NAMM 2020: It has been the worst kept secret in gear but now it's official – Fender has tooled up Slipknot's Jim Root with another signature Jazzmaster, paring the iconic offset down for the topsy-turvy business of entertaining the Maggots with big riffs and chaos.
Wait, do Slipknot fans still call themselves Maggots? Wait, can we still call this a Jazzmaster? The body shape and the name on the headstock don't lie. But like its predecessors, V4 is a very different kind of Jazzmaster, offering a very different playing experience.
The Jim Root Jazzmaster V4 dispenses with the arcane electronics and switching. There's no rhythm circuit. The vibrato is gone, too, replaced by a hardtail string-through-body bridge. There is a single volume knob and a three-way blade selector switch. After all, this is built to tune down and shred.
Jim Root has gone for a mahogany body with contoured neck heel for upper-fret access, and a bolt-on maple neck with a C-profile. While it's hard to tell from the pictures, the neck heel contouring looks like it is in line with Fender's new American Ultra Series.
A set of newly designed signature Daemonum open-coil EMG humbuckers in the neck and bridge positions should deliver the monster tones, while a set of locking tuners should help everything stay solid.
Elsewhere we've got Luminlay glow-in-the-dark sidemarkers, jumbo frets, an ebony fingerboard with pearloid block inlay and a 12" radius.
The Jim Root Jazzmaster V4 is finished in a pristine Polar White, very Imperial Stormtrooper, it comes in a Tweed case, is Mexican-built, and it'll set you back £1,139.00 ($1,399, €1,309).
See Fender for more details.
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