Fender Jaguar Baritone Custom

The Fender Jaguar Baritone Custom or Jaguar Bass VI Custom is a retro electric bass guitar manufactured in 2005 and 2006, based on the 1964 Fender Jaguar electric guitar and the 1961 Fender Bass VI electric bass guitar.

The Baritone Custom's standard tuning is E to E, one octave lower than a standard guitar, using the same string set as the Bass VI (.25–.35–.45–.55–.75–.95), but with a slightly shorter scale length of 28.5 inches, as opposed to the Bass VI's 30 inches, giving the Baritone Custom slightly less string tension. Its body shape, pickup configuration and switching setup are identical to the two-pickup Jaguar, rather than the three-pickup Bass VI. Its electrics (but not pickups or body shape) are similar to the four-string Jaguar Bass, issued in 2006 and still in production.

It has a fixed bridge rather than the Fender floating tremolo used on the Bass VI and nearly all other Jaguar models. Of the Jaguar range, only the Baritone Custom, its Japan-only variant the Fender Bottom Master, the Fender Jaguar Baritone Special HH and some models of the Fender Jaguar Special HH lack the floating tremolo. All of these have separate and similar belly-mounted bridges and tailpieces.



The Jaguar Baritone Custom is a Crafted-In-Japan model, and is almost identical to the Japanese-market Fender Jaguar Bottom Master. The main difference is that the Bottom Master has different switching options and unusual internal wiring, which includes a "fuzz switch".

In 2006, Fender USA changed the name of the instrument to Jaguar Bass VI Custom. The term baritone guitar normally refers to one tuned B to B, in between the tunings of a standard guitar and a bass. (The similar Fender Jaguar Baritone Special HH has B to B tuning, and a 27-inch scale length.) Despite being called a baritone for most of its production run, the Jaguar Baritone Custom was always what in normal terminology is called a bass.

Fender discontinued the model at the end of 2006.

Literature

 * Peter Bertges: The Fender Reference; Bomots, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 978-3-939316-38-1