge strings, it sounds drastic I know. But with the tiny short scale of the guitar, 11s on this don't feel like 11s on your full scale guitar. It plays more like a regular scale guitar with 10s on really, but really tightens up the playing experience, notes are easier to play, chords ring out better and overall has vastly improved the enjoyment of playing this cute little guitar. I'm actually really enjoying pickup it up to play! Miles won't get a look in if he's not careful haha! Rather surprisingly too, the truss rod settled very quickly with the change to 11s. Another nod to the overall quality of this guitar I suppose, the neck is very stable on this particular guitar.
I mounted it all back up, fitted a Tele style barrel control knob in chrome to nicely match the other hardware and it's ready to be enjoyed! All in all, as I managed to get the pickup 2nd hand, had a scrap piece of pickguard material and of course, access to the electronics parts and able to easily carry out the work myself, the mods cost me around £55, and could likely get that back in the value of the Seymour Duncan pickup which is good to know. I realise it might not cost you as little if you don't have as easy access to the parts etc, but thought it might be useful to share what I put into it.
Tips and useful info for other modders
I thought this additional info might be useful seeing as I'm beginning to get a few more questions about modding the Mini JM off the back of this article. First of all, body routing. The pickup route itself is a bathtub route, which will come as good news to some hoping to do any pickup swaps. But it is only routed wide enough to accommodate standard sized humbuckers. The body route itself is roughly 85mm on the Mini JM I have, so will fit any pickup up to that width. Humbuckers, Strat or Tele single coils, a P90 may just fit in but it would be close. But I'm afraid larger pickups like a traditional Jazzmaster single coil for example will require modification to the body to allow to fit. If you do decide to route the body for JM single coils, you will also need a new pickguard custom cutting as the pickup itself correctly aligned with the strings will sit wider than the pickguard itself in it's standard form. So something worth baring in mind.
But the bathtub pickup route could mean you could fit three pickups if you wanted!
Wiring component and wire body channels/routing. Now this is a little tighter, and is routed very much like a Squier Bullet Mustang, meaning the pickup selector switch will only really fit upgrades like the Switchcraft Right Angle toggle switch for example without modification. I was able to fit full size CTS pots into the cavity without much issue, but of course if you're using the original pickguard, the holes in the pickguard will need widening to suit. But the body cavity itself will fit a CTS pot meaning you can upgrade this to some really great quality wiring parts pretty easily. Cavity depth is 31mm on my example.
Bridge string spacing and bridge baseplate size is relatively standard, with a 52mm string spacing and a bridge baseplate measuring 78mm x 42mm. It's also top loading, so no real worry of finding a through body bridge with the matching ferrule spacing.
Tuners have a post spacing of 25mm centre to centre of each tuner post. The tuner housings are fairly small on the back of the headstock, but don't have mounting screws holding them in place, meaning you could likely retrofit other tuners matching the post spacing without the potential worry of seeing evidence of a swap of style/type. I haven't personally change the tuners on mine though so don't have any recommended alternative tuners to try at this stage. Best thing to do is double check your measurements to ensure you get a new set that will retrofit comfortably
Hope some of this info helps with your modding plans!
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I really do hope it helps others interested in the Squier Mini Jazzmaster, I've been as honest as possible with every detail of my experience in purchasing one of these guitars for my son to learn with. I personally feel the guitar we bought is a great little instrument, and more than happy to hand it to my boy!
