All user reviews for the Fender Standard Stratocaster [1990-2005]

This is a Mexican made Fender Stratocaster. Some people imply that because it is made in Mexico, that it is somehow worse than American strats. While the wiring and pickups might be slightly inferior, I don't think there is a whole lot of difference, as American Strats aren't all they used to be, either. There are 3 single-coil pickups, a volume and two tone knobs, a 5-way pickup selector switch. The guitar has an alder body, a maple neck and fingerboard. The guitar has 21 frets and a vintage style tremolo bridge.

UTILIZATION

There are no problems with this guitar, it's easy to reach the top notes and to play all over it. There's a good chance that it will need a setup once you buy it, but that's pretty typical. It's a light guitar, easy to carry and play, and easy to fit in a large number of gig bags and hardshell cases. Getting a nice sound out of it is pretty easy overall, it's a Strat, they tend to sound good.

SOUNDS

While I like the way this Strat sounded at first, I definitely was going for a more classic sound, so I changed the pickups out. While the newer pickups are definitely more "modern" sounding, and they are perfectly fine overall, I would say that they aren't quite up to snuff with what Fender used to put out. I switched them for a set of custom made single-coils that really got the job done. The guitar now has a nice, clean bright sound reminiscent of the sounds of old, like Jeff Beck, Hendrix, and others. I'm a big fan of the old pickups but I'd say these new ones are far superior. If you want the best out of this guitar, you'll be able to get it with the right pickups. My guitar now has a bright clean sound and a high attack, in-your-face distorted sound. It's noisy, but that'll happen with single-coils.

OVERALL OPINION

I think the best thing about this guitar is it's flexibility, with a little work it can sound fantastic. It's a great price, and granted, you may have to do some more work on it to have it sounding perfect, but it's still a good guitar. I've played a lot of strats, this one is far from the best but It'll certainly hold up to many of them after the aforementioned repairs.