![Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster V Neck [2004-2010]](https://img.audiofanzine.com/img/product/normal/4/0/40345.jpg?fm=pjpg&w=300&h=218&fit=max&s=78612cbeb2013ccda8b447d9e2fb9675)
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Hatsubai « Awesome neck on this »
Published on 06/30/11 at 12:40The Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster V neck has a great feeling neck, and that's the main selling point on this guitar. It has an alder body with a maple neck, a maple fretboard with 22 frets, abalone dot inlays, two point tremolo system, SSS configuration, carved away neck joint with a micro-tilt adjustment, one volume, two tones and a five way switch.
UTILIZATION
The neck is the thing that everyone wants to know about this guitar. It has an amazing feeling neck. It's big, has that nicely carved V shape and surprisingly fits nicely inside the palm of your hand while playing. The fretwork on this model wasn't too bad. The frets were crowned, and there weren't any edges sticking out that would potentially cut your hands up while moving up and down the neck. The neck joint on this had a slight gap, but it shouldn't affect anything too much. One thing I'm not a huge fan of is the radius on the guitar, but that goes for just about any Fender out there aside from the Eric Johnson one.
SOUNDS
This guitar had the SCN pickup setup, and I'm a big fan of that. First of all, let's talk about the S1 switch. Basically, it's adding a capacitor to thicken up the pickups. I really don't like it. I think it just muddies up the entire sound, so I recommend against using it. That said, the SCN pickups sound great. The bridge is powerful and has some nice bite to it. The neck is also crazy powerful with some nice vowel-ish "aww" kind of quality going on with it. I only use the middle for the in-between positions, but it sounds great as well. If you're looking for that classic Strat sound, you won't find it here. These are more geared towards rock and metal, but I'm sure you could make them work with blues.
OVERALL OPINION
You have to really like the V style neck to enjoy this guitar. If you're someone who likes those bigger, shapely necks, than this guitar is definitely for you. Be sure to inspect the guitar for any potential nut, fret and neck joint issues as they can really vary between guitars. The tone is generally pretty good on these, I find.
UTILIZATION
The neck is the thing that everyone wants to know about this guitar. It has an amazing feeling neck. It's big, has that nicely carved V shape and surprisingly fits nicely inside the palm of your hand while playing. The fretwork on this model wasn't too bad. The frets were crowned, and there weren't any edges sticking out that would potentially cut your hands up while moving up and down the neck. The neck joint on this had a slight gap, but it shouldn't affect anything too much. One thing I'm not a huge fan of is the radius on the guitar, but that goes for just about any Fender out there aside from the Eric Johnson one.
SOUNDS
This guitar had the SCN pickup setup, and I'm a big fan of that. First of all, let's talk about the S1 switch. Basically, it's adding a capacitor to thicken up the pickups. I really don't like it. I think it just muddies up the entire sound, so I recommend against using it. That said, the SCN pickups sound great. The bridge is powerful and has some nice bite to it. The neck is also crazy powerful with some nice vowel-ish "aww" kind of quality going on with it. I only use the middle for the in-between positions, but it sounds great as well. If you're looking for that classic Strat sound, you won't find it here. These are more geared towards rock and metal, but I'm sure you could make them work with blues.
OVERALL OPINION
You have to really like the V style neck to enjoy this guitar. If you're someone who likes those bigger, shapely necks, than this guitar is definitely for you. Be sure to inspect the guitar for any potential nut, fret and neck joint issues as they can really vary between guitars. The tone is generally pretty good on these, I find.