Update 2021
A reader commented on this article and it has reminded me to post an update on this guitar seeing as it is coming up to nearly a year since we got it. I can confidently say that we are still very much enjoying having this, my son enjoys picking it up and strumming away, hopefully it will continue to inspire him to do so and take the learning a bit further as time goes on. But I must admit, that I really enjoy picking it up for a play from time to time too! With the 11 gauge strings on it is perfectly playable, I think if it was just me playing it I'd be tempted to try 12s on it, but conscious of Miles playing it so don't want to go higher than 11s for now. I have promised him for some time that I would replace my hand cut, scratched up black pickguard with a neater one (and that he could choose the material himself!) so we finally got around to do that. He chose an amazing looking swirly multi colour acrylic material which wasn't technically pickguard material but it was just about the right thickness to get away with using it. So I ordered that and sent it up along with a template to my friends at Tiny Tone UK who make custom pickguards. They did an amazing job! Whilst the pickguard was off, I took the opportunity to polish the frets up and also tested out replacing the bridge saddles. As quality, top loaded bridge replacements are fairly hard to come by, and I didn't want to spend much money on it anyway, I decided to retrofit some of the superb 'in-tune' brass saddles by Gotoh that I stock. The string spacing matched, but I did need to drill some new holes for the intonation screws, but for me it took a couple of minutes and cost wise was low. Results were great though! The brass saddles look great, but intonation well too and sound great acoustically. This guitar with it's 11s, short scale and nice brass saddles now is super resonant! I'm loving playing this thing, Miles is going to have to be careful I don't steal it from him permanently!
I still stand by my review of this guitar. The factory string gauge choice is awful, a short scale guitar needs bigger strings, and this guitar was very difficult to play with the factory 9s which may very well explain a lot of it's bad reviews out there. But use common sense here, it's a short scale! 9s don't cut it. Swap them to a minimum of 11s and you should notice a big difference, ours is so much fun to play, and it is so nice to see my son having a go at learning with it comfortably. If you're not really familiar with string gauges or guitar set-up, simply ask the shop you buy it from to do a good set-up on it with a better suited string gauge and you'll be thankful that you did I'm sure. I have ZERO affiliation with Squier, I bought this guitar personally so haven't been urged to write a positive review at all, I just have honestly really enjoyed having it. I didn't have to mod it either, that was simply personal preference, I'm confident that with the string gauge corrected and a good set-up I very much could have left it stock and still enjoyed it. But how have I loved modding it! It looks superb and was really fun to involve Miles in choosing how he wanted it to look too.
Fast forward to May, a good few weeks into Covid-19 lockdown here in the UK, and the Squier Mini Jazzmaster was officially released, so I couldn't resist getting one for Miles. Of course I had already had some modding ideas bouncing around my head too, as Miles has become obsessed over the past year or so with Pop Punk music, Blink 182, Sum 41, New Found Glory to name a few. He's even wearing his favourite T-Shirt, a Blink 182 one, in his last School photo! So me being me, modding it so he had a little mini pop punk guitar was on the cards all being well... But it wasn't looking promising...Around the same time, after a discussion over on an Offset Guitar group/forum, it seems there was already some incredibly bad press doing the rounds on YouTube about how bad these new Mini Jazzmasters were. I was gutted to say the least after months of waiting, but wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt and see one for myself first hand, so I took the risk & ordered one. Luckily for me, I didn't have to go through the refund procedure and I'm very glad I did order as my experience was a far far cry from those negative ones on YouTube. So I thought I'd share my thoughts on it, the good bits, some of the bad bits too in case it helps others out there interested in these cool little offsets for their children too.
*Please note, the photos are all after my little bit of modding, if you're wondering why it looks different to the standard model.
Initial impressions
I bought ours from GAK for £139 including shipping. The guitar arrived, and straight out of the box I was already impressed, the relief! First of all, Squier have done a great job with the overall look. Some mini or 3/4 versions of guitars can look odd, dimensions sometimes don't look right, or pickups and controls can look too 'busy' on the pickguard making it look all bloated or squashed. But this looks superb, and for a Jazzmaster fan like myself, it certainly brought a big smile. Sure, it comes in the non traditional HH configuration, but I don't think hinders the aesthetic particular for a 3/4 sized guitar primarily for the younger generation. My son asked for the olympic white one when I first shown him the photos of them, which upon box opening looked to me like the slightly yellower version of Olympic white rather than a very bright white you sometimes get. They do offer these in a nice Daphne blue and seafoam green though which look equally superb I must say.
