A tasteful but extroverted design mashup that yields myriad tone and playing possibilities.
A beautiful, tasteful, but still extroverted fusion of design elements. Super playability. Unique tone signature from mini humbuckers.
Lower-output pickups might be more versatile. Midrange-heavy tone profile can obscure some nuance
$1,399
Fender Gold Foil Jazzmaster
fender.com
Purists may beg to differ, but irreverently recombinant guitar design makes the electric guitar world a lot more fun and interesting. Not every design mashup works, of course. Some attempts at blending influences end up about as elegant as grafting a pine tree to a cactus. But the Gold Foil Jazzmaster is a truly beautiful mutation. It gathers together Gibson-like attributes, like a mahogany body and mini humbuckers (yes, we’ll get to that), with Fender’s shapely, comfy Jazzmaster profile and 25 1/2" scale, as well as curiosities like a Jaguar-inspired pickup selector and a Bigsby into a lively-sounding whole that’s genuinely exciting to play.
Fender, to their credit, always seems up for playing fast and loose with tradition these days. But this unorthodox assemblage manages to be every bit as much substance as flash—and there is a lot of flash here.
Gold Is Only Skin Deep
First, though, the curious name of this instrument: The Fender Gold Foil pickups that provide its handle aren’t gold-foils at all—at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, they are alnico-based mini humbuckers. But it’s hard to argue about how completely cool they look. And in the 3-pickup configuration used here, they offer players a multitude of sounds to work with.
The output from the three pickups inhabits a genuinely unique timbral space. In the bridge pickup, for instance, you can hear a cool cross between the clear, airy tonalities of a Stratocaster single-coil and the heft of a PAF. At other times, I heard the concise punch of a Rickenbacker Hi-Gain with more sustain. In general, they are heavy on high midrange—a mirror image of most classic Fender pickups. That midrange emphasis means they dovetail nicely with black-panel Fender amplifiers—particularly with a minimum of effects and amp volume bumped up to louder, grittier zones.
The three mini humbuckers give you a cool palette to play with. The hot-Strat attributes, for instance, give the Gold Foil Jazzmaster the personality of a bossy, extra-brawny surf machine when you add heaps of reverb. The same characteristics make it ace for overtone- and feedback-heavy Neil Young sounds (which are aided and enhanced in no small part by the Bigsby).
The modes that combine adjacent pickups lack some of the snappy and quacky charm of a Stratocaster’s 2 and 4 positions. Yet, on the Gold Foil Jazzmaster, these settings have their place. In general, they have a muted and subdued voice that’s not especially responsive to picking dynamics, but they are perfect for softer melodic leads and rhythm parts that rely on tempered, regular accents. They can sound really cool, tight, and focused through a fuzz as well. But the mini humbuckers shine best in isolation or in the neck-and-bridge setting, which makes some of the loveliest sounds in the guitar and evokes the combined neck and bridge settings on a traditional Jazzmaster, which are one of that guitar’s great strengths.
Crazy, Mixed-Up Kid—Sure Is Handsome Though
As we said at the top, Fender was not shy about the flash when they put together this Jazzmaster. The guitar can be had in Candy Apple Burst, which looks pretty mean, but not nearly as slick as it does in shoreline gold. The post-CBS-style block inlays are a particularly effective design element. Visually they echo the pickup array, but they’re also an effective bridge between early and late-’60s Jazzmasters. Other elements, like the white plastic keys that top the vintage Kluson-style tuners, provide visual cohesion between the white neck binding and the post-CBS-style volume and tone knobs. But both the control knobs and the tuning keys feel a little down-market compared to the rest of the instrument’s luxe aura.
By the way, about that Bigsby: It’s loads of fun, it looks awesome, and it is very tuning stable. But if you’re accustomed to a classic Jazzmaster or Jaguar vibrato, the Bigsby can feel limiting. For me, that’s down to the fact that you can’t pull the vibrato arm toward you past the position where the arm is parallel with the strings. If you’re used to Bigsbys, or new to vibrato in general, you might not find this a limitation. But to me, the ability to pull the long arm of a traditional Jazzmaster vibrato past that point, and the ease with which you can hold it in your palm while you perform more complex picking maneuvers, is a big part of a Jazzmaster’s unique playability and appeal. And I missed it a lot as I attempted to get weirder with the Gold Foil Jazzmaster. That complaint aside, the Bigsby is awesome, and despite the limitation based in my own traditional Jazzmaster bias, it invites all kinds of radical and tasteful vibrato adornments that spice up this Jazzmaster’s already wide sonic range.
