Fender Hot Rodded American Lone Star Stratocaster

I found this one on Ebay for 650. I wanted a good American made Strat for playing blues and my SG's were tonally too dark.

Plays well, sounds great. The harder it's played the better it growls. The Seymour Duncan pickup has great tones

I use Marshall amplification, and the Texas single coils were really noisy. I replaced them with Lace Sensor Hot Golds and got a lot better tone and no more noise for my trouble. It is my favorite guitar now.

Excellent quality. Stays in tune consistently. No troubles.

Other than the typical single coil noise, it's a great guitar.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Lonestar series guitars are pretty much the same as any other Fender out there. There's nothing too different about them that makes them stick out except for maybe the pickups. Fender tries to say that they're a throw back to the old school Strats, but they're not. The body lines pretty much follow today's stuff, and the necks are still fairly modern when compared to the real old school guitars. The guitar features an alder body, a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets with dot inlays, two point tremolo, HSS configuration, one volume, two tones and a five way switch.

UTILIZATION

The bridge on this is pretty cool. It's the two point tremolo system, and it works quite nicely when compared to the old school six screw bridge. It's more stable, and I find it feels better as well. Keep in mind, I'm used to floyds, so it's a bit more at home with me than the older, more vintage ones. I like the pop in arm as well. It's a big improvement from the standard thread in one. The neck on this is a nice C shape, and it tends to really fit my hand quite well. The frets themselves were decent, but it was nothing amazing. I've seen better on cheaper guitars. Access to the upper frets is the same as any other Fender in that it's a pain, but it's still not nearly as bad as a Gibson Les Paul. Everything else is about what you'd expect from a Fender.

SOUNDS

The guitar had two Texas Specials in the neck and a Pearly Gates in the bridge. The Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates can be quite a bright pickup, and I don't think it was quite at home in this guitar. I would have liked to hear something a bit thicker in this thing as the treble was a bit overwhelming at times. I was able to dial most of it out in the amp, but there was still a bit I could always notice. The Texas Specials are decent pickups. They're fairly heavy in their output, but they're also pretty noisy given that they're true single coils. They can get a cool blues tone and a decent rock tone, but I wouldn't use them for much else. There are better pickups on the market that would suit this guitar, in my opinion.

OVERALL OPINION

They're solid guitars, but you might want to look into a pickup swap with these. Not everyone is keen on what comes stock in these, and it can turn people off. The guitar itself is fairly high quality, and you can get great deals on these on the used market, so I wouldn't put too much thought into it if you see these going for sale really cheap. If you're a Fender fan, you'll probably like it.

This is the Lone Star strat, which is also known as the Pearly Gates strat because that's what pickup it has in the bridge position. It's very similar to a regular fat strat. This guitar has an alder body with a maple neck, a rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, two point tremolo, HSS configuration, one volume, two tones and a five way switch.

UTILIZATION

This Fender was put together pretty good, although there were some slight issues. The frets, while even, weren't completely crowned. I noticed that they were a touch flat. It doesn't really hurt anything too much, but it can affect action a bit. The nut on this was cut properly, so no issues there. The neck joint on this was also nice and tight, and that's always a good thing to see on these Fenders as they can sometimes get a bit sloppy. The radius on this isn't exactly my favorite radius in the world. I tend to prefer flatter ones, but that's just me.

SOUNDS

The main reason people buy this guitar is for the Duncan Pearly Gates that's in the bridge. However, this isn't the standard Pearly Gates pickup. It's the Pearly Gates Plus. This is a Pearly Gates with an Alnico V magnet instead of the normal Alnico II. This makes it a bit brighter. In fact, it's very close to the Duncan 59 instead of the actual Pearly Gates itself. I find that it works nice for certain things, but I'd probably replace them with other pickups that are out there.

OVERALL OPINION

If you're looking for a guitar that has an old school PAF sound but has singles in the neck and middle, this might be worth looking into. The quality control on these can sometimes vary, so keep that in mind. I recommend playing a bunch before buying, if you can. If not, try getting one real cheap on eBay or something so you can sell it again easier.