Fender Classic Series 50s Stratocaster Review

Submitted by: Mark W on 15 May 2010

PricePaid: 500 CAD (S/H) Purchased From: Used Model Year: 1998 Features: [8] The guitar has a solid alder two piece body.The pick ups are three single-coil pickups and staggered Alnico magnet pole pieces. Mine has a heavily tinted maple neck. Its has the old vintage style tuners. It comes with a deluxe gig bag. Sounds: [7] I play just about every style, having been in a cover band for the last 11 years and have been teaching all styles in a private school for the last four. It covers just about every sound. Put enough overdrive on it and I can pull off the metal stuff too. I play it through a fender champ at home and another Fender 60 watt tube at work. I find the tone seems to change a great deal on the larger amp(obviously a bit is expected) but to the point where I was about to swap out the pickups from hearing it through the champ then was impressed with the versatility of them on the 60 watt. Probably gonna swap them anyway. With stock pick ups I give it a 7. I'm thinking the vintage 57/62 as a replacement. Action, Fit & Finish: [9] I bought it used a while ago and everything felt really good. The frets were smooth along the edges and the action was not too low but just where I liked it. These are all things that can be fixed up even if they were a problem , but what I was impressed with and still am is that the tuners are rock solid and accurate. The guitar hardly ever goes out of tune. The neck in the spec sheet says it has a smaller radius and soft v. The neck is easier for me to wrap my hand around (Thumbed chords) To be honest though I don't know if it's to do with the radius or the soft v. Either way with smaller hands I do like the fit. Reliability & Durability: [9] Live it works well and is reliable, and as everybody always says....you get to take a 50's style strat out to the show and you don't have to worry about having it stolen or broken (Even though I would be upset if either happened because I truely do love this guitar. Overall Rating: [9] Overall I would buy another if something happened to this one. I may not want to pay the list price for it but finding one used for 4 or 5 hundred I would do again in a flash. Mine is a two tone sunburst. I was a little concerned with how dark the vintage neck tint was....almost to the point of not buying it...but I looked up real 50's strats and found that the last one made in 54 called the Lady Rose looks identical to mine....the neck color and everything. Love it

Submitted by: Jason Barnham on 13 February 2005

PricePaid: 575 EUR (New) Purchased From: Local shop Model Year: 2002 Features: [8] Mexican Fender reissue of a 50s Strat. It's got an alder body and mine's in Surf Green. The neck is quite chunky with a soft V shape. The neck is all maple with 21 frets - it also has a slight "aged" tint to it. It came with a deluxe gig bag although I bought a case at the same time as I don't really like soring my guitars in gig bags. As you'd expect from a Strat it's got 3 single coil pickups with a five position switch, one volume and 2 tone controls. Pickup covers and and the volume/tone knobs are aged plastic to give a slightly brown / yellowed finish. The single ply pick guard is not though which does take from the complete aged look. Sounds: [8] The sound was not bad straight out of the box. Although it sounded very strat like it was a bit thin sounding. Believe it or not I had been given some PUPs from a USA 57 Reissue Strat about 10 years ago and they'd been sitting in a box all that time as I'd never got round to buying a Strat to put them in. Within a few weeks of owning this guitar I'd taken out the originals and replaced them with, the much better, USA vintage reissues. There was an immediate jump in sound quality. Having these PUPs was one of the main reasons I didn't spring the extra for the American 57 Vintage Reissue. Action, Fit & Finish: [7] Definately set up quite well although I did give it some adjustments after playing it for a week. It didn't need much and was more of a case of making it suit me 100% rather than it actually needing anything much. One disappointment is that there was some indentations near the 21st fret. It looks like tool marks when they were fitting the frets. It's not where it's likely to affect my playing but it's a bit naughty that it got through quality control. I'd ordered it in and although I could have made some fuss and got another, it did play very well so I could have been tempting fate by sending for another and getting something not so playable back. The surf green paintwork is flawlessly applied and is my favourite colour of the available ones for this model. Reliability & Durability: [8] I did have a minor issue with the original switch and send for one from an American series. Basically the old one occassionally wouldn't kick in on one of the PUPs and left it dead. It could well of been due to my over enthusiastic soldering when I installed the new PUPs as it really was thin metal. When I got the USA one you could really tell the difference - it was a much more positive feeling switch and I've not had a problem since. If you are thinking of upgrading the PUPs it's probably worth paying the small amount extra to do the switch while you're at it. Other than that it's extremely well made and as with most Fender's if you look after it you'll be able to pass it down to your children! Overall Rating: [8] I'm lucky enough to own a Custom Shop 60 Stratocaster. This is obviously not up to that standard but it still has that vintage vibe and is better suited for taking to places you don't want to be worrying about what happens so much. Even owning 2 Strats I still pick this one up quite regularly as it has such a different feel to the other one. These are definately good value for what they are and I doubt if they'd dissapoint many people. The PUP change was difinately an improvement but I may well not have bothered if they were already ditting there in my box of bits. I've played some of the USA 57 Reissues and in many ways this plays better. It's definately worth making some side by side comparisons - you may even save yourself some money.