Overall weight was a little over 5lbs, so sure, not the lightest guitar in the world, but it's comfortable, not cumbersome and the little man could pick it up, just about anyway.
Naturally you grab the guitar by the neck to pick it up, and when it comes to a budget, £100 ish guitar you fully prepare your palms to get shredded to bits on sharp fret ends...But that didn't happen here! Very neatly finished, with the tangs shy of the fretboard edge and seemingly filled with either the satin neck lacquer or glue, either way, it feels very smooth on this particular guitar which was a pleasant surprise considering my usual experience of budget instruments. Also a relief for me, knowing my son was going to be holding this that he wasn't going to cut his hands on sharp frets (also one less job I'd have to do with a fret end dress!). So very impressed by this, and hopefully others out of the factory are equally as well finished.
Finish/Pickups
Speaking of the Olympic white colour previously, the paint finish is very good. Nice and flat, no orange peel effect anywhere on this example and the maple neck/board is nice too. From the factory, these come with a white pickguard, loaded with 2 generic spec humbuckers, a 3 way toggle switch, single volume, single tone and the jack socket. My son was super eager to plug it in (as he loves to 'rock and roll' in his words), so a quick tune up and we were hearing those humbuckers for the first time. I personally thought, for a mini sized, essentially youngsters budget guitar, the sound was way more than acceptable. Sounded nice clean across both pickups, and it took drive fairly well too. I didn't experience any negatives regarding the guitars tone considering it's intention. If I'm being picky, which is natural when I specialise in guitar electronics, the volume pot acted more like an on/off switch which is more common with linear taper pots(this guitar has logarithmic volume and tone though) or with low quality import type pots, but they operated without crackling and everything felt pretty solid so not the end of the world all things considered. I would very happily have left the wiring and pickups as they were, they are more than capable of the task at hand, and certainly fine for a youngster to plug in and enjoy playing.
Set-up
From a player point of view though, man those strings were wayyyyy too light gauge for the tiny scale length. I imagine that will cause some less experienced owners confusion due the negative effect that has on playability and sound of this little guitar. This one came with 9s on and with the scale length in mind, they are way too floppy and do make for a difficult time playing notes cleanly, even for me, let alone a young beginner. I figured this would be the case though, most budget guitars come shipped from far east factories with 9s on, but worth bearing this in mind if you don't plan on changing strings straight away. I'll discuss this a little more when I get to the modding part of this article. The factory strings will feel really slack at standard pitch, but in terms of the factory set-up it was very impressive. Intonation was good, near enough anyway when you consider there really must not be much time (if any) at the factory to perform setup, nut slot height was comfortable at the 1st fret meaning the open strings vibrated cleanly, action was the usual 2mm at the bass side on the 15th fret, and just shy of 2mm on the treble side at the 15th, go to set-up measurements for most factories so no quibbles there at all. Even the string radius was achingly close to being set correctly, so I was pleasantly surprised by all of this. Whether all of them leave the factory like this, maybe not, but this particular one was playable out of the box for sure. Quick personal recommendation here, if you're looking to buy one of these and Set-Up is something you don't know anything about, perhaps ask the shop you buy it from for a price of a good set-up to help make sure it's playable straight away.
