Joe Pass Guitar Pickup Position?

[Archie]

I think, in order to comment negatively about the JP-20, the person has to have OWNED one. Not just looked at it in pictures. Not just play it In a store for 20 minutes.

It is a remarkable guitar. Everything about the guitar is amazing. It's not like most other guitars, and that's a good thing!!
It's acoustic sound contradicts its size. It's amplified sound is amazingly unique, which is a good thing. It has the greatest sustain of any guitar I've ever owned. And it shouldn't be compared to a single pickup 175 or a 165. They are very different guitars. In some ways it's better and in some ways the 175/165 is better. Take your pick or own both..
It's the only guitar I know of that Joe Pass actually touched a part of. He signed his name on the label. He was a bit of a comedian when ever I heard him speak. I don't think anyone knows how he really felt about anything except maybe Ellen. Do you really think he would play a guitar for YEARS in front of millions of people that he wasn't comfortable with? Yeah ibanez paid him, but if he couldnt use the guitar at the level played, he would have told them to change it. And he never did.
There is something about picking a guitar string in between the neck and the neck pickup that makes this guitar sound like no other.
BOTH GREAT GUITARS. Although the 165 is purdier...

Attachment 28301

haha thanks Joe, you did a much better job than I did. Perfectly worded and very accurate :-)

Your message here should be used as standard response to all JP20 sniffing (although thats not what the OP is doing).

[Jabberwocky]

Interesting to note that when Jimmy D'Aquisto designed the 16" Fender D'Aquisto Elite, the Schaller pickup was situated right at the end of the 20-fret fretboard.

So, who knows if Jimmy D'Aquisto thought there was any significance to moving it an inch northwards or southwards? On Joe's Pass' D'Aquisto Jimmy placed the humbucker where he did because Joe Pass asked for it to be placed there, in all probability. Why did Joe ask for it to be placed there? He liked picking there on his ES-175 as the humbucker didn't get in the way. Joe Pass was pragmatic.

Lore has it that D'Aquisto wasn't pleased when Joe Pass handed his D'Aquisto to Ibanez to copy; neither his consent nor approval was sought or given. Ibanez asked for it; Joe Pass probably didn't think too much of the request, that it was unusual. There was no malice intended. Ibanez probably went "end of fretboard plus distance X, never mind that there are 2 more frets".

We make too much of all these things when oftentimes they are due to practical considerations. The ES-175 has an S-shaped dip in the top which necessitated the placement of the neck pickup where it is; that is the closest flat spot to the end of the fretboard.

The JP20 is a nice guitar.

[lawson-stone]

And you did good Lawson. Nothing about what you write was negative or classless in any way. I didn't take it that way at all. JD

Thanks Joe. I was checking my hole card and seeing if my horse was saddled. The last thing I want to do here is to be unjustly negative. I love the JP20 and someday would love to have one, and never thought Joe Pass had bad tone. Different from time to time, but I love them all.

I am just one of those guys who has to know directly, from primary sources, not hearsay or opinion, why things are the way they are. I'm curious about that pickup. I don't believe D'Aquisto did it randomly, and I think Ibanez certainly might have carelessly copied that, but I can't see them doing that on a guitar they are marketing with Joe Pass' name. Right or wrong, I think they had a reason and I'd like to know what it is. I thought it was duplication of the D'aquisto, and of course, if they added frets without changing the scale length, that would be odd, but if there is a proportional placement due to scale length, then we still have an interesting thing to inquire about.

I'm just one of those "gotta know why" people. It's why I'm an archaeologist, historian, and scholar of ancient texts in the original languages, I guess!

I can also understand ArchtopHeaven being concerned, since he apparently just shipped a JP20 to a buyer. Bad press on the forum at such a time would be awkward, but as you note, I'm not dissing the guitar at all. Wish I was the recipient instead of that other buyer!

[newsense]

Given the praise lavished here on the JP20, this should be a bargain:

1980 Ibanez JP-20 Joe Pass | Vintage 'n' Rare Guitars Ltd.

Is that a good price ?

[oldane]

My two cents:

Pickups placement

That article refers to nodes. But that is only valid for THE OPEN STRINGS. When the strings are fretted the nodes move and the reference to the nodes are no longer valid. That said, I agree that the closer to the fretboard end the PU gets, the mellower and more spread the sound gets.

[jakeyboy1216]

I think Joe sounds great in that clip with Ella.

I don't care for the video you posted on the JP-20, but it's not terrible.

