Debating on whether to get the Mami Jazzmaster. I absolute love the design and the setup but I am a bit worried about stock performance which isn't that great from what I have heard, would really love the opinions of people who own this and how much it improves if you get it set up properly or give it some upgrades.


Knowing Jazzmasters they can buzz quite a bit so I'll install a buzz stop bar and replace the default bridge with a StayTrem bridge right from the start. This will make it sound more like a Strat but I do not mind. Then at a later point I'll upgrade the pickups. That is quite an investment for a Squier. So my main concern is the construction quality and wood quality from the Fender Indonesia factory. Have no experience with guitars from this region. Opinions online are varied, some say they are only a step up from the Chinese models and others say the woodwork is better than MIM fenders.

Fox wrote:Debating on whether to get the Mami Jazzmaster. I absolute love the design and the setup but I am a bit worried about stock performance which isn't that great from what I have heard, would really love the opinions of people who own this and how much it improves if you get it set up properly or give it some upgrades.

Knowing Jazzmasters they can buzz quite a bit so I'll install a buzz stop bar and replace the default bridge with a StayTrem bridge right from the start. This will make it sound more like a Strat but I do not mind. Then at a later point I'll upgrade the pickups. That is quite an investment for a Squier. So my main concern is the construction quality and wood quality from the Fender Indonesia factory. Have no experience with guitars from this region. Opinions online are varied, some say they are only a step up from the Chinese models and others say the woodwork is better than MIM fenders.

You'll get a varied response - from people who are JM purists ("a JM should sound like a JM") to, well... other people lol. My take on this is simple - MAMI was likely to have chosen this for its shape as the pup config is simply that of her HSS strat. You are right about the buzzing and like her, I have a foam mute behind the bridge.

Speaking of the bridge the actual one MAMI uses is a TOM, and the commercially-available ones have the JM bridge. You may want to mod your guitar but it involves a pro job, unless you have that skill yourself. I have also modded the bridge pup to an actual Seymour Duncan Hot Rails as it comes with a Duncan Design. The other two are OEM pups but they are hot, so hot that the person that set up my guitar had to lower the two single coils to balance the volume of the three pups. The wiring set up/pots were checked and there was nothing to explain the imbalance.

My MAMI guitar came in badly set up and had sharp fret ends but these were all rectified.

There is an improvement after all this, but the tone/playability is still not up there as compared to my Fender Jazzmaster (the sunburst one that MAMI also owns). Hope this helps.

I've written notes on my little project here: http://stomachofchaos.com/?p=8593

Honestly, I owned the Mami JM (sold it) and while I miss it, it's not because it was a great guitar. It was perfectly playable, and the setup definitely wasn't the problem. It also didn't buzz at all. It just is not a great sounding guitar, and it has a cheap feel as all Squiers do. Part of it may be exacerbated by the pearlescent finish, which is interesting but really just makes the whole guitar look like it's made out of plastic.

The nice thing about her JM is that it's unique. There's not another Jazzmaster on the market with an HSS config, and there probably never will be. If I still had mine, I'd have definitely replaced the bridge pickup with a real Hot Rails, though. The "Duncan Designed" Hot Rails it comes with is just really weak. I might have replaced the single coils as well, although they didn't seem quite as bad.

While I know this is an old thread, I thought it was probably better to post this here than create another thread. Yesterday I came across the Squier Telecaster (Haruna's model) in some websites in my country, and they have it in stock. None of these stores has any of the other guitars, so I thought it was interesting. Do you guys know if there's any reason for that? Was the Telecaster reprinted more times or something?

Also, these guitars are supposed to be really limited, aren't they? I remember reading in a blog that there were two runs of 200 units... Are there more? I'm really considering buying it, even though I don't play (this might be a good excuse to start lol)... Is it a good guitar for beginners?

hohenheim wrote:
While I know this is an old thread, I thought it was probably better to post this here than create another thread. Yesterday I came across the Squier Telecaster (Haruna's model) in some websites in my country, and they have it in stock. None of these stores has any of the other guitars, so I thought it was interesting.

Do you guys know if there's any reason for that?

Not really, except that the website (was it an online store - could you provide the URL please?) may have a 1. residual “new old stock”, or 2. a second hand guitar. These guitars are easily found in the resale market in Japan on the Yahoo! Japan Auction website actually.

hohenheim wrote:Was the Telecaster reprinted more times or something?

Nope, all three were produced in three separate runs. The last two runs were 100 pieces of each model.

hohenheim wrote:Also, these guitars are supposed to be really limited, aren't they? I remember reading in a blog that there were two runs of 200 units... Are there more?

See my answer above.

hohenheim wrote:I'm really considering buying it, even though I don't play (this might be a good excuse to start lol)... Is it a good guitar for beginners?

In my opinion, the HARU tele was a better guitar with regards to playability than the MAMI Jazzmaster/“Stratomaster”. Mine was good enough that it just required a basic set up when I bought it, unlike the MAMI guitar (you can read about it in the post above yours). And yes, the HARU Tele should be good enough as a beginner’s guitar. Still have it looked at by someone who knows about guitars should you decide to buy it.

Thanks so much for the extremely helpful reply. I found it in a couple of websites around the same price, but this was the cheapest one (it translates to around 400 US Dollars). I first found it here, which is a website that is like an eBay but only for Brazil, but the seller is a store (I found their website, here). I contacted them on the eBay-like website and they confirmed they have the product on stock and it's new (sealed). I still haven't contacted the other store but I will before I make the purchase, if I end up being able to buy it (I still didn't find a new job, so that's a huge problem lol).


I send the guitar details to some friends who understand about guitars and they told me it's supposed to be a good guitar, even if it's expensive (funny enough, this was also the cheapest Squier Telecaster I found on Google Marketplace). They said that if I'm looking into learn how to play I should buy a cheaper guitar first, but since what I want is the guitar itself, I should go for it.


Little side note, I actually have a Squire (bic below), but I never actually learnt how to play it and it hasn't been played in over 10 years, so now it sounds all wonky and I need to send it to do some repairs. From what I was told, it's supposed to be cheap (it doesn't stay tuned), but since I don't use it I didn't want to repair it just so it get damaged again.

hohenheim wrote:Thanks so much for the extremely helpful reply. I found it in a couple of websites around the same price, but this was the cheapest one (it translates to around 400 US Dollars). I first found it here, which is a website that is like an eBay but only for Brazil, but the seller is a store (I found their website, here). I contacted them on the eBay-like website and they confirmed they have the product on stock and it's new (sealed). I still haven't contacted the other store but I will before I make the purchase, if I end up being able to buy it (I still didn't find a new job, so that's a huge problem lol).

As long as you know the seller's legit, go on right ahead!

Thanks, I will! I'm considering repairing and selling my old guitar so I can get a bit of money to help pay for this new one  

I've had two Haru Teles and both were very different. (I still have my second one.) I recommend giving it a really thorough once-over when you get it; if you're not sure what to look for, take it to a guitar tech and have them look it over and do a setup. They'll be able to identify any issues.

Almost nothing on a guitar is unfixable. But I would make sure you ask the store about the finish and decal under the top coat before you actually buy it (if you haven't already). I saw one of these in Japan that had a misapplied decal.

That's good to know, thanks! I haven't buy it yet, but I plan to. I need to raise the money.

Also I read your blog! I actually came across it a while ago, before I joined here I think, landed on your Standard review an kept going.