Hardware
Hardware wise, you're greeted with a 6 saddle, top loading hardtail bridge, and some modern type tuners which have vintage type buttons too. Sure, they're not going to be the greatest pieces of hardware in the world, it's a sub £150 youngsters guitar after all, but I feel they are perfectly acceptable for now. The 6 saddle bridge is essentially like a strat bridge, each saddle can be individually adjusted for both intonation and string height/radius meaning an accurate set-up can be achieved. The tuners, although feel fairly stiff to turn, work just fine and hold tuning on this particular guitar so far. Due to doing this little project as cheaply as possible, I probably won't be changing the tuners unless they prove to be troublesome in the long run. Aesthetically, the hardware choices do give the guitar a nice look, with a touch of vintage vibe to them due to the retro 6 saddle bridge and vintage style buttons on the tuners. The plastic nut on this particular guitar did definitely need a little work though. Despite the guitar only being shipped with 9 gauge strings on, the slots were still too small for the gauge, so what might initially seem like an issue with the tuners, was in fact just the nut 'grabbing' and snagging the strings when tuning and playing. So a quick refinement with my nut slot files and all was well, playing cleanly without any pinging and tuning issues, and allowed the tuners to do their job when needed too. Again, if you're looking at one of these guitars, then it may need the nut slots correcting to help with it's playability/tuning stability. But I have no real issues with the hardware choices on this model.
Comfort/Playability
Comfort wise, this guitar is great! They have retained the arm contour as well as the tummy contour, and the usual rounded body edges are present too meaning it's a lovely guitar to sit and play (even at my 6'5" stature!) so I have no concerns about it being uncomfortable for Miles to learn with. It has a little bit of 'neck dive', but overall it's comfortable to sit with. One thing I will note here though, is if you plan on buying a strap for your child to use with this guitar, bare in mind that for some reason the strap buttons fitted to this guitar are TINY. I'm not quite sure why they have even bothered to fit these as it's unlikely any strap will fit onto them easily. So the strap you buy will either have to have tiny strap button holes so it doesn't fall off, or you'll have to fit some regular strap buttons like I decided to. A small detail, but one I thought was important as I imagine many parents will buy this guitar, maybe an amp and a strap for their children and it would be a shame to see the guitar dropped due to the strap not fitting the guitar's tiny strap buttons. So something to bare in mind. I decided to just fit some old spare Schaller Strap lock buttons on there, zero chance of the strap slipping off then.
In Summary
I would say realistically, a 5 or 6 year old upwards is going to comfortably be able to learn with one of these Mini Jazzmasters and enjoy doing so. Size wise, the scale length, etc is ideal for them and the guitar looks achingly cool which I'm sure would help a youngster feel inspired to pick it up and learn to play. In terms of overall quality, the instrument I received from GAK is brilliant and I'm personally very happy with the purchase. No regrets, no real frustrations with quality at all and do feel it is good value for money. Sure there are cheaper mini sized guitars out there, but it is nice to have a licensed brand/product here which overall is of great quality for the money. I have mentioned a few of the minor issues in my summary above which hopefully helps those interested in one of these guitars for their children, but overall this guitar is great. The hardware is up the the job, I personally would highly recommend a higher string gauge, to help with string tension and make it a little more controllable to play! The factory 9 gauge strings feel way to floppy on this guitar and do indeed make it feel a bit of a challenge to play. It's difficult to play notes cleanly, and string bends/vibrato on notes is nearly impossible with the factory gauge. You could tune up a pitch to increase the string tension of course, but my personal recommendation is to increase the string gauge which is vital on short scale guitars anyway, let alone one this short. Set-up wise out of the shipping box, this particular guitar was pretty much ready to go and play. All of them out of the factory might not be as good as this one was, but If you are unsure though, either ask the store when you purchase it to give it a set-up, and in particular I would highly recommend getting the nut slots addressed as chances are, they will need a little adjustment to ensure the strings aren't snagging there which can cause tuning and playing issues. This was a quick 2/3 minute task for me to do, and instantly made the guitar play nicely in tune. The factory pickups and electronics are absolutely fine, I played them through my amp and it genuinely sounded nice. But the good news is, that the bridge string spacing is pretty standard (52mm) meaning you could always fit other pickups easily in the future if you do so wish.
