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I bought a Fender Professional Strat in white a few weeks ago from PMT Birmingham.

The compound radius neck feels great to play for me. The PU'S are pretty close in sound to the popular Fat 50's. I quite like the middle and neck PU'S. Always find the bridge a tad thin for live playing but other than that it's good. They come with the lower tone pot wired to roll off the bridge and middle and the other tone does the neck PU.

The two point trem comes with traditional style saddles rather than the blocks and I find it's more or less the same as the 6 point trem. Palm muting is good.

Staggered height tuners another plus with a bone nut and roller style string tree. Pop in style trem arm is great and stays in even in the well designed case.

The treble bleed circuit on the volume stops loss of highs when rolling volume down. For me this is fine on the neck and middle PU'S but maybe not with the thin sounding bridge PU.

I have modified it to a 7 sound strat utilising the bridge neck and all three combinations .

The weight of the guitar is nice and seems lighter than a few strats I have.

Off the shelf this guitar is very good overall and sounds better with a set of 11s fitted. I quite like all the modern updates Fender have included on this model.

I tried the Elite Strat as well at the store and did not get along so well with that. For me PU'S are fuller less vintage sounding noiseless and did not like rubbery feel knobs and truss rod adjuster looks ugly.

I can get good Shad sounds from the new guitar and it replaces a Vintage 57 reissue and I feel it is overall as good as that.

HTH

Could have done with some detail really Rog.

Thanks for this. Much appreciated.

Cheers, Alan.

I was down at Richtone Music again over the weekend and got to have a chat with James who owns the shop. He tells me that the Fender Professional Stratocaster is the replacement for the American Standard Strat. The one I looked at this time had a humbucker in the bridge position and was in a white finish, again nice enough to play but like the American Standard, not a guitar that I'd choose for myself.

hi alan just found this on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUNCHOQvQng peter

It's worth pointing out that Paul Rossiter and TVS Team often used an American Standard Strat fitted with CS54 PU's which have a two point trem and has the new block style saddles on. They got the correct sounds from that guitar during their recordings. It was fitted with heavy Elixir strings.

There will be no difference in sound between a two-point and six-point bridge, although you will always find people who say otherwise. probably the same people who believe in so-called 'tonewoods.'

I am considering buying a fender elite strat. There is a PMT music shop in Norwich. I often hear of Anderton's and Reidy's etc. Can anyone please recommend a particular dealer or would it be better staying local in case of problems?

Have posted 3 demo tunes using American Pro Series Strat in sound files section for info.

How many guitars, do a guitar player need ??
ONE MORE

regards Niels


My latest strat is a BLADE custom classic made in Japan 1992
Do I need it- NO
Do I want it - YES