Joe made a record with Andre Previn and Ray Brown, "After Hours." Pretty sure he used the Ibanez on that, and it sounds great--different than those old 175 records, much brighter, but not plinky.

Maybe somebody could corroborate--did joe plug straight into sound systems some times, as opposed to using an amp? I seem to remember a video where he's sound checking somewhere and he asks the sound man to put some reverb (with an accent on the second syllable) on his sound, but I can't find it now...that would seem to imply he was plugged into something direct, no? Or I suppose they could have had his amp mic'd up, and if he had that little polytone with him, it was reverbless...

Anyway, we're getting to far away from the intent of the OP, sorry for derailing further.

I think this is the video you're referring to Jeff:

At about 3:18 into the video, he tells the sound guy to add some reverb and tells the interviewer that he doesn't know why he can't simply play through the house system.

Also, he talks about the custom guitar that Gibson made for him - he's playing it the video - where he asked for the pickup to be placed at the end of the fretboard. The guitar was never made commercially available.

And I second the recommendation of After Hours - great album, great playing and great guitar tone.

[Jabberwocky]

I wonder who has that Joe Pass Custom ES-175 now.

It has a maple neck, an ebony fretboard and a shallower rim, 3", 2.75", depending on whom you ask. The ES-775 is the closest thing to that.

[John A.]

I think Joe sounds great in that clip with Ella.

I don't care for the video you posted on the JP-20, but it's not terrible.

Joe made a record with Andre Previn and Ray Brown, "After Hours." Pretty sure he used the Ibanez on that, and it sounds great--different than those old 175 records, much brighter, but not plinky.

Maybe somebody could corroborate--did joe plug straight into sound systems some times, as opposed to using an amp? I seem to remember a video where he's sound checking somewhere and he asks the sound man to put some reverb (with an accent on the second syllable) on his sound, but I can't find it now...that would seem to imply he was plugged into something direct, no? Or I suppose they could have had his amp mic'd up, and if he had that little polytone with him, it was reverbless...

Anyway, we're getting to far away from the intent of the OP, sorry for derailing further.

Yes, Joe Pass plugged into the PA directly. I saw him do it twice, once with the Ibanez JP, once with an Epiphone Joe Pass.

[nopedals]

> I'm just one of those "gotta know why" people. It's why I'm an archaeologist, historian, and scholar of ancient texts in the original languages, I guess!

Wouldn't you say that the farther back you go in history, the more hearsay and opininion you have to rely on? For a lot of ancient history all we have is second or third hand texts (typically, what someone wrote that someone else wrote a century earlier about what happened a century before that). We probably have more on Joe Pass in this thread than the total we have on, say, Thutmoses III, period.

[Archie]

Thanks Joe. I was checking my hole card and seeing if my horse was saddled. The last thing I want to do here is to be unjustly negative. I love the JP20 and someday would love to have one, and never thought Joe Pass had bad tone. Different from time to time, but I love them all.

I am just one of those guys who has to know directly, from primary sources, not hearsay or opinion, why things are the way they are. I'm curious about that pickup. I don't believe D'Aquisto did it randomly, and I think Ibanez certainly might have carelessly copied that, but I can't see them doing that on a guitar they are marketing with Joe Pass' name. Right or wrong, I think they had a reason and I'd like to know what it is. I thought it was duplication of the D'aquisto, and of course, if they added frets without changing the scale length, that would be odd, but if there is a proportional placement due to scale length, then we still have an interesting thing to inquire about.

I'm just one of those "gotta know why" people. It's why I'm an archaeologist, historian, and scholar of ancient texts in the original languages, I guess!

I can also understand ArchtopHeaven being concerned, since he apparently just shipped a JP20 to a buyer. Bad press on the forum at such a time would be awkward, but as you note, I'm not dissing the guitar at all. Wish I was the recipient instead of that other buyer!

Trust me, me selling a guitar and what I say about them usually has very little conflict of interest. The buyer of my guitar wants one because hes already has one and now wants another ;-).

Again I apologise if I seemed tetchy. There is a lot of debate about this guitar which i have owned two of and as someone who commonly gets (or used to) much praise for my tone regardless of what guitar I played I found the dismissal of the guitar (not by you but by others routinely) to be beyond annoying.

The reality is most guitars will sound great with someone who can nurture good tone through right hand technique. Most of the people who fuss over guitars in this way, are usually the ones who need a guitar to sound good. I dont need that.