Main question really is would I recommend the Squier Mini Jazzmaster given the experiences of buying one myself? The answer is yes. But if you're still concerned by some of the more negative reviews online, perhaps when the world is in a better place, head to your local Squier dealer and try one in person and see for yourself. I essentially wanted to do that, but given the situation at the time of shops being closed I took the risk and ordered online, and was very happy I did and am 100% happy with the guitar I have bought for my son to learn with.
Onto the modding fun!
As mentioned earlier in the article, my son is a huge Pop Punk fan, even at his young age which is both brilliant and hilarious to me! 'Chip off the old block' as I spent my youth loving the very same. So I wanted to further encourage him to want to learn when he's inspired to, and decided to make the guitar a little more 'him' and a little more Pop Punk! A pickup synonymous with Pop Punk thanks to Blink 182's Tom Delonge in particular, is the Seymour Duncan Invader. After realising the string spacing on the Mini jazzmaster was regular, I spotted one 2nd hand for a superb price, so snapped it up comfortably knowing it would fit into this guitar fine. I took the pickguard off to find that the control cavity for the electronics is routed pretty closely to the controls, but the pickup routing is 'bathtub' style meaning you could realistically put any combination of pickups into this without any further routing. Something some of you modders might find useful anyway.
The 2nd hand Duncan pickup arrived, and it was in great condition which was a nice bonus. Should I want to sell it on in the future this makes things a little easier. I lifted out the original fully loaded pickguard and have kept that safe should I want to put it all back in the future. As I needed a new pickguard for the single pickup set-up, I would have to make this myself as replacements (especially modded ones) aren't readily available (yet). I have a fair few scraps of pickguard material in my office, and found a single ply black sheet with enough space to cut this mini JM item from, so set to work drawing the outline and cutting out. I just used a coping saw for this, which is time consuming but easy enough. I wanted this to be Pop Punk inspired where less is definitely more, so a simple bridge humbucker, one volume and the jack socket was all I needed here. It certainly isn't perfect, but overall looks great and I love how much it has changed the look of the guitar! I do intend on changing this in the future though, but for now it looks great. Fun little project and Miles is very smug that he has the same pickup as 'Blink 182' haha!
I just wired the Invader pickup to a CTS 500k pot, and a Pure Tone jack socket, super simple and low in cost with my access to those parts. I also decided to fit 11 gauge strings, it sounds drastic I know. But with the tiny short scale of the guitar, 11s on this don't feel like 11s on your full scale guitar. It plays more like a regular scale guitar with 10s on really, but really tightens up the playing experience, notes are easier to play, chords ring out better and overall has vastly improved the enjoyment of playing this cute little guitar. I'm actually really enjoying pickup it up to play! Miles won't get a look in if he's not careful haha! Rather surprisingly too, the truss rod settled very quickly with the change to 11s. Another nod to the overall quality of this guitar I suppose, the neck is very stable on this particular guitar.
I mounted it all back up, fitted a Tele style barrel control knob in chrome to nicely match the other hardware and it's ready to be enjoyed! All in all, as I managed to get the pickup 2nd hand, had a scrap piece of pickguard material and of course, access to the electronics parts and able to easily carry out the work myself, the mods cost me around £55, and could likely get that back in the value of the Seymour Duncan pickup which is good to know. I realise it might not cost you as little if you don't have as easy access to the parts etc, but thought it might be useful to share what I put into it.
Tips and useful info for other modders
I thought this additional info might be useful seeing as I'm beginning to get a few more questions about modding the Mini JM off the back of this article. First of all, body routing. The pickup route itself is a bathtub route, which will come as good news to some hoping to do any pickup swaps. But it is only routed wide enough to accommodate standard sized humbuckers. The body route itself is roughly 85mm on the Mini JM I have, so will fit any pickup up to that width. Humbuckers, Strat or Tele single coils, a P90 may just fit in but it would be close. But I'm afraid larger pickups like a traditional Jazzmaster single coil for example will require modification to the body to allow to fit. If you do decide to route the body for JM single coils, you will also need a new pickguard custom cutting as the pickup itself correctly aligned with the strings will sit wider than the pickguard itself in it's standard form. So something worth baring in mind.
