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Hatsubai « Extremely versatile »
Published on 10/04/11 at 16:15This is pretty much the standard Fender that most people see today. At least on the American line up. Today's strats are moving towards being a bit more modern, and the Mexican strats are leaning towards being more vintage-esque. I guess they feel that these features are only worthy on the American models, but whatever. The guitar features an alder body, a one-piece maple neck, 22 frets, dot inlays, a two point tremolo, locking tuners, HSS configuration, one volume, two tones and a five way switch.
UTILIZATION
The guitar was pretty good, but it was slightly heavy. It had some strong weight to it, and I'm not a fan of overly heavy guitars. Still, it resonated nicely, so I can't take too much away from it. I really liked how the black body, maple neck and copper pickguard worked on this guitar. It was better than I thought it would look. The frets on this were in pretty good condition, and I couldn't find any faults with it. The neck on this is a very nice, round C shaped neck that's medium in its overall thickness. It almost reminds me of an ESP neck, or maybe I should say ESP necks remind me of Fender necks... The tremolo on this is pretty nice, and the locking tuners help out a ton with this guitar. I'm not a huge fan fo the radius utilized on these guitars, but it's not a deal killer.
SOUNDS
The guitar had its pickups swapped for EMGs. It had an EMG 85 in the bridge with the SLV neck and middle pickups. The EMG 85 in the bridge works quite well for a lot of genres, actually. While most people view it as a neck pickup, it can really help thicken up a thin sounding guitar. This is actually the same combo that Steve Lukather uses (or used to. I heard he swapped to passives lately), and it kind of has that Luke vibe going on. The SLVs in the neck and middle were very nice at getting a cool, fat lead tone with some decent output. One thing worth noting is that these tend to respond to the volume knob a bit better than the EMG 85. That said, they still had a bit of that hi-fi sound going on. They can work for a lot of genres, but they're still not quite as organic as passives.
OVERALL OPINION
The guitar is very solid, and you can get these for a really good price on the used market. I recommend searching different forum and ebay for the best deal on these guitars. I would rather buy one of these used than new as the prices keep going up every year, and the used market has some great deals at the moment. If you buy new, be sure to inspect it carefully just in case there are any potential flaws.
UTILIZATION
The guitar was pretty good, but it was slightly heavy. It had some strong weight to it, and I'm not a fan of overly heavy guitars. Still, it resonated nicely, so I can't take too much away from it. I really liked how the black body, maple neck and copper pickguard worked on this guitar. It was better than I thought it would look. The frets on this were in pretty good condition, and I couldn't find any faults with it. The neck on this is a very nice, round C shaped neck that's medium in its overall thickness. It almost reminds me of an ESP neck, or maybe I should say ESP necks remind me of Fender necks... The tremolo on this is pretty nice, and the locking tuners help out a ton with this guitar. I'm not a huge fan fo the radius utilized on these guitars, but it's not a deal killer.
SOUNDS
The guitar had its pickups swapped for EMGs. It had an EMG 85 in the bridge with the SLV neck and middle pickups. The EMG 85 in the bridge works quite well for a lot of genres, actually. While most people view it as a neck pickup, it can really help thicken up a thin sounding guitar. This is actually the same combo that Steve Lukather uses (or used to. I heard he swapped to passives lately), and it kind of has that Luke vibe going on. The SLVs in the neck and middle were very nice at getting a cool, fat lead tone with some decent output. One thing worth noting is that these tend to respond to the volume knob a bit better than the EMG 85. That said, they still had a bit of that hi-fi sound going on. They can work for a lot of genres, but they're still not quite as organic as passives.
OVERALL OPINION
The guitar is very solid, and you can get these for a really good price on the used market. I recommend searching different forum and ebay for the best deal on these guitars. I would rather buy one of these used than new as the prices keep going up every year, and the used market has some great deals at the moment. If you buy new, be sure to inspect it carefully just in case there are any potential flaws.