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Hatsubai « One of my favorite looking strats »
Published on 06/28/11 at 15:17This was a limited production guitar released for a short period of time to celebrate Fender's 50th anniversary. The guitar features an alder body with a maple neck, a maple fretboard, 22 frets, dot inlays, SSS configuration, locking tuners, special neck heel, two point tremolo system, one volume, two tones and a five way switch.
UTILIZATION
This guitar was put together great. There were no neck joint cracks or gaps at all. Everything was super tight. The frets were properly crowned, and there were no sharp edges. I was able to get some moderate action going on. Super low action is impossible with the radius, but I could get workable action while still being able to bend a full step. The nut was also cut properly. I didn't experience any tuning issues with this guitar at all. The gold hardware on this is pretty love/hate, but I loved it. It looked exotic without being too gaudy.
SOUNDS
This guitar has SCN pickups in it, and I really like them. The bridge is very fat and powerful. You can do everything from heavy metal to classic rock with these. However, the clean tones and blues tones are somewhat bland sounding because it's so high output. It doesn't have that character that some blues guitarists look for, in my opinion. The neck sounds pretty good. It's high output, so legato and all kinds of shred guitar techniques are super easy. Clean tones sound pretty good in positions 2 to 4. I'm a metal guitarist, so I think the SCNs are real killer pickups. If you play lower gain stuff, you might want something else.
OVERALL OPINION
This guitar is one of my favorite looking guitars Fender has ever released. It almost has that Kotzen vibe going on, minus the flame top. The gold hardware looked great on this Fender, and it played like butter. The pickups weren't super versatile, but they definitely got the job done. Definitely pick one up if you can.
UTILIZATION
This guitar was put together great. There were no neck joint cracks or gaps at all. Everything was super tight. The frets were properly crowned, and there were no sharp edges. I was able to get some moderate action going on. Super low action is impossible with the radius, but I could get workable action while still being able to bend a full step. The nut was also cut properly. I didn't experience any tuning issues with this guitar at all. The gold hardware on this is pretty love/hate, but I loved it. It looked exotic without being too gaudy.
SOUNDS
This guitar has SCN pickups in it, and I really like them. The bridge is very fat and powerful. You can do everything from heavy metal to classic rock with these. However, the clean tones and blues tones are somewhat bland sounding because it's so high output. It doesn't have that character that some blues guitarists look for, in my opinion. The neck sounds pretty good. It's high output, so legato and all kinds of shred guitar techniques are super easy. Clean tones sound pretty good in positions 2 to 4. I'm a metal guitarist, so I think the SCNs are real killer pickups. If you play lower gain stuff, you might want something else.
OVERALL OPINION
This guitar is one of my favorite looking guitars Fender has ever released. It almost has that Kotzen vibe going on, minus the flame top. The gold hardware looked great on this Fender, and it played like butter. The pickups weren't super versatile, but they definitely got the job done. Definitely pick one up if you can.