But the bathtub pickup route could mean you could fit three pickups if you wanted!
Wiring component and wire body channels/routing. Now this is a little tighter, and is routed very much like a Squier Bullet Mustang, meaning the pickup selector switch will only really fit upgrades like the Switchcraft Right Angle toggle switch for example without modification. I was able to fit full size CTS pots into the cavity without much issue, but of course if you're using the original pickguard, the holes in the pickguard will need widening to suit. But the body cavity itself will fit a CTS pot meaning you can upgrade this to some really great quality wiring parts pretty easily. Cavity depth is 31mm on my example.
Bridge string spacing and bridge baseplate size is relatively standard, with a 52mm string spacing and a bridge baseplate measuring 78mm x 42mm. It's also top loading, so no real worry of finding a through body bridge with the matching ferrule spacing.
Tuners have a post spacing of 25mm centre to centre of each tuner post. The tuner housings are fairly small on the back of the headstock, but don't have mounting screws holding them in place, meaning you could likely retrofit other tuners matching the post spacing without the potential worry of seeing evidence of a swap of style/type. I haven't personally change the tuners on mine though so don't have any recommended alternative tuners to try at this stage. Best thing to do is double check your measurements to ensure you get a new set that will retrofit comfortably
Hope some of this info helps with your modding plans!
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I really do hope it helps others interested in the Squier Mini Jazzmaster, I've been as honest as possible with every detail of my experience in purchasing one of these guitars for my son to learn with. I personally feel the guitar we bought is a great little instrument, and more than happy to hand it to my boy!
Update 2021
A reader commented on this article and it has reminded me to post an update on this guitar seeing as it is coming up to nearly a year since we got it. I can confidently say that we are still very much enjoying having this, my son enjoys picking it up and strumming away, hopefully it will continue to inspire him to do so and take the learning a bit further as time goes on. But I must admit, that I really enjoy picking it up for a play from time to time too! With the 11 gauge strings on it is perfectly playable, I think if it was just me playing it I'd be tempted to try 12s on it, but conscious of Miles playing it so don't want to go higher than 11s for now. I have promised him for some time that I would replace my hand cut, scratched up black pickguard with a neater one (and that he could choose the material himself!) so we finally got around to do that. He chose an amazing looking swirly multi colour acrylic material which wasn't technically pickguard material but it was just about the right thickness to get away with using it. So I ordered that and sent it up along with a template to my friends at Tiny Tone UK who make custom pickguards. They did an amazing job! Whilst the pickguard was off, I took the opportunity to polish the frets up and also tested out replacing the bridge saddles. As quality, top loaded bridge replacements are fairly hard to come by, and I didn't want to spend much money on it anyway, I decided to retrofit some of the superb 'in-tune' brass saddles by Gotoh that I stock. The string spacing matched, but I did need to drill some new holes for the intonation screws, but for me it took a couple of minutes and cost wise was low. Results were great though! The brass saddles look great, but intonation well too and sound great acoustically. This guitar with it's 11s, short scale and nice brass saddles now is super resonant! I'm loving playing this thing, Miles is going to have to be careful I don't steal it from him permanently!
I still stand by my review of this guitar. The factory string gauge choice is awful, a short scale guitar needs bigger strings, and this guitar was very difficult to play with the factory 9s which may very well explain a lot of it's bad reviews out there. But use common sense here, it's a short scale! 9s don't cut it. Swap them to a minimum of 11s and you should notice a big difference, ours is so much fun to play, and it is so nice to see my son having a go at learning with it comfortably. If you're not really familiar with string gauges or guitar set-up, simply ask the shop you buy it from to do a good set-up on it with a better suited string gauge and you'll be thankful that you did I'm sure. I have ZERO affiliation with Squier, I bought this guitar personally so haven't been urged to write a positive review at all, I just have honestly really enjoyed having it. I didn't have to mod it either, that was simply personal preference, I'm confident that with the string gauge corrected and a good set-up I very much could have left it stock and still enjoyed it. But how have I loved modding it! It looks superb and was really fun to involve Miles in choosing how he wanted it to look too.
