FENDER STRATOCASTER

Hi all! Sorry for the lack of update last week. I decided to review a Fender Stratocaster that belongs to my friend Anthony Woen.

To get started, I actually don't really know what kind of Fender Stratocaster is this. Might be Mexico, might be Japanese, might be American, might be something else. I couldn't find the serial number of the Strat :(

Well, it does look great, just like what a strat should look like. It does sound great too! This guitar really shines when I switched to the neck pickup. All the signature maple neck alder body sound came out nicely on this guitar. Bright, enough power to cut through the mix, excellent when paired with a clean amp or a mid-gain vintage style amp.

Plugged this guitar to my Tube Screamer on a clean channel and add some delays and reverb, roll back the volume knob a little bit and play some soft lead lick and it really shines pretty well. Get it dry with a touch of a compressor on the clean channel and play some funk rhythm, you'll get that strat-y sound we all want!

The single coils are pretty standard, nothing special. They are not noiseless so you'll get that 60-cycle hum when you add some gain. The pickup is pretty low output but when you get it pretty close to the strings, it'll start to get hotter. Not too close though, you'll distort your signal badly on a clean channel.

The only thing that bugs me is the fact that the previous owner re-wire the pups so that the mid tone pot becomes the volume pot for the mid pick up. Maybe he/she wanted to emulate a kill-switch by modifying the guitar that way.

I don't really know what kind of Strat is this. It sounds good though although there are some major things going on with the wiring and some other stuffs. The trem is definitely not the regular Strat trem. The decal is also a bit too large for a Strat's head stock. But really, those facts don't bother me too much because it sounds just nice!

Here are some sound clips:

Dry Tube Screamer: CLICK HERE

Clean delay: CLICK HERE

Crunch rhythm: CLICK HERE

Lead Tube Screamer with double delays and reverb: CLICK HERE

Here are some more pictures !

Hope you guys enjoy this post!

Cheers and God bless :)