player opinions

Fender Fat Strat Floyd Rose

Fender Fat Strat Floyd Rose

  1. Name: Doug

  2. Model Year: 1997

  3. Price Paid: $599 + 280 to modify

  4. Performance

  5. I’m the guy that left the other two comments about this same guitar. I have had it fixed by the Fender tech, final cost $280 dollars. Click here to see what was done. The guitar now works even better than the first day I took it home. But it came with a hefty price that I’m not all that happy about. This thing should hold its value now though, considering it will NEVER break like that again and even sounds a little better.

  6. Performance Rating: 9

  7. Sound Quality

  8. It picked up some more resonance with the brass fitting pressed into the body to support the bridge. Sounds better in my opinion than it ever has.

  9. Sound Quality Rating: 8

  10. Construction

  11. The product is very very solid now, better than from factory, this guy really does quality work and anyone in New Jersey should check him out.

  12. Construction Rating: 9

  1. Name: Doug

  2. Model Year: 1997

  3. Price Paid: $599

  4. Performance

  5. This particular model, at least the one I bought, has a flaw in its design. The routing for the bridge humbucker pickup is too close to the routing for the recessed Floyd Rose bridge. The result of that is, due to tension from strings and stuff, that the tremolo post has pulled through the wood in between these routings, breaking the wood in between. The Fender tech who I am dealing with right now has done all he can do, take pictures, consult with product support. And Fender will do nothing for me, except to suggest that I buy a new replacement body from them. Right now this thing is basically filled with epoxy where the holes are and the fittings for the tremolo posts ARE nice and snug. But I wonder how many days it will take for me to break it again. Probably not long. Would place my bet and say it will be broken again after 3 or 4 shots on the whammy bar. Everything I said about this guitar IS true. The sound quality, playability, etc., but it is a defective product and they are not going to back it up. So, in response, there is not much I can do except try to convince others out there, who might be curious about the quality of these products, that they are NOT what they once were.

    Fender is nothing more than another Multinational corporation who cares about nothing more than the almighty dollar. My advice to the guitar shopper out there who is reading this right now, doing research before they buy. Go to ebay, find one of those “guitar kit” packages out there. Go buy yourself a decal sublimation kit for 20bux, load up the fender logo in Adobe Photoshop, print it onto your decal kit. And stick it onto that piece of junk $150 guitar you just bought. Chances are, if you do this, you might just have a BETTER guitar than you can buy from Fender. All you are buying from them is a NAME.

  6. Performance Rating: 6

  7. Sound Quality

  8. Dimarzio makes a pretty good bridge humbucker. Floyd rose makes a good tremolo that works well. The neck is nice and smooth and very playable. The tuners work nicely. The bridge and neck pickups hiss and whine and don’t sound any better than a Hondo. Replace them with Seymour Duncans.

  9. Sound Quality Rating: 8

  10. Construction

  11. I’ll have to let you know how it stands up when I get it back. Right now I’m furious with the way that I have been shafted by Fender, so I’m sure that has some weight on what I’m saying. Like I said, the body is defective and broken, the rest of the guitar might sound good if Input it on a new body, one particularly NOT produced by Fender.

  12. Construction Rating: 2

  1. Name: Doug

  2. Model Year: 1997

  3. Price Paid: $599

  4. Performance

  5. Excellent guitar, however mine has a defect in the wood where the posts go that hold in the Floyd Rose trem. It’s in the shop being fixed. Besides that, it kicks butt. The wood on the Japanese models is much better quality than the AMERICAN ones. Yes that’s right. And the Japanese ones were cheaper. They stopped making them after 97 though. The Japanese reissue models are supposed to be even better sounding. Anyway, my guitar kicks butt, stays in tune, sounds great with the Dimarzio humbucker, and you can lift the tone dial up to split the humbucker to a single coil which is great. It looks a lot like the Richie Sambora Mexican model and probably shares a lot of the components: Floyd, Dimarzio — but, I can’t believe Richie puts his name on a Mexican Strat, ewww. If you can find one of these, I suggest you get your hands on it. The American ones are like 200 bucks more and they sound worse, but they have some better hardware on them. They just don’t get the nice resonance the Japanese ones get. A Fender salesman will never tell you this stuff because they get more money when they sell you the more expensive model.

  6. Performance Rating: 9

  7. Sound Quality

  8. The single coils are nothing to write home about. The Dimarzio humbucker sounds real good and you can switch it to single coil by lifting the tone dial up. Overall the guitar has a nice tone. You can hear it, even with no amp it has a nice clean sound, good sustain, good resonance.

  9. Sound Quality Rating: 9

  10. Construction

  11. Besides the problem with the body. Hopefully Fender is fixing it under warranty. I had it fixed once before but the shop guy just filled the hole with epoxy and redrilled... hopefully this time it will be done right. Besides that, it is the best sounding, most comfy, and most versatile Fender I have ever played. You can play blues, jazz, and then hit that distortion switch and make it scream.2

  12. Construction Rating: 8

links

  1. Average Ratings
  2. Performance: 8
  3. Sound Quality: 8.3
  4. Construction: 6.3
  5. Ratings Key
  6. 10: Excellent
  7. 0: Useless
  8. Company
  9. Fender

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