The Verdict
I’m fascinated with late-’50s and early ’60s car interiors, and I love the Jazzmaster silhouette. So, the Gold Foil Jazzmaster is a beautiful thing. But even if you don’t align with the design aesthetic at work here, you’d have to be pretty freaking grumpy to be totally turned off by this well-executed and balanced amalgamation of hardware and trim. For me, it works. Nothing seems forced, and, if anything, it evokes a tastefully executed bit of custom-car-design work, which, of course, underscores the distinctly California relationship between guitar and automobile that informed so many cool Fender designs in the first place.
The playability is superb. Build quality is excellent. And I love the many tones available here, too. The mahogany body may or may not add some midrange to the tone spectrum—such assertions are hard to quantify on solidbody instruments. And depending on your perspective and tone predilections, the pickups could be a little more nuanced and complex. Maybe making them a little less hot and midrange focused would be nice. But the abundant switching options put a lot of sounds at your fingertips. There are many possibilities here, and all in an instrument so aesthetically inviting that it will be hard to put down—or stop staring at.
Fender Gold Foil Jazzmaster Demo | First Look
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Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
As head of Breedlove and Bedell Guitars, he’s championed sustainability and environmental causes—and he wants to tell you about it.
As the owner of the Breedlove and Bedell guitar companies, Tom Bedell has been a passionate advocate for sustainable practices in acoustic guitar manufacturing. Listening to him talk, it’s clear that the preservation of the Earth’s forests are just as important to Bedell as the sound of his guitars. You’ll know just how big of a statement that is if you’ve ever had the opportunity to spend time with one of his excellently crafted high-end acoustics, which are among the finest you’ll find. Over the course of his career, Bedell has championed the use of alternative tonewoods and traveled the world to get a firsthand look at his wood sources and their harvesting practices. When you buy a Bedell, you can rest assured that no clear-cut woods were used.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesn’t keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories he’s collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relic—and stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland—he discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how he’s putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relic’s cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the store’s house-spec’d Bedell parlors while we chatted.
“The story of this guitar is the story of the world,” Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, “I’m gonna make up the story,” Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregon’s Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization process—in which the building team fine-tunes each instrument’s voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysis—and Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitar’s warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acoustics—and of any Bedell I’ve had the pleasure to play—delivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, that’s what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. “We have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,” Bedell effused. “There are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but there’s nobody on a production level.” And he wants to spread that gospel.
“We want to reach people who really want something special,” he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores he’s visited, “who have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.”
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
ENGL, renowned for its high-performance amplifiers, proudly introduces the EP635 Fireball IR Pedal, a revolutionary 2-channel preamp pedal designed to deliver the legendary Fireball tone in a compact and feature-rich format.
The EP635 Fireball IR Pedal brings the raw power and precision of the ENGL Fireball amplifier into a pedalboard-friendly enclosure, offering unmatched flexibility and tonal control for guitarists of all styles. This cutting-edge pedal is equipped with advanced features, making it a must-have for players seeking high-gain perfection with modern digital convenience.
Key Features:
- Authentic Fireball Tone – Designed after the renowned ENGL Fireball amplifier, the EP635 delivers the unmistakable high-gain aggression and clarity that ENGL fans love.
- Two Independent Channels – Easily switch between two distinct channels, with each channel’s knob settings saved independently, allowing for seamless transitions between tones.
- Built-in Midboost Function – Enhance your tone with the integrated Midboost switch, perfect for cutting through the mix with extra punch.
- Advanced Noise Gate – Eliminate unwanted noise and maintain articulate clarity, even with high-gain settings.
- IR (Impulse Response) Loading via USB-C – Customize your sound with user-loadable IRs using the included software, bringing studio-quality cab simulations to your pedalboard.
- Headphone Output – Silent practice has never been easier, with a dedicated headphone output for direct monitoring.
- Premium Build and Intuitive Controls – Featuring a rugged chassis and responsive controls for Volume, Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble, and Presence, ensuring precise tonal shaping.
SPECS:
- Input 1/4” (6,35mm) Jack
- Output 1/4” (6,35mm) Jack
- Headphone Output 1/8”(3,5mm) Jack
- 9V DC / 300mA (center negativ) / power supply, sold separately
- USB C
The Gibson EH-185, introduced in 1939, was one of the company’s first electric guitars.