Comments
DJ Kumquat said:
Thanks for the review. Nice work on the mod. It looks gorgeous.
Torquay Mark said:
Thanks for this review, it was exactly what I was looking for. I’m getting one for my daughter.
Steve said:
This review was really helpful! I’ve just ordered one myself for my soon to be 6 yo daughter to try and capitalise on her sudden interest in my guitars.
Jim said:
Do you think that jazzmaster pickups would fit in the pickup routes without further modification (ie wood removal)?
James Gascoigne said:
Hi Jim,
It sadly wouldn’t fit without re-routing/modification I’m afraid. The route isn’t wide enough, at least on the Mini JM I have here. A quick rough measurement and although it’s a bathtub pickup route, it is only just wide enough for a humbucker at around 85mm wide route. The standard JM sized single coil is quite a bit wider than a regular humbucker, even including the mounting tabs. A humbucker is roughly 84mm wide widest point (inc mounting tabs) whereas a JM single coil with the cover on is roughly 93mm wide. So would require some modification to the body route.
Hope this helps though!
James
Sol said:
Maybe this question is a bit too involved, but I was wondering what kinds of pickups you could install to get it sounding as close to the Wide Range ones on a full size, which would fit in it? I’m developing joint pain and I love the Jazzmaster sound but I’m very invested in this scale length.
James Gascoigne said:
Hi Sol,
Thanks for the message. Hmm, I would say if the budget allows of course, a pickup model like the McNelly Stagger Swagger would be ideal. That is a pickup which is inspired by the Wide Range Humbucker, with a little P90 aspect to it’s design too, so although not an exact WRH replica, it does share a similar look and some tonal characteristics but with the advantage of being standard humbucker sizing. You may need to slightly refine the holes in the pickguard seeing as the pickguard is cut for open bobbin style humbuckers rather than a full nickel (for example) cover. But that would be an easy option I think if the budget allows for McNelly Stagger Swagger pickups of course. Hope this helps!
Patrick McManus said:
Thanks, I have arthritis and play a short scale guitar but am looking at the Jazzmaster mini. Other reviews said it’s a lemon, so I was glad to see your post.
Cheers
Tash said:
That scratchplate looks amazing! I was leaning towards the green, but I’m actually now thinking of the white so I can get whatever colour scratchplate I want.
As a rough guide, could you tell me how much it was? I’ve looked at Tiny Tone’s website, but you have to go through a whole quotation to get a price. I’m just wondering roughly whether it would be for me, or not.
James Gascoigne said:
Hi Tash, thanks for the comment :)
I must admit, I’m not 100% sure how much Tiny Tone are charging for these pickguards now, as when I had mine cut by them, I bought the material sheet and posted it to them to cut, but I believe they are now offering this material as an option, just not sure what they are charging to do so.
The sheet of material cost me around £30, then their charges were around £45 off the top of my head. So not a cheap option by any means, but certainly looks good as a result though. They may well do it cheaper than that now they offer the material, and technically already have the template made due to making this one for me. So in theory, shouldn’t charge the additional template costs but I’m presuming really so would be worth checking with them.
Hope this helps though!
James
Tom Lynham said:
I am so happy to have found this. Have a similar mod situation in mind, have ordered all the parts (doing some humbucker-sized P-90s for an easy swap-out) even including a blue pickguard! Have to make it myself but picked out a nice quilted sparkle in a light blue to keep with the surf style.
After I ordered the guitar I found a couple of really depressing YouTube video reviews – caveat emptor for not going that deep into my research but this has renewed my faith that I’m doing exactly the right thing. I love modding cheap guitars and now this one is “for my daughter.”
