SeriesFender Modern Player

Hi all, I'm here to give you my review on the 5-string Fender MP... I'm back to playing the 5-string but more as a secondary bass beside my awesome '89 Precision Plus... I tried to gather information on this Chinese-made Fender where I live, and was often directed towards the 5-string Ibanez Sr 505, more or less in the same price range: fine, it seems either no one knows or wants to talk about the Modern Player... I delayed my purchase and finally found one at a shop I knew. And it literally blew my mind - and no, this wasn't due to the shop's amp I tried it on. The Fender sound is here - a big, really heavy sound!!! Perfect finish, two humbuckers , a five-position switch, the instrument was well set-up but I wanted more and asked for a setting more adapted to my fingers, which the shopkeeper arranged on the spot for me - enhancing my playing accuracy. I finally bought the bass and I'm totally crazy about it! Frankly, a real Fender for this price with such a finish is not something you'd want to miss!! To be bought with blind faith - well, as long as you're not deaf. Love, John.

The Fender Modern Player series is a new line of guitars from Fender that provides beginner players Fender quality with low prices. Most of the guitars in this series are around 400 bucks which is great for a real Fender. This is the Thinline tele of the bunch. The Thinline Telecaster was introduced in the late 60s to help lower the weight of the guitar when Fenders supply of lightweight wood ran low. They gave the guitar a hollow compartment on the upper part of the body and gave it an F-hole for resonance. The body on this guitar is made from mahogany. It has a bolt on maple neck with a maple fretboard. The neck has 22 frets with a C neck carve. The pickups in this Thinline Tele are a set of P90s which is cool. The controls are setup like a 72 Deluxe with a volume and tone for each pickup and a 3 way toggle on the upper bout. UTILIZATION This guitar has a bit more modern feel than most Telecasters. The radius on the neck isnt as old school as some Teles. The radius on this model is 9.5 inches which is still round by modern standards but pretty flat for a Telecaster. This means you can get a lower action and lead playing is much easier. This guitar has a Stratocaster style hardtail bridge which I think is better than a normal Telecaster ashtray bridge. This bridge lets you intonate every string and doesnt have sharp edges to get in the way of your playing. SOUNDS The mahogany body and the thinline design gives this guitar a unique sound. This is not an all out twang machine like a traditional Telecaster but a lot of the twang is still there. The P90s in this guitar you get a more refined twang. They are single coils but they have a thicker sound. With the p-90 pickups this guitar is great for mellow stuff. You can get really jazz sound with some tone knob tweaking. The guitar is also great for blues. In the bridge position some of the tele twang comes out but it compliments the smooth sounds nicely. OVERALL OPINION The Modern Player series is great. This guitar could easily sell for double the price but they are selling it at a reasonable cost so younger people can get a hold of it. With these lower cost unique guitars younger Fender players will be able to try out something different than your typical Stratocaster or your typical Telecaster. If you are a younger Fender player and are looking for something different you should look into the Modern Player line up. They are selling their unique pawn shop style guitars for a really low price so you can check out some cool takes on your classic favorites.

The 'Modern Player' series are the first series of Chinese manufactured guitars carrying the Fender brand name. Although the Squier 'Classic Vibe' series already showed how good Chinese guitars can be, you still could have the feeling that something was missing. The Marauder however is the next step. It reminded me a bit of that morning in 82 when I bought my JV (japanese) Jazz bass! Some of the external characteristics of this guitar are inspired by the 60s Fender Marauder. This 'Original' Marauder was never produced in large numbers. The Modern Player Marauder inherited the thin body and the headstock logo ('Fender' is the only word). The body shape is new, somewehere between a jazzmaster and the old Marauder. The electronics are a completely new design. The pearloid pick guard gives the guitar a classic appearance. UTILIZATION This guitar is set up quite well. That, combined with the jumbo frets, makes it very easy to play. Balance is good, with only a very slight hint of neck-heavyness if played standing up. The C-shape neck has the right thickness for most players and provides a sensible compromise between playability and stability/sustain. Neck, tremolo and tuners look and feel like a vintage reissue strat, except for the jumbo frets. The tremolo is the weak spot of this otherwise great guitar. You have to use it carefully, else you will detune your guitar. A pity they didn't use the Squier standard series tremolo, which is cheap, good also Chinese. SOUNDS As soon as you pick up the guitar, you feel that it wants to be played. This is quite different from many of the affordable USA strats (costing at least three times as much) which sometimes feel like a reluctant piece of wood. Even if played acoustically, the Marauder has a bright and vivid tone, which translates in an excellent sound when amplified. From neck to bridge: 1. Jazzmaster pick-up: Bigger-than-strat sort of full and woody single coil sound; 2. Jm + coil-3 from the triple-bucker: Glassy, like a strat and slightly broader; 3. Coil-3 from the triple-bucker: Bright an compelling like a good strat middle position pick-up; 4. Triple-bucker all coils: Powerful humbucker tone with a bright top end; 5. Coil-1+2 from the triple-bucker: Powerful humbucker tone, great for lead guitar; Actually all these sounds are quite impressive and extremely useful. Sustain is better than my strat. Unbelievable that such cheap and light-weight instrument can sound like this. B.t.w. I play in on a 12" 30W tube combo, but even on the cheap 10W transistor amp in the shop it sounded great. OVERALL OPINION It cost only 395 Euros and since I bought it, my E-sries J-strat hasn't left the gig-bag. If you like Fender guitars, you can not afford to miss this one. Mark my words: this first series of Marauders will all be collectors-items within 10 years, much like the JV series of 82. So grab one while you still can. On the other hand, I believe that if you are a shredder or a true 'Gibsonist' this guitar is nothing for you. Except for the tremolo, which should be best left alone, this is an excellent guitar. This is the first guitar ever which gives me a combination of bright and glassy chords and a fat and solid lead tone. Over the two guitars I tried, quality was very consistent. So I chose the blue one. . .

