Fender Limited Edition Thin Skin '57 Stratocaster

The Fender Thin Skin series is one of the newer series that Fender seems to be releasing. They're very high quality guitars, and I find myself recommending these quite a bit to people who are looking to buy a Fender. The guitar features an alder body, a maple neck with 21 frets, dot inlays, a vintage style tremolo, SSS configuration with a single coil humbucker in the bridge, one volume, two tones and a five way switch.

UTILIZATION

The guitar was put together quite nicely. The neck joint didn't have a big gap, so there was no issues regarding potential tuning stability and possible alignment issues that could occur later down the road. The nut was cut properly for 9s and 10s, but if you decide to put thicker strings on this, you might want to have it reshaped. One trick that I like to do is have multiple nuts filed for different tunings. You have to have these all shaped on the same guitar, and they aren't really interchangeable with other guitars, but it's worth doing if you find yourself constantly changing tunings with the same guitar.

SOUNDS

While the guitar looks innocent, it was actually a firebreather. This particular guitar had a DiMarzio ToneZone single coil humbucker installed in the bridge and two Areas in the neck and middle. The ToneZone works awesome with strats. It's very fat and middy sounding. It'll overdrive an amp without any problems and sound super powerful. It's also very touch responsive, but if you dislike that somewhat cocked wah sound, you might want to replace it. The Areas are probably some of the best single coils out there in the world right now. They're super clean and organic. Great for cleans and mid gain, and they're pretty cool for higher gain as well, but they might lack output.

OVERALL OPINION

If you have the cash, these are definitely worth buying. They get to the point to where it might be better to just buy a Suhr, but you'll have to decide exactly what you're looking for in a guitar. A Suhr won't feel like this, and a Fender won't feel like a Suhr.