J Mascis

In this video interview, J Mascis talks about his ’63 Fender Jazzmaster Guitar. At :47, he says, “I bought it right after my guitars got stolen a few years ago. It happened to be in a local shop, and they never have any old guitars and it was just kind of there and it actually was really nice. I just put different pick up covers on it and different knobs and a different bridge. I always put Jumbo Frets on guitars too.” J demonstrates the guitar at 20:44.

In this video interview, J Mascis discusses his signature Squier at 4:26. “This is the second prototype, but they sent me the first one I didn't like. Then they sent this one and I liked it.”

"J Mascis's New Fender Custom Shop Tele! This guitar sounds so good, it's all stock Fender parts and the weight is divine, it's been seeing a little bit of live action, Maybe more on the upcoming October tour of the USA. J has a soft spot for the small hollow F Hole Teles, Who doesn't? Dinosaur Jr. Chicago, Ill. ©2017 Photo B O. @dinosaurjr #dinosaurjr"

I have also seen him use it on their Fall 2017 tour.

GC: On your most recent release, what guitar do you play and with what pickups?

Mascis: I think it's a '58 Tele. I don't remember the pickup, but I think it was from another guitar from the '50s, maybe '54 through a tweed 310 Bandmaster.

At 9:58 in this video interview, J Mascis talks about his Big Muff Pi Pedal, saying, “I got it in '87 on our first tour. Before that, I was using a Deluxe Big Muff and then I got that on tour and then I started using both of them, but I really like that one. From then on, I just used that.” He provides more detail at 10:34 saying, “It seems a bit clearer. It's really easy to play rhythm. That’s my main distortion for rhythm sounds and lead. Some Big Muffs kind of get really mushy when you're playing rhythm, it's hard to articulate the notes. That’s the main thing I notice about it.”

The Big Muff is demonstrated by J at 21:34.

"Amp-wise, Mascis turned to classic British and American combos to provide the thunderous tones that are such a powerful feature of I Bet On Sky. 'I used a '59 Vox AC15 and a (Fender) Tweed Deluxe and a Tweed Bandmaster,' he explains." - Music Radar.

"I had two main recording setups: a Gibson Les Paul Junior"

In the Reverb video "How to Stack Fuzz and Drive Pedals," J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. discusses using the Vox Phantom XII 12-String Guitar, mentioning he needed it for touring but found it challenging to keep in tune.

J Mascis disusses his HIWATT 100 in this Rig Rundown from Premier Guitar. At 29:28, he says, “I've kind of got into Hiwatt later on, but not within the last five years.”

"I'm not much of a Jag person. I like the way they look, but I don't like the sound that much, an uh, shorter neck, but I liked the way this looked, but then I just, didn't like playin' it or anything, so... Doesn't have binding, so it must be '63 or 4."

Reverb.com specifies this to be a 1965 model.

GC: How many guitars do you have and do you have a preference for new or vintage?

Mascis: I'm more of a vintage kind of guy. I don't know how many guitars. Over 30. I like the new little Baby Taylor guitar. I've got three Jazzmasters and a Tele and two Esquires. I have a bunch of Gibsons with P90s. I've got a Les Paul and four Les Paul Jr.s. The P90 is my favorite pickup.

According to rig diagram by Guitar Geek, he used two Big Muffs : one old, and one new.

“I got this from Fender… it was a Squier thinline but they had some pre-made necks with jumbo frets, because I didn’t like the original neck.

“Then I put some Custom Shop Seymour Duncans in there and somehow it all came together. They’re somewhere in between a P-90 and a Filter’Tron.

“I use this guitar on Goin Down, Start Choppin and I Walk For Miles. If definitely sounds heavier than the Jazzmaster because of the pickups. It does feedback but I can control it.

“To be honest, everything is going to feedback once that Big Muff is on! It’s like it sounds different night after night. Sometimes I can’t sustain any notes over all the feedback, it actually makes me play faster and keep going.”

J Mascis points out his Victoria Tweed Twin at 30:06 in this Rig Rundown from Premier Guitar. “It's a high powered Twin Copy. I think the model number is 80212. This is 80 watts and 212 inches.”

"GC: What's your mic-ing set-up? Do you use one mic?

Mascis: [Producer] John Agnello used a Shure SM57, Sennheiser MD-421 and a Shure SM87 on one track, just bound together. They're all close, all right on line."

Mascis has also used (and still uses) an SM57 as a vocal mic, particularly during the recording of Dinosaur Jr's Farm (as seen in this episode of Pitchfork's In The Studio) and in this live performance of Dinosaur Jr's "Sludgefeast".

At 17:09 in this Rig Rundown from Premier Guitar, J Mascis talks about his Carbon Copy Analog Pedal. “When that came out, I thought is sounded pretty good, and it doesn’t take up much real estate.”

