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Published on 12/30/11 at 09:19The Squier Standard Series Strat is the company's typical Strat that you find at most stores. They retail at around $200 and are a popular starter guitar for many budding players. This particular model has an agathis body, a maple neck with maple fretboard and 22 frets, a large CBS style headstock, sealed tuners and a 2 point tremolo bridge. It's loaded with standard Strat electronics (3 single coils, volume/tone/tone controls and a 5 way toggle switch. It's basically a pretty standard Strat, hence the title of Standard Series Stratocaster.
UTILIZATION
The design is reasonably ergonomic. Strats in general are quite contoured and sleek and this one does follow that school of design well enough. I find the contours aren't as sleek and smooth as some Fender models though. The weight varies on these from fairly light to absolute boat anchors, so try before you buy to find one that suits your body. The neck has a nice fast feel, but is completely ruined by the sharp, protruding fret ends that actually drew a bit of blood on one occasion. Not good... I'm not particularly impressed with their QC on this model... it really lacks certain attention to detail.
Getting a good sound can be a bit more difficult as this guitar uses cheap electronics and is a bit noisy overall. The stock pickups are okay at best and don't offer much in the way of true Strat sounds. They're also too noisy to use for rock or shred unless you've got a good quality gate in line.
SOUNDS
The tones really don't impress me much. Maybe I'm just picky, or maybe the guitar truly doesn't sound great, but I walked away wondering why it was even on the market as a Strat. The single coils loaded in there as stock are thin, underpowered and generally bland. There's no real evidence of that classic Strat bell like chime that I look for, nor is there really any bite or girth to the sound for some thicker overdrive tones. To be perfectly honest, the $100 Squier Bullet sounds better than this one... so unless you want to do pickup swaps to get this to sound anywhere close to a Strat, don't waste your time.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think this "Strat" really isn't what it should be to hold the Fender name. It feels cheap and low quality, the parts really don't work as they should (the tremolo is awful cast metal that falls out of tune if you even look at it) and the tones are just... bleh. Not worth considering at all unless you're planning to buy it as a mod project where you do work to the neck and junk the parts that come stock. For $200 there are much better options out there such as the Yamaha Pacificas.
UTILIZATION
The design is reasonably ergonomic. Strats in general are quite contoured and sleek and this one does follow that school of design well enough. I find the contours aren't as sleek and smooth as some Fender models though. The weight varies on these from fairly light to absolute boat anchors, so try before you buy to find one that suits your body. The neck has a nice fast feel, but is completely ruined by the sharp, protruding fret ends that actually drew a bit of blood on one occasion. Not good... I'm not particularly impressed with their QC on this model... it really lacks certain attention to detail.
Getting a good sound can be a bit more difficult as this guitar uses cheap electronics and is a bit noisy overall. The stock pickups are okay at best and don't offer much in the way of true Strat sounds. They're also too noisy to use for rock or shred unless you've got a good quality gate in line.
SOUNDS
The tones really don't impress me much. Maybe I'm just picky, or maybe the guitar truly doesn't sound great, but I walked away wondering why it was even on the market as a Strat. The single coils loaded in there as stock are thin, underpowered and generally bland. There's no real evidence of that classic Strat bell like chime that I look for, nor is there really any bite or girth to the sound for some thicker overdrive tones. To be perfectly honest, the $100 Squier Bullet sounds better than this one... so unless you want to do pickup swaps to get this to sound anywhere close to a Strat, don't waste your time.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think this "Strat" really isn't what it should be to hold the Fender name. It feels cheap and low quality, the parts really don't work as they should (the tremolo is awful cast metal that falls out of tune if you even look at it) and the tones are just... bleh. Not worth considering at all unless you're planning to buy it as a mod project where you do work to the neck and junk the parts that come stock. For $200 there are much better options out there such as the Yamaha Pacificas.