Cheers and beautiful job on the guitar and the well written and informative write-up!
Tony said:
Hello and thanks for the comprehensive review. I have the olympic white one too and am very impressed overall by it. I have put 10s and it still has tuning issues after bending strings but that was expected. I plan on putting 11s, getting a proper nut cut, some good pots jack and switch and now seeing those saddles you used think i will do the same. I was just wondering the exact part number to order for the saddles ? Thanks
tony rolph said:
Hi. looks great . how is the string spacing with those saddles, it looks like in the last pictures that the string spacing may be slightly too wide? tks
James Gascoigne said:
Hi Tony, Thanks for the comments. Yeah 10s are still a bit too light really for the super short scale, I have 11s on and it’s okay but I’d be inclined to even say 12s would be better, I’m giving that a try on the next string change anyways. I have put a hyper link to the exact saddles used on the article, but they are the Gotoh ‘In-Tune’ brass saddles for Telecaster, I list them here on my website if you want some further spec details on them.
In addition to the 2nd comment about string spacing, it is only looking too wide because the Seymour Duncan Invader pickup installed has the narrower spacing than the standard pickups. So with the SD pickup, even the original sadddles were too wide anyway, and with the high output and huge magnetic pull this model pickup has, it really doesn’t make a noticeable difference so it hasn’t concerned me. if you are keeping the original pickups, then it won’t be an issue, or if you are replacing the pickups and want to replace the saddles like I have, just look for an F-Spaced humbucker/pickup instead and the spacing will be spot on :)
Hope this all helps and all the best with your project too! Love these mini series jazzmasters!
James
Tilly said:
I’m interested in buying this guitar for my 13 year old daughter and being new to guitars myself, I have to ask is a pick-up required for this guitar? I have no idea what a pick-up does, is it required for this particular guitar?
James Philip Gascoigne said:
Hi Tilly,
Thanks for the comment. It is worth me noting that I’m afraid this exact spec of guitar isn’t available for sale anywhere, it is one I have modified. But the Squier Mini Jazzmaster as it comes from the factory in standard spec, does indeed have 2x pickups. You can play the guitar acoustically as it is, but if you want to plug it into an amplifier, that is when the pickup(s) will be doing it’s work!
Pablo said:
I’m super glad I found this review! :D
Thanks a lot for putting your time into writing this so thoroughly, I’m planning in buying one for me, doing some mod fun with it and of course playing it, so reading all this was very helpful. I’m sure now I’ll have lots of fun with it!
Bob VanDevander said:
What’s the possibility of putting a Bigsby term on this ?
James Gascoigne said:
Hi Bob, Thanks for the comment.
Sadly don’t personally feel it’s possible to fit a bigsby to one of these. There is just less than 100mm between the rear edge of the bridge and the edge of the body at the strap button. Even the smaller Bigsby B5 units are longer than that, so don’t think it’s viable. Plus achieving an optimal break angle over the bridge saddles might prove tricky too.
Hope this helps (or saves you the costs/effort of attempting!)
Cheers, James
Bob VanDevander said:
What about a Mustang Bridge/Tremolo…. Would that be a better option than a Bigsby? … thanks for the answer
James Gascoigne said:
Hiya Bob,
Depends on your overall intentions for the install/retrofit really. If planning/hoping to keep the existing bridge in situ and mount the Mustang Vibrato behind that, then The baseplate dimensions would just, and I mean just! about fit. But bare in mind the Mini Jazzmaster body thickness is only around 38mm from memory and Mustang vibratos due to the spring anchor points isn’t far off that. So some careful planning for routing depths would be recommended. As I haven’t personally attempted the retrofit I couldn’t really say for certain, but there is potential judging by the measurements. Just ensure you do a lot of measurement planning before investing in parts/routing out the body as I can’t say for certain that it would fit and work well without doing that retrofit myself.
Cheers, James