MIJ JAPANESE FENDER STRATOCASTER ST62-US

Hello everyone, I've been very fortunate to acquire this new guitar made in Japan. It's called Fender Stratocaster ST62-US which is basically a Reissue of Fender Stratocaster 1962. I'm very blessed to be able to acquire this guitar since it's considered a hidden jewel. MIJ Stratocasters are known for their fantastic built quality and consistency and sometimes can rival US version of the same type of guitar.

Spec
The body was made of basswood(cheap wood to be honest, but resonates very good and considered as one of the best tonewood). The color is 3 tone sunburst with white pickguard. The pickups are called US Vintage pickups according to Fender Japan. Neck is maple with very high gloss and rosewood fingerboard with small radius and vintage sized frets. It comes with vintage 6 screws tremolo and vintage style tuner. No trust rod adjustment on the headstock; the adjustment can be made from the heel of the neck on the pickguard. No skunk stripe on the back of the neck too. It's made to the spec of a '62 Stratocaster except for the body material; a true '62 Strat will have alder for the body instead of basswood.

Sound
AMAZING! It resonates acoustically stronger than most of my guitars. The tone when it's plugged into an amp is also nice. Good clean tones come instantly without too much tweak. The pickups are very weak so I adjust them closer to the string just a little bit. Overdrive tones are not as strong as my other guitars but I like to keep it that way. The basswood body adds extra mid to the overall tone while the rosewood fingerboard definitely keeps the presence and brightness from being drowned by the basswood body.

The neck and bridge pickup definitely sounds very vintage; they are called US Vintage Pickups according to Fender Japan website. Try to play some Hendrix tune with this guitar and you'll get the idea. The bridge has a bigger block compared to my MIM Stratocaster and it helps a bit with the sustain.

Any cons?
Basswood body is considered cheap by many people, but it's actually considered as a good tone wood. Pickups are a bit weak but they sound very vintage, so if you don't like weak output pickups, better upgrade the pickups with something stronger. However, the pickups are made of alnico, and they are definitely better than ceramic pickups on the MIM but maybe not as good as American Standard alnico pickups.

Made In Japan
MIJ guitars have the reputation of beating MIA guitars in terms of consistencies and built quality. MIJ are very consistent, the people who make them are doing their job neatly and carefully. US made guitars sometimes suffer from inconsistencies in terms of overall quality. For the same type of guitar, you can sometimes get a very good guitar but sometimes not.

Is this guitar for me?

If you love Stratocaster, MIJ is a must have. One guy from a forum told me that this guitar beats the Custom Shop version of '62 Reissue, so I'm quite happy to know that the quality of this MIJ guitar will hold for a long time. If you're not a Strat guy, definitely worth to check out. Stratocasters are very nice guitars and they define the American tone from a very long time. Especially with this MIJ, you'll get the best value guitar that will beat some of more expensive guitars on US market.

Price?
68000 Yen or around US$860. Quite expensive, but this will beat US Vintage Reissue and Custom Shop '62 Reissue.

From 0 to 10
11.

Hope you like this post. I'll post some sound clips soon.
Cheers and God Bless :)

DIMARZIO VIRTUAL VINTAGE HEAVY BLUES 2 VERSUS CRUISER BRIDGE

Tonight I want to share a little bit about my experience with DiMarzio products! Hopefully this will help you to decide whether you want to change your pickups to DiMarzio or not. I'm going to review the Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 and compare it with the Cruiser Bridge. Read on! :)

Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues

Let me start with the basic specification of the pickup

Output : 170mV(according to DiMarzio)

DC Resistance : 8.5 k ohm

Magnet : Alnico 2

4-conductor-based wiring

Tone : Treble 7.5, Mid 6.5, Bass 6.0(DiMarzio's website)

This single coil is very ideal to re-create that vintage hot-rodded Strat style tone. I prefer to use this one on the neck position and use a low to medium output humbucker to get a balanced volume level. It packs some mid punch; unlike a strat, this one is a bit hot and works well with distortion.

The high notes doesn't get too harsh, the low has some definition, and the mid kicks your notes nicely. I personally like this pickup for it's thickness(I'm using .008-.038 by the way, very THIN). You can easily nail hot-Strat tone from various artists using this pickup combined with slightly overdriven amp or clean amp with a little bit boost.

I don't find any flaw with this pickup except its strange wiring methods; the cable colors aren't the usual ones. It's not using a very strong magnet so it doesn't pull your string too much, you get more sustain for sure. I don't know what's your preference but trust me, weaker magnet is sometimes better :). BTW, you might think that more mid may increase muddiness: that's not happening here, this pickup is balanced properly EQ-wise.

Price starts from $70.00, you can get it from any famous music store(in U.S. of course). I got mine from a music store in Indonesia, though.

Cruiser Bridge Model

Output : 143mV(according to DiMarzio)

DC Resistance : 5.75 k ohm

Magnet : Ceramic

4-conductor-based wiring

Tone : Treble 8.0, Mid 4.5, Bass 5.5(DiMarzio's website)

Andy Timmons uses this pickup on his guitars and he uses it pretty often on the neck position. I put this one on my PGM and I can easily nail Timmons' tone using this pickup. The sound that I'm getting out of this pickup is a natural Strat sound that doesn't get too harsh with the treble but still retains its glassy tone. It doesn't emphasize your picking too much(is that good or bad?) but I personally like it because it doesn't get too bright on the scratch notes unlike traditional Strat pickups.

Works well with distortion, good for combination with other single coils or a full sized low-medium output humbucker. I combined mine with AT-1 humbucker which basically has similar qualities with Seymour Duncan JB. I set my humbucker high and the Cruiser very low and I can get volume reduction when switching to the Cruiser on the neck. Very versatile!

Nothing I dislike about this pickup. It does have a low output(although higher than strat) but it doesn't get thin. It doesn't boost your midrange; this one is a more of a traditional single coil that everyone will surely love.

Price: starts from around $70.00, you can get it anywhere in U.S. for sure.

Which one is better?

Cruiser is definitely more traditional with some enhancement on the chord definition and power. It pushes your amp harder compared to regular single coil pickup of a Strat. VVHB2 has more midrange and for sure it will give you fatter tone compared to Cruiser; it's easier to drive your amp with the VVHB2 too! People who prefer something with standard features will enjoy Cruiser; someone who wants to get more thickness and overdrive-friendly pup will like the VVHB2.

I personally prefer the Cruiser for its versatility and basic tone but I find that the VVHB2 allows me to cover more hot-Strat-based tone; the VVHB2 is also more aggressive and shred-friendly. So really, the choice is yours! Do you like something basic or do you want a little bit of an extra punch? Anyway, thank you to DiMarzio for making such great pickups, they really earned my respect :D

Cheers and God bless :)

p.s. 4 more days until I'm able to post audio clips :D...the final part of the "Guitar Artists with Great Tones" will be available shortly, I hope that you enjoy the previous parts of the post. Feel free to share any part of this blog with the rest of the world :D