Before the Les Pauls and SGs, this aluminum-reinforced instrument was one of the famous brand’s first electric guitars.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of electric guitar in shaping American popular music over the last half-century. Its introduction was a revolution, changing the course of modern musical styles. Today, when we think of the guitars that started the revolution, we think of the Stratocaster and the Les Paul, guitars held against the body and fretted with the fingertips. But the real spark of this musical mutiny was the lap-steel guitar.
In the early 20th century, guitar music was moving out of the parlors of homes and into public spaces where folks could gather together and dance. Guitarists needed to project their sound far beyond where their wimpy little acoustic instruments could reach. Instrument manufacturers began experimenting with larger body sizes, metal construction, and resonators to increase volume.
Around this time, George Beauchamp began experimenting with electric guitar amplification. He settled on a design using two U-shaped magnets and a single coil of wire. Beauchamp was in business with Adolph Rickenbacker, and they decided to stick this new invention into a lap steel.
If we put on our 1930s glasses, this decision makes perfect sense. The most popular music at the time was a blend of Hawaiian and jazz styles made famous by virtuosos like Solomon “Sol” Hoʻopiʻi. Photos of Hoʻopiʻi with a metal-body resonator abound—one can imagine his relief at being handed an instrument that projected sound toward the audience via an amplifier, rather than back at his own head via resonator cones. Beauchamp and Rickenbacker were simply following the market.
As it turned out, the popularity of Hawaiian music gave way to swing, and electric lap steels didn’t exactly take the world by storm. But Beauchamp and Rickenbacker had proven the viability of this new technology, and other manufacturers followed suit. In 1937, Gibson created a pickup with magnets under the strings, rather than above like Beauchamp’s.
“When I plugged in the EH-185 I expected to hear something reminiscent of Charlie Christian’s smooth, clean tone. But what I got was meatier—closer to what I associate with P-90s: warm and midrange-y.”
The first page of Gibson’s “Electrical Instruments” section in the 1939 catalog features a glowing, full-page write-up of their top-of-the-line lap steel: the EH-185. “Everything about this new electric Hawaiian Guitar smacks of good showmanship,” effuses the copy. “It has smoothness, great sustaining power, and an easy flow of tone that builds up strongly and does not die out.”
Picking up the 1940 EH-185 at Fanny’s House of Music is about as close as one can get to traveling back in time to try a new one. It is just so clean, with barely any dings or even finish checking. Overall, this is a 9/10 piece, and it’s a joy to behold. Speaking of picking it up, the first thing you notice when you lift the EH-185 out of the case is its weight. This is a much heavier instrument than other similar-sized lap steels, owing to a length of thick metal between the body and the fretboard. The catalog calls it “Hyblum metal,” which may be a flowery trade name for an early aluminum alloy.
This 1940 EH-185 is heavier than other lap steels in its class, thanks to a length of metal between its fretboard and body.
Photo by Madison Thorn
There are numerous other fancy appointments on the EH-185 that Gibson didn’t offer on their lesser models. It’s made of highly figured maple, with diamond-shaped decorations on the back of the body and neck. The double binding is nearly a centimeter thick and gives the instrument a luxurious, expensive look.
Behind all these high-end attributes is a great-sounding guitar, thanks to that old pickup. It’s got three blades protruding through the bobbin for the unwound strings and one longer blade for the wound strings. When I plugged in the EH-185 I expected to hear something reminiscent of Charlie Christian’s smooth, clean tone. But what I got was meatier—closer to what I associate with P-90s: warm and midrange-y. It was just crying out for a little crunch and a bluesy touch. It’s kind of cool how such a pristine, high-end vintage instrument can be so well-suited for a sound that’s rough around the edges.
As far as electric guitars go, it doesn’t get much more vintage than this 1940 Gibson EH-185 Lap Steel. It reminds us of where the story of the electric guitar truly began. This EH-185 isn’t just a relic—it’s a testament to when the future of music was unfolding in real time. Plug it in, and you become part of the revolution.
Sources: Smithsonian, Vintage Guitar, Mozart Project, Gibson Pre-War, WIRED, Steel Guitar Forum, Vintaxe
J Mascis is well known for his legendary feats of volume.
J Mascis is well known for his legendary feats of volume. Just check out a photo of his rig to see an intimidating wall of amps pointed directly at the Dinosaur Jr. leader’s head. And though his loudness permeates all that he does and has helped cement his reputation, there’s a lot more to his playing.
On this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re looking at each phase of the trio’s long career. How many pedals does J use to get his sound? What’s his best documented use of a flanger? How does his version of “Maggot Brain” (recorded with bassist Mike Watt) compare to Eddie Hazel’s? And were you as surprised as we were when Fender released a J Mascis signature Tele?