One guitar which has been sorely missed since the late sixties is the Fender Jaguar, but thanks to those Fender people we now have it again which will make Cure fans and beach boys alike very happy. In twenty odd years the basic design hasn't changed too much with one or two minor alterations which will only bother the most die hard purist when it comes down to it's playing value. For a start the headstock joint is now a bit more pronounced and the neck feels slightly bigger. Also the locking tremelo feature has been removed, though the button still remains, which is a pity because if you break a string you could whack on the lock while restringing and it prevented the rest of the strings going out of tune. Still it's a very good tremelo with a light action that rivals the feel of a lot of the string lock/nut systems that are on Fender's newer models. It does start to click a bit if you go completely demented on it but apart from that not a squeak. The one really bad design point on it is the bridge which has stayed true to the original sixties version. It is the goal post type that is common to telecasters with the string going over the top of the 'goal'. The problem is that if either of the screws on either side of it turn at all then the balance is upset and you get an horrific noise.

The pick up selection on the Jaguar is not at all your run of the mill five way switch. Near the bottom horn of the guitar there are three switches. One switches the treble pick up on, one the bass pick up on, and the other is a bass cut switch, which cuts out the bass surprisingly enough. On the upper horn of the guitar there is another switch which switches the guitar to the bass pick up and two rollers which control the tone and volume. It really isn't as complicated as my explanation suggests and means that you can have preset rhythm and lead sounds. Neat eh?

The pick ups themselves are small and squared off and give a very bright sound. Very Fender. They do in fact sound a lot more trebly than a Strat does though when playing on the bass pick up you can also get a nice Telecaster sound or two.

Another feature that the new Jaguar lacks is the removeable string damper that could be useful if you're looking for that plinky jazz sound.

The scale on the neck is fairly short so the string tension feels quite loose and the intonation was a little bit out though nothing was drastically wrong. What was a bit more disturbing was the way that it kept choking off the notes when I bent them on the higher frets, which I imagine was down to the neck being badly set up rather than anything major being wrong but it was very annoying none the less. The maple neck was very comfortable but the fret board, which is rosewood, felt a bit scratchy but that's down to personal taste. Overall it's a nice guitar and not that expensive at around the £400 mark though you may be able to pick up an original for that price. The model I had for review definitely needed some setting up but others that I have tried in shops didn't seem to have that problem. A good buy but try first.