Fender Player II Stratocaster
Hey folks. I wanted to wait a bit to allow the hype fest to pass before getting to my review of the new Player II series Stratocaster from Fender.
The Player II series are manufactured in the Fender plant in Ensenada Mexico. Fender has been building instruments there for decades and while there have been periods of inconsistency, the overall outcomes have been excellent. I still own Fender products made in that plant that have stood the test of time and in all retained cases been as good as, and in one scenario, in my opinion, superior to the work coming out of the Corona California factory.
One of the initial hallmarks of the Ensenada factory was the excellent value one got for the money. That has been dissipating over time as Fender increases prices regularly for all their products. So long as customers will pay, they will continue to do so, despite an overall lack of comparable quality increases. That’s the market.
The Player I series were decent instruments, but were, in my view, and that of others, very inconsistent. You could with some searching, find a great one, but mostly they needed a lot of work at the store or after the fact to be viable. The use of lower grade components ostensibly would keep the price down, although that argument can be challenged readily.
The Player II Stratocaster that I have for evaluation has surprised me. I want to acknowledge the support provided to the channel by The Arts Music Store who made the effort to get one of these new and highly demanded instruments into my hands. While there are discounts available on Player I models in many locations, I will state without hesitation that if you can afford to go Player II, it is in your best interest to do so, because based on this guitar, as well as some very short and admittedly hardly complete play sessions on others, the Player II is a SIGNIFICANT step up. And being priced at $1149 CAD MAP as reviewed, you are getting an excellent guitar at a very reasonable price for the Fender brand on the headstock.
While I have a Fiesta Red Stratocaster already, this Coral Red is just beautiful. Like a ‘57 Chevy Bel Air
Specifications
I pulled the specifications directly from the Fender website for clarity and to save retyping.
Note that the instrument now says Made in Ensenada, not Made in Mexico and also the 70th Anniversary logo
First Impressions
The first thing that I noticed upon handling the Stratocaster in question, this one in the stunning Coral Red paint is that the quality and depth of the finish is a big step up from the prior series. I have been one of many who have said that most new Fender models are really just the old model shot with a different colour. The colours are indeed different, but the depth of the finish is visibly better and the gloss top coat is clear and not millimeters thick. It’s not nitro-cellulose lacquer and let’s be honest, the majority will never notice and fewer will care. The polyester finish is hard and durable. The Stratocaster that I have has the rosewood fingerboard. Fender has made a big deal out of going back to rosewood from Pau Ferro. I find this noise to be more marketing spin than anything truly valid. Rosewood looks darker than Pau Ferro, but Fender charges a premium for Pau Ferro on some of its instruments. Fender as noted above specifies the fingerboard as slab rosewood, but not which rosewood, which to a wood dork like myself diminishes the value of the claim as not all rosewoods are Dalbergia and the different varieties of Dalbergia can be significantly different. Based on the colouration in my sample, I am guessing Madagascar Rosewood, which is one of the hardