Fender Standard Stratocaster Electric Guitar - Maple Fingerboard, Candy Apple Red

I should first state that I am a bit of a guitar snob. I have been playing for 25 years, and my collection is almost entirely comprised of high end handmade in USA guitars. I currently own Heritage, PRS, Santa Cruz, Maton, and vintage Fender guitars, to name a few. I only bought this because I had $600 to spend at Amazon in gift cards and thought why not get another strat. If i don't like it, I'll sell it.I fully expected not to like this guitar. I was hopeful, but not optimistic, that the neck would feel playable enough that with some upgraded pickups and tuning machines and a pro setup, I'd get it to a state where I would actually play it once in a while.When it arrived after a trip around the world (I'm American and living in Australia - family shipped it to me), boy was I impressed! The factory setup was spot on - perfectly intonated and nice smooth low action. The pickups sound great - full on Strat City. I may upgrade them one day - but I'm happy with them for now. Same with the tuners - nice and solid, it stays in tune real well now (although it took a couple of days to acclimatize, but that's to be expected).I've played LOTS of strats over the years - vintage, modern, USA, Japan, Korean Squires, etc...this one is as playable as any I've ever picked up. Maybe I got lucky, but even if it's a gamble to get a good one, my advice is take your chances. For $600 (bought a SKB case too), this can't be beat for value.

I've owned a lot of guitars through the past 25 years, including a couple of American Standard Fender Strats, a couple of Japanese-made Fender Strats, and even a strat-style Ibanez guitar (which I still own). Despite the expense of the American Standards, they never seemed to sound as good or play as easily as the hype would suggest. The Japanese ones sounded good---especially the 50s and 60s replicas---but the small frets made it hard to keep chords fretted across all six strings and could sometimes make soloing a tad more haphazzard. Despite not having had a Fender in my collection for the past ten years, I got the itch to get another while deployed in Afghanistan. The 499 cost seemed good-- way less than the American standard and at a price point that wouldn't make my wife strangle me in anger on my return home. I unpacked this as soon as I got home and let me tell you that it is simply the best playing and sounding guitar I have ever owned, bar none---better even than the Les Paul Ive owned for 20 years and my very nice Ibanez that I've owned for 15 years. The neck and string action are as perfect as I have ever played. The pickups seem incredibly nuanced, but will get slight electrical noise from lighting or TVs if in the single coil positions. Quality of construction, paint, and overall appearance are every bit as good as the American Standards. I really can't put my finger on what specifically makes this guitar so good---awesome construction, medium jumbo frets, that "strat tone" done right???---but take my word for it, this guitar is incredible. After 30 years of playing I am a good enough guitarist to know quality and playability from glam crap. Don't spend 1000+ bucks when you don't have to!!! This guitar will stay with me for the rest of my life (or until it isn't cool for an old fart to be playing Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Dire Straits, and Hendrix songs anymore.)

The guitar came *almost* perfect our of the box. The fit and finish were excellent. The frets and neck were perfect. The intonation was close but not dead on. The action was great out of the box. Low enough to be fast but not so low that it frets out on bends.The only real concern was that the bridge was about 1/8" too high in the rear. It should sit generally parallel to and about 1/8" above the body. This one sat a full 1/4". I nearly sent it back because of this but I loved everything else about this guitar. The guitar will need a setup to adjust everything properly and should then be perfect.As is, it sounds fantastic. The pickups sound fuller and clearer than my Squier Affinity. The Affinity​ sounds pretty good but when you play then side by side, the Fender Strat lacks that "tinny" sound. All around great guitar except the bridge adjustment.

I have had this Strat for a couple of months now and have a much better idea of how she play and reacts both jigging and in the studio. I can now vouch for the fact that this MIM Strat is as good and the American Standard (I will admit to moding it to FAT 50's just because I like the tone better.)This guitar has clean and smooth action and as for sustain it has plenty as I often find myself right hand muting it to control the sustain. It could be I guess I got lucky on the one I got as I can't discount that as a possibility but I have not experience none of the horror stories I have read about the MIM Stratocaster. It may have been true "once upon a time," as the fairy tale goes, but personally I haven't seen, experienced or heard any of it.So in my opinion as well a my personal experience the MIM Stratocaster is a whole lot of bang for the buck!

It's almost like playing a real (American made) Stratocaster. I didn't fool around with it much. The high E string had low volume. It could have been an adjustment, but I couldn't get it right. I know that a guitar's neck can become super smooth and easy to fret over time, but I didn't give it much time and didn't try to adjust it out the way I like it. It was probably just me, but I couldn't get into it like on some guitars. They say it's basically the same guitar as an American made Stratocaster, but out of the box I found a couple of fret screws loose, and it seemed like the Mexican quality control might have been lax. If you really want a Stratocaster but can't afford an American made one, get this one and play with it a while. Be sure to get a professional guitar smith to help you set it up. It has the Stratocaster sound, but I decided I wanted more of a Gretsch jazz guitar sound and got rid of it for $300.

Received my guitar and found that the neck had a bad concave bow in it. Tried to adjust with the truss rod and found the truss rod maxed out and unadjustable. Then noticed that the bridge was coming out of the saddle about 1/2 “. I made some adjustments ,as I’ve set up many guitars , but this was beyond basic adjustments. Took it to my local Big Box guitar dealer (Long and Mcquade), and has been there for a week, still waiting for results. They saw issues right away,. So now gonna have to pay probably $200,00 for diagnosis, which will probably say ,” instrument needs new neck”. Really not happy about this , considering this cost over $900,00, and I received an unplayable instrument in need of major repairs. Should have just sent it back right away ,but wanted a professional luthier opinion.

Sehr guter Sound, gut zu spielen!!Gute Verarbeitung. Folie nervt etwas, weil sie auch unter den Schrauben sitzt. Ansonst Top-Teil

norhing to dislike i just love it.

Oggetto arrivato in tempi veloci e come da descrizione.Chitarra da utilizzare per un musicista principiante. Materiali non di prima classe per quanto riguarda la parte elettrica mentre il manico si comporta molto bene. Sarebbe stato cosa molto apprezzata se la chitarra fosse accompagnata con un minimo di custodia. Tutto sommato rimane una discreta chitarra.

届いた商品ですが、おそらく普通にみたら普通のレベルなんだと思います。しかし、オクターブ狂っていたり弦も巻き過ぎだと思いました。もう少し、調整してから出荷した方が良いと思います。後、アーミングしたらアームの白い部分が抜けちゃいました。また、通常はアーミングしないのでギチギチに裏のバネを締め込んで使うのですが、そうすると裏プレートの穴の位置がアームユニットと合わなくなり弦が通せません。仕方無く穴を削って使っています。後、1限と6限がピックアップの真上を通っていないです。また、指板のRがキツイ物とおそらく同一のピックアップを使っているため、各弦とピックアップまでの距離が今ひとつバランス悪いように感じます。1、2弦と5、6弦が弱い感じで、PUの位置をあげ過ぎると今度は3限辺りが強く出過ぎる感じがします。指板のRがゆるい分考慮した設計になっていないのかもと思います。弾きごごちは良いですが、音は前述の問題からNGです。そのうちPUを交換しようかと思っています。生音的にはネックからボディーもよく振動しており、鳴りは良さそうです。