Gr8ful's Full Review: Fender Standard Stratocaster Maple with Gigbag
The Classic Axe
Note: This review is about the Fender Standard Stratocaster. I have played these guitars many times in the past but most of my experience is with the Fender American Standard Plus.
This is where it all starts. The Strat, Americas favorite guitar for rock, blues and studio recording. The Standard is the original Stratocaster design from Fender with three single coil pickups for five different settings of brightness and chunk.
I have used these guitars on many occassions, but my favorite is my first real Stratocaster that I bought in 1987 for $649. The Strat that I bought is not listed here on Epinions yet and may never be. It was the American Standard Stratocaster Plus or "Strat Plus". Since this review is in the Standard Stratocaster catagory, I will review the Stratocaster Standard and explain some of the differences between the Standard and the American Standard Plus.
The Standard Stratocaster has a wonderfully thin neck for ease of playing full chords and lightning fast leads without much difficulty or wrist aches. The three single coil pickups give you five settings to choose from. The top setting gives you the top pickup only. The next setting down gives you the top and center pickup together. You can control the tone individually for each pickup and the volume is controlled together. The middle setting gives you the center pickup only, the next to the bottom setting gives you the bottom pickup and the center pickup and the bottom setting gives you only the bottom pickup.
The top pickup is the chunckiest. I use it for heavy clean blues and finger picking for a bassy sound. The center pickup is probably the most used, especially if you are using effects. The center pickup is a good medium between bright and bassy. The bottom pickup is very bright and can be somewhat tinny sounding unless you use taste and use the tone control effectively. These pickups are all very clear and crisp and with the combinations, you can get just about any tone you need without an effects pedal or rack.
The tremelo bar is thin and easy to use effectively. The Stratocaster's tremelo system is a simple design that works great. The springs for the tremelo reside in the back of the guitar under a plastic (or bone with the American Standard Plus) cover. The guitar comes with three springs attached and two in the case. Three springs are enough to make the tremelo work both ways (up and down in pitch). But if you need to use it for serious dives, you may want to add the two extra springs for down pitching only. You get the best use out of it using only three in my opinion.
The American Standard Plus is basically the same design as the Standard except it has bone plate covers instead of plastic and it has Fenders famous "Lace Sensor Pickups" instead of the original single coil pickups. The difference in pickups is like the difference in a Volkswagen and a Porche. There is really no comparison between the two. The Lace Sensor pickups are more sensitive and much cleaner than the single coils.
Another big difference is the string pegs and the string system in general. The pegs on the American Standard Plus have tiny steel dowls inside and once the string is put through the peg hole, you tighten the dowl by screwing in a cylinder on the back of the peg to hold it tight in the peg hole. This is great because you don't have to wind the string around the peg several times to get it tight. Simply wind the string once and it is tight and ready to tune. The Standard does not have this feature and is pretty much the same as any other guitar's string system.
One thing I don't like about the Standard and the American Standard Plus is the "Floating Bridge" at the butt end of the guitar. The floating bridge is part of the tremelo design and works great for keeping the guitar in tune when using the tremelo. If you make a heavy dive or a fast vibrato, the guitar stays tuned while being pulled down or up in pitch and returns to perfect tuning every time. The problem with it is, if you play live gigs or are recording in a studio and break a string, you can't continue at all because the whole guitar goes out of tune. The floating bridge uses the tension of the strings to work properly and if the tension suddenly changes (like when a string breaks), all the strings go out of tune and you have to correct it before you can continue.
This also makes tuning a new set of strings a hassle and replacing just one string is just as hard. You have to tune from the outside in. In other words, you tune the first string then the sixth, second, fifth, third then fourth. If you don't tune in this order it will take even longer to get the right tuning. Even tuning in this order you will have to go back and adjust all of the strings in that same order until they are all in tune. This is really a pain-in-the-rear but the rest of the guitar's features make up for this inconvenience.
The guitar comes in many different colors and you can order custom designs from Fender but this is expensive. Mine is Classic Candy Apple Red. The same color as David Gilmore's Stratocaster when he toured in the 1990's with Pink Floyd (which by the way was also a Fender American Standard Stratocaster Plus). Both the Standard and the Standard Plus come with a beautiful rosewood fretboard with 21 frets on the Standard and 22 frets on the American Standard Plus.
One big difference between the Standard and the American Standard Plus is the price. The Standard you can get for around $450 but the American Standard Plus sold new for around $650 in 1987 and about $1100 now depending on where you live and what kind of music stores you have access to.
If you are a musician or just learning how to play, you can't go wrong with a Fender Standard or American Standard Plus Stratocaster. They are beautiful guitars and have a clean crisp sound that will give you and the ones listening much enjoyment. I have had mine for 13 years and it sounds better every year. I honestly believe that Stratocasters sound better with age and the best Standard I ever heard was a 1969 (just post CBS). I highly recommend Fender guitars and especially the Stratocaster.
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