And again probably a little tired of having this pick up placement debate but thats not your fault either. Sometimes forums are like ground hog day, you win the battle to have to fight the same one again a couple of months or weeks later lol

But at some point you will have to settle on an answer and some pretty logical and realistic ones have been given. D'aquisto probably put the pick up there because joe asked him or because that was what it was like on the ES-175, dont forget the D'aquisto would have been 25 scale length and joe always played in that spot between the neck and pup. If Joe asked D'aquisto then Ibanez after adding the two extra fets probably then went on to copy the placement on the D'aquisto but didn't account for the two extra frest or couldn't at that point do anything about it as joe would not want the pickup next to the neck. This is all speculation of course because joe had a sinlge pupped Es-175 made with the pick up close to the neck some years later.
Again the better question is why the two extra frets? The pickup distance from the end isn't that hard to stomach knowing that it followed in the Es-175 and D'aquisto style that joe seemed to like. You just think its weird cause it seem so far back when in reality is probably the same distance as an ES-175 is.

Again its the two extra frets that cause the issue to me.

[Jabberwocky]

Why 22 frets? The fashion of the late 70s and early 80s were guitars with more frets than 19 or 20 because, well, guitarists wanted more. This culminated in 24-fret shredder gits. Nothing was spared, not even archtops.

This was the period which cemented the reputation of Ibanez and ESP as legitimate guitars that Gibson and Fender had failed to produce. Steve Vai, Vernon Reid and other come and go hair-bands were all playing dayglo Ibanez flat necks with, you guess it, 24-fret guitars. It took that displaced Brit, Saul, to breathe new life into the Les Paul with, irony, a Derrig counterfeit Les Paul.

[Archie]

Why 22 frets? The fashion of the late 70s and early 80s were guitars with more frets than 19 or 20 because, well, guitarists wanted more. This culminated in 24-fret shredder gits. Nothing was spared, not even archtops.

Case closed Dr Watson

[Stringswinger]

I wonder who has that Joe Pass Custom ES-175 now.

It has a maple neck, an ebony fretboard and a shallower rim, 3", 2.75", depending on whom you ask. The ES-775 is the closest thing to that.

John Pisano has it.

[lawson-stone]

> I'm just one of those "gotta know why" people. It's why I'm an archaeologist, historian, and scholar of ancient texts in the original languages, I guess!

Wouldn't you say that the farther back you go in history, the more hearsay and opininion you have to rely on? For a lot of ancient history all we have is second or third hand texts (typically, what someone wrote that someone else wrote a century earlier about what happened a century before that). We probably have more on Joe Pass in this thread than the total we have on, say, Thutmoses III, period.

Not really. We actually have Thutmose III's own inscriptional evidence. For T3 it's not as rich as it is for, say, Rameses II for whom we have almost too much information.

There is a difference between hearsay and indirect witness. An ancient scribe, listening to a king's narrative, talking to soldiers and generals, is not "direct" evidence, but that scribe has collected the best data he could find and put it into a narrative. Still the scribe has a reasonable chance of offering pretty good data, especially when we can cross-check it against other accounts and material remains. On Thutmose III we actually are in pretty good shape on many points.

The stuff surrounding Joe Pass or any other "hero" is often fan-driven mythology, what in historical studies we often call "Uncle Ned" history. "OH my Uncle Ned's dad knew Doc Holiday, who told him that Wyatt Earp actually killed Johnny Ringo drunk one afternoon..." So we get "Hey a guy I knew told me Joe Pass always carried a raw fish in his pocket..." or the like.

I have an actual hand-written letter from Joe in which he tells me his preference for playing via a DI box straight into the room PA system, and that he actually prefers that ambient "room sound." So I know this is a fact. I also have a good confidence in several of the posters here who have access to some good sources.

But to be sure, a proper historian or biographer needs multiple sources, contemporaneous sources, and has to treat them all with a critical eye, aware of the various ways things can be distorted.

But I still want to know about that pickup.

[lawson-stone]

Trust me, me selling a guitar and what I say about them usually has very little conflict of interest. The buyer of my guitar wants one because hes already has one and now wants another ;-).

Again I apologise if I seemed tetchy. There is a lot of debate about this guitar which i have owned two of and as someone who commonly gets (or used to) much praise for my tone regardless of what guitar I played I found the dismissal of the guitar (not by you but by others routinely) to be beyond annoying.

The reality is most guitars will sound great with someone who can nurture good tone through right hand technique. Most of the people who fuss over guitars in this way, are usually the ones who need a guitar to sound good. I dont need that.