Modern Player series Alder body Gloss Polyester finish "C" Shape maple neck Gloss Polyester neck finish Maple fretboard Synthetic Bone string nut Pickups: Modern Player Wide Range Precision Bass® Pickup (Middle) Modern Player Wide Range Precision Bass® Pickup (Neck) Controls: Neck Volume, Bridge Volume, Master Tone Nickel/Chrome hardware Open Gear Tuning Machines Vintage Style 4-Saddle Bridge with Brass Saddles Knurled Chrome Dome knobs Pickguard: (503) 3-Ply Parchment, (550) 1-Ply Black Strings: Fender® USA, NPS, (Gauges .045-.105) UTILIZATION This is the bass I always wanted Fender to make. The original Tele bass was cool, but very one dimensional with one single coil pickup. Later updates to the style added a big humbucker in the neck, which was a slight improvement, yet only allowed for one dark tone. This bass has a second humbucker near the bridge, and it makes a world of differece. With these pickups, high quality tuners and bridge, and a great finish, one can tell right away that Fender means business on this axe. The playability is a lot like an older 70s P-bass, yet with a bit thinner neck. The fretwork on this particular neck is very nice, as well. SOUNDS These two humbuckers are amazing! From playing around with it, I found that I could get all sorts of good tones out of this bas, from funky, to soulful Motown, to modern rock, sludge, doom, metal, country, jazz.... anything, really! The tones from this bass are monstrously powerful - you certainly FEEL every note, and the audience would too. This is really a bass with a lot of versatility to its sound, and it provides for an inspiring (and entertaining) playing session. OVERALL OPINION This is one of my favorite basses I've ever played. I love the style of the design, and the playing action on the neck really helps me play this bass with ease with any technique. The dual humbuckers has been standard fare on guitars for the past 50 years, but never caught on in the bass world for some inexplicable reason. Here it seems quite natural, and it allows for a huge range of great sounds. Highly recommended.

I dont know what Fender was thinking when they came out with this guitar but I like it. This is the Fender Modern Player Jaguar. This is a new guitar from Fender and it looks to simplify the old Jaguar design and make it a straight rock machine. The old Jaguar came out in the early 60s trying to be the classy version of the Stratocaster. It had crazy controls all over it for phase switching and whatnot. It also had a crazy tremolo on it. Not many people liked it and it never caught on as well as the Stratocaster. There have been many variations on the shape and this Modern Player guitar is the latest I think. It gets rid of everything that people did not like and simplifies it. It has a mahogany body with a bolt on maple neck with the big 70s headstock on it. The headstock script looks pretty silly. It looks like a little kid wrote it. The neck has a rosewood fretboard with 21 frets. It has a standard scale neck so the body looks kind of small compared to the rest of the guitar because the Jaguar was meant to have a short scale neck on it. Instead of the silly Jaguar tremolo they threw on a simple tune-o-matic which is great. There are no crazy phase switches on the guitar. The controls are just a master volume and master tone. The pickups are a set of growling P90s. P90s are some of the best pickups for rock and roll playing. P90s work well with a bit of overdrive and get you a classic overdriven sound. I think they do better with drive than low output humbuckers. You get the body of a humbucker with the high end bite of a single coil. The body keeps it from sounding thin like some single coils do with gain but the high end bite gives it a nice grind and clarity with playing with the gain. This guitar is a really good value. In my shop its priced at only around 400 dollars. Thats pretty good for a Fender. You cant get many Epiphones for that. With this guitar you get tons of tone and playability without any of the hassle. There are no tremolos to go out of tune or springs to adjust. Its just straight rock and roll P90 tone.