Review : Sire Larry Carlton J3 - A Jazzmaster by an alternate name
Sire Larry Carlton J3 - It’s a real shame that Sire did not spring for decent photography, the real thing looks so much better
Welcome folks. In this review, made possible by the great people at The Arts Music Store, I have a brand new Sire Larry Carlton J3. The J3 is an offset electric guitar that from a short distance looks a LOT like a Jazzmaster once you get past the logo and the differently shaped headstock. As a big fan of offsets and Jazzmasters as well as custom alternatives like the awesome Suhr JM, let’s see what we discover with this new Sire.
Overview
When Colin handed me this J3, I was immediately impressed how light it is, particularly after handing back the Fender Standard Stratocaster which is made of lead, I think. The J3 is an offset and clearly is built to offer an alternative to Jazzmasters under the Squier Classic Vibe line. Its price point fits there. There is a more expensive J5 model, that I have not yet seen. It’s an all mahogany body, with a maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. As is a Sire trademark, the fingerboard edges are gently rolled making the neck incredibly “worn-in” comfortable from the first grip. Fit and finish are excellent, and I am really disappointed by the crap Sire has released pretending to be photography, because my sample in Silver is gorgeous to look at, certainly not the ugly thing in the Sire supplied photo. It’s a classic Jazzmaster layout with two single coil pickups on Jazzmaster style wide bobbins, one volume, one tone and a three way pickup selector. No push pull complexity. The bridge is not Jazzmaster like and is much more in alignment with a two post vibrato as found on Sire’s excellent S series. Long time readers know that I had a Sire S7 from when they were first released until I recently traded it towards a superb condition used Parker Fly. Like Fender’s Standard Stratocaster, these guitars are built in Indonesia, but unlike the Fender Standards are not merely adequate builds with an outrageous, wallet gouging price tag. Priced at $679 CAD, this guitar is priced right where it should be for what it delivers, slightly higher than the excellent Squier Classic Vibe ‘60s Jazzmaster, although I prefer the sound of the Sire pickups. More on that later.
Specifications
As I always try to do, to prevent mistakes on my part and to save on tedious typing for me, I have screen grabbed the specifications from Sire’s website.
Setup on Arrival
I never expect an evaluation unit to have gone through a professional setup before I get it. if it did, bonus. The Sire J3 was in playable condition however, I would want to reduce the amount of neck relief and lower the action.
Playing the J3
One of the first things I noticed is that the switch position for the neck pickup is down by default, with the middle being both pickups and up being the bridge. The only other time I can remember this is on my old Peavey EVH Wolfgang. The volume and tone pots are smooth and noisefree. You can roll the tone well off before any muddying happens and the bridge pickup is brighter than on my USA made Jassmasters that have Lollar pickups installed. I did find the switch to be noisy during my play testing.
The neck is very comfortable, a true C according to my Stewmac gauge. The tuners are liquid smooth with no lash and no binding anywhere during tuning, testament to excellent nut and saddle work by Sire. The neck had a bit more relief than I would like myself and the action is higher by default than I would set, but the guitar is completely playable as it arrived from the box. The vibrato arm is a push in type with a tiny set screw so you can set the tension for how much it spins. The guitar includes all the necessary Allen wrenches. Intonation was good from the box, and the bridge plate was on the deck, and the instrument displays superb tuning stability. The strings are .010s and if it were mine, I would go lighter as I prefer the feel and find no tonal difference with lighter strings and no difference in response according to my frequency analyzer. Sustain is good, but I tend to always have a compressor in my chain to extend and level out sustain because I like that. The inlays look great, and the fretwork is very good, about a 4 out of 5 for the edges and the same for the level of polishing. Would take about 15 minutes of my time to bring them to 5 out of 5. As I have played $3500 guitars with poorer fret work, I have no complaints for the price charged.
From a weight perspective, I had to move my ‘63 SG Reissue off the stand to make room for the Sire Larry Carlton J3 and I would say that they weight about the same, so I could play this in a standing gig for a couple of hours without back issues, so long as I used a good leather strap.
Sample Tones
In order to get a nice range of tones, that I think suits a Jazzmaster style guitar, I built my own profile as follows. The amplifier module is for the Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus, a beautiful and proven solid state amp. I used the Roland 2x12 speakers from the combo, miked with an SM57 and Ribbon 160. The amp’s tone controls are all at noon, and the bright switch is off. In front of the preamp, I am using a Diamond optical compressor, one of my favourites with the compression turned up and the comp/dry mix at 70% comp. Next is an optional Doubler from Neural for width and then a clean boost for a bit more input without having to turn the amp up. After the preamp is a TC2290 stereo chorus off by default and then Neural’s own digital delay, off by default. Finally there is Neural’s superb plate reverb with mix at 25%. I used this for the tones for the different pickup selection switch positions, starting in the Bridge, then Middle and the Neck. I did find that the switch is a bit noisy, and addressed this after the fact with some contact cleaner.
Next I moved the selector to the middle position and using the same profile, turned on the Doubler, the TC2290 and the Neural Chorus. This setup clearly demonstrates the J3’s superb “jangle” capability.
The final tone sample uses my Soldano SLO-100 profile which is a Soldano SLO-100 into a 1969 4x12 cabinet using GB75 speakers, miked with an SM57 and 160 Ribbon microphone. There is also a Neural Analog Delay that bypasses the preamp and reenters the chain before the power amp and then the chain ends with Neural’s superb Plate Reverb. The pickup used is the bridge pickup only
All samples went from the Quad Cortex into a UA Apollo Twin X, with nothing in the preamp UNISON slots. The only post processing was my commonly used Abbey Road Glue and Punch Mastering plugin.
Wrapping Up
Do I recommend this guitar? Yes I do. I think it is better than the already very good Squier Classic Vibe ‘60s Jazzmaster with nicer, to me, sounding pickups and a preferable, again to me, vibrato system. I would even go so far as to say it is as good as Fender’s Player II Jazzmaster, which in my opinion is a terrific instrument. You will pay more ($500 more) for the Fender logo, but as good as the Player II is, you are not getting $500 better.
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