And again probably a little tired of having this pick up placement debate but thats not your fault either. Sometimes forums are like ground hog day, you win the battle to have to fight the same one again a couple of months or weeks later lol

But at some point you will have to settle on an answer and some pretty logical and realistic ones have been given. D'aquisto probably put the pick up there because joe asked him or because that was what it was like on the ES-175, dont forget the D'aquisto would have been 25 scale length and joe always played in that spot between the neck and pup. If Joe asked D'aquisto then Ibanez after adding the two extra fets probably then went on to copy the placement on the D'aquisto but didn't account for the two extra frest or couldn't at that point do anything about it as joe would not want the pickup next to the neck. This is all speculation of course because joe had a sinlge pupped Es-175 made with the pick up close to the neck some years later.
Again the better question is why the two extra frets? The pickup distance from the end isn't that hard to stomach knowing that it followed in the Es-175 and D'aquisto style that joe seemed to like. You just think its weird cause it seem so far back when in reality is probably the same distance as an ES-175 is.

Again its the two extra frets that cause the issue to me.

I did not mean to imply a conflict of interest. If I were you, and had just sold such an instrument, it would bug me if someone suddenly came on a forum with negative statements--but then mine weren't negative, just curious.

You seem to me to be in a hurry to have this discussion shut down. "These are not the droids you're looking for, move along!" I don't see why. It's fun to talk about. It's fun to kick ideas around. It's fun to come across fresh information, or to see it in a fresh way.

BTW I have measured several guitars to locate the pickup's placement as a proportion of the scale length, regardless of number of frets. Results were inconclusive.

What's with "case closed Dr. Watson"? There are always lots of factors involved in things. I see no harm in an ongoing conversation about it.

[Stringswinger]

The JP 20 has been discussed quite a bit on this forum and elsewhere. As an owner of a JP-20 and a 1963 ES-175 (I am a HUGE fan of Joe Pass), I can say that they are both great guitars and quite different.

The JP-20 pickup is forward (towards the bridge) of the harmonic, but so what? A great sounding guitar is still a great sounding guitar. Joe got tired of carrying an amp so his tone was at the mercy of soundmen in later years and truth be told, sometimes his tone was better than at other times.

My experience is that those who put down Joe Pass or his signature guitar are generally unfit to have carried his case when it comes to jazz guitar ability. If that causes some offense, so be it. I am offended when jazz guitar hacks on an Internet forum put down the master.

Herb Ellis once told me that he thought that Joe Pass was the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Who are any of us to disagree?

[lawson-stone]

The JP 20 has been discussed quite a bit on this forum and elsewhere. As an owner of a JP-20 and a 1963 ES-175 (I am a HUGE fan of Joe Pass), I can say that they are both great guitars and quite different.

The JP-20 pickup is forward (towards the bridge) of the harmonic, but so what? A great sounding guitar is still a great sounding guitar. Joe got tired of carrying an amp so his tone was at the mercy of soundmen in later years and truth be told, sometimes his tone was better than at other times.

My experience is that those who put down Joe Pass or his signature guitar are generally unfit to have carried his case when it comes to jazz guitar ability. If that causes some offense, so be it. I am offended when jazz guitar hacks on an Internet forum put down the master.

Herb Ellis once told me that he thought that Joe Pass was the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Who are any of us to disagree?

My purpose in posting was simply to know a bit more about the reason for the placement. I made no value judgment on the guitar. In fact, it's one I hope to own some day. I love Joe Pass' tone, on all his recordings. So the point isn't to put down the guitar or to defend it.

My point was strictly historical: why did the designers place the pickup in that spot, which is admittedly different from other jazz type instruments? It's not about being good, bad, desirable or un. It's just curiosity.

Is that so hard to understand?

[GNAPPI]

This makes me wonder about the ES-775 which is an up level 175.

It has 20 frets (the same as a 175) but has the neck pup pole pieces 5 3/4" (measured by a current owner) from the 12th fret, and the 175 has the neck pole pieces ~ 6 5/8" from the 12th fret.

Has anyone here had a 775 AND 175 at the same time?

[lawson-stone]

Why 22 frets? The fashion of the late 70s and early 80s were guitars with more frets than 19 or 20 because, well, guitarists wanted more. This culminated in 24-fret shredder gits. Nothing was spared, not even archtops.

This was the period which cemented the reputation of Ibanez and ESP as legitimate guitars that Gibson and Fender had failed to produce. Steve Vai, Vernon Reid and other come and go hair-bands were all playing dayglo Ibanez flat necks with, you guess it, 24-fret guitars. It took that displaced Brit, Saul, to breathe new life into the Les Paul with, irony, a Derrig counterfeit Les Paul.

Gibson's 1919 Model "O" had 22 frets. Doesn't mean much, but it's a curiosity to note.

[pubylakeg]

On the question of number of frets, (20 vs. 22) on his Hot Licks instructional video "Solo Jazz Guitar", there's a point at which Joe actually has to check out how many frets his Ibanez model has,..."it goes up to 'C" .

That may suggest that the number of frets was not an imperative specification on Joe's part.

[Archie]

I did not mean to imply a conflict of interest. If I were you, and had just sold such an instrument, it would bug me if someone suddenly came on a forum with negative statements--but then mine weren't negative, just curious.

You seem to me to be in a hurry to have this discussion shut down. "These are not the droids you're looking for, move along!" I don't see why. It's fun to talk about. It's fun to kick ideas around. It's fun to come across fresh information, or to see it in a fresh way.

BTW I have measured several guitars to locate the pickup's placement as a proportion of the scale length, regardless of number of frets. Results were inconclusive.

What's with "case closed Dr. Watson"? There are always lots of factors involved in things. I see no harm in an ongoing conversation about it.

Sorry not looking to shut the convo down, please carry on, it's been my fav thread (which is perverse). Maybe I'm just here for the Star Wars quotes ;-)

Talk about anything you want, I will put in my 2 pence and take it with a pinch of salt. I speak very directly but that often betrays my true feelings or emotions. Just like a factual letter written at a certain point in time might ;-)

The "cased Closed" was just a joke with Jabba. He's actually a very highly skilled, OCD, archtop specialist.

@StringSwinger When i come over to the states, i'll buy you a beer for every time I diss Joe pass's tone. i reckon you're in for two or three so far. If you're lucky I might go some more

nah bless you man, if I ever do that just rip me one, unless its a fair point I'm trying to make ( which is always ;-)

[Archie]

This makes me wonder about the ES-775 which is an up level 175.

It has 20 frets (the same as a 175) but has the neck pup pole pieces 5 3/4" (measured by a current owner) from the 12th fret, and the 175 has the neck pole pieces ~ 6 5/8" from the 12th fret.

Has anyone here had a 775 AND 175 at the same time?

Well Im not entirely sure why the Es-775 was mentioned tbf. The closest thing to Joe's custom Es-175 (if it was even designated that), would be the weird thing they came out with a couple years back (or last). It was a thin-line Es-175 (although it had a bigsby) with an ebony fretboard (If I remember). Cant for th life of me remember the model name. I think they sold about 3 and the rest were dumped in a landfill in Mexico, along with some 80's gaming cartridges

We had a thread on it I think about a year ago.

[Moonray]

Hey pubylakeg

Joe actually said "it goes up to D " and that would emphasize your suggestion about him
not being specific as to the number of frets he wanted.

.....and also that he didn't go right up the dusty end very much.



OK that's my pedantry sorted for this week.


PS....another strand could be the classic tale that Bruce Forman used to enjoy telling about his
signature Ibanez.....Apparently when he went to pick it up he saw that they'd put Bluce Forman
on it....he cracked up and the Ibanez people were very embarrassed and chopped the guitar up
and made him another ....great story anyway.
.....So my point is the JP's number of frets/scale length/pickup position could have been a good
ol' screw up.
....[There's an old witticism that covers this.....can't think of it right now.]

[Max405]

My experience is that those who put down Joe Pass or his signature guitar are generally unfit to have carried his case when it comes to jazz guitar ability. If that causes some offense, so be it. I am offended when jazz guitar hacks on an Internet forum put down the master.

Herb Ellis once told me that he thought that Joe Pass was the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Who are any of us to disagree?

SS,
wow, Herb Ellis told you that? That is so good to hear. When Joe did the Hank Williams album with Roy Clarke, Roy was amazed by how all he had to do was tell Joe what he wanted and Joe just did it. No practice, one take, he just knew what he needed to play, heard it in his head and he just did it. On the fly, one take. Bing, bang, boom. Done.. Joe did it at a higher level for a longer period of time, then anyone. Yet he was still taken from us WAY too soon. I agree with Herb.
With all due respect, I don't think anyone was knocking Joe ability or his sound. I don't think there is anyone that stupid It's just very frustrating that a lot of folks haven't experienced the magic of the JP20.
Joe D

[Archie]

SS,
I don't think there is anyone that stupid
Joe D

Joe never count me out