At 27:48 in this video interview, J Mascis talks about his ’68 Super Bass. “That's a Super Bass. I think that's 68 also. It was originally purple although that's not the original box. I had that all redone and I still have the original purple box at home.”

At 15:30 in this video interview, J Mascis talks about his ZVex Pedal. “That’s a Zvex pedal they built me. I wanted two Box of Rocks in one pedal, so he built that, and now he’s released it as a pedal but made it smaller. The production one has a lot more little switches and you can do more stuff. It's got super hard ons in it. It's a little bit more complicated. This is just two box of rocks without the boost circuit in it. That's the prototype they just made it and then other people that worked there wanted one and so they just started making it as a paddle.” The Double Rock is demonstrated by J at 22:34.

In this image you can see J Mascis playing Gibson Reverse Flying V

J Mascis uses several Fender Jazzmasters from various years in various finishes.

He talks about his ’58 Jazzmaster in this Rig Rundown from Premier Guitar. He says at 1:49:

“It's a '58 Jazzmaster that got refinished, I guess. I bought it refinished. I put some gold hardware on it. I had a gold whammy bar with a tremolo piece, but I haven't put it on, but I have it at home somewhere.”

At 3:30, J Mascis shows his blue Jazzmaster, saying:

“It had an Aneck and I think it had lace sensor pickups when I got it. I bought some other old pickups to put in it. I bought the pick guard and the bridge and then I ended up getting a ’59 neck to put on it. It's a ’63 body that's been refinished."

He also discusses his ’65 Sunburst Jazzmaster. At 7:32, he says:

“That’s ’65. That's the other main backup one. I had a friend who worked at Guitar Center in New Hampshire and he was like, "Oh we got a Jazz Master." and he sold it to me really cheap so I'd never even seen it, but it turned out to be pretty good.”

25:05 J Mascsis talks about his JP8 at 25:04 in this video interview. “I think it's 68, Super PA, and I guess that's the first plexi amp I ever bought. I was going to buy a 65 JTM 45 at the store. It looked cool, but I really didn't like the sound that much and they had this and it was less than half of the price and sounded a lot better, so I figured I'd use this more. I think one of the sets of channels was modded to be a super lead.“

In a YouTube video by Fender, J Mascis discusses his use of the Fender J Mascis Jazzmaster guitar.

Used during this interview with Reverb.com.

"I actually bought this playin' India 'cause I knew I'd have to carry around a guitar and I was playing at this festival and it had an acoustic setting and an electric setting and it's only, like, four pounds. So that way I didn't need to carry an acoustic and it was really light. Yeah, I like it actually, but I haven't used it since that much."

Reverb.com specifies this to be a "Parker '99 Fly Classic Deluxe".

J Mascis discussed using this in Guitar World interview (2021):

"What was your guitarsenal like for this record? Well speaking of Thin Lizzy, I got a ’72 Les Paul Deluxe, and I used that on the rhythm part for [“I Ain’t”]. I had this St. Vincent guitar that Ernie Ball gave me, too, and I found that really useful. A lot of the time, I’ll play songs with a capo on the ninth fret, and a lot of my old guitars can’t really stay in tune with a capo that far up on the fretboard. But the Ernie Ball guitar is somehow set up so that it will, so I’d use that guitar for the parts where I needed that advantage."

J Mascis discusses his Wah Pedal at 11:30 in this Rig Rundown from premier guitar.

Geoffrey Teese Wah, RMC 3. Now he's put the controls on the outside. They used to be inside and so it was really hard to mess with it if it's nailed down to a pedal board. The Wah, I wanted to be able to change because I ran amps a lot of times and the Wah sounds really different with different amps. It's good to be able to adjust it.

at the end of the video it says "J MASCIS PLAYS ERNIE BALL SLINKY COBALT STRINGS" along with a photo of 10 gauge cobalt slinkys

Shown up close on Mascis' pedalboard at 4:16.

"I made this mini pedalboard which is like, clones of all pedals that I use"

"'The last two albums I was thinking more about playing the stuff live and this one, I didn't worry about it. If I wanted to put some keyboard in that would never get played live or something, I just did.' Mascis adds that the palette of guitar tones used on I Bet On Sky was quite a bit broader than in the band's early work.

'I used a '58 Tele a lot for leads and different things for rhythm like a Les Paul Junior - a bunch of guitars. Basically, P-90s for rhythm, and I used this Tonebender copy that Jim [Roth] from the band Built To Spill made. I used that on a lot of lead tracks usually combined with some other fuzz.'

We mention that the woody, sweet fuzz tone on the new album's standout track Almost Fare was particularly chewy. Did that tone arrive courtesy of the Tonebender clone, too?

'Yeah, that's probably that one and maybe a [Univox] Super-Fuzz together. I was using the Tonebender on most tracks, then adding different fuzzes with it - sometimes three, usually just two.'"

J Mascis occasionally uses the Marshall JCM800 2203 amplifier for select live performances, as shown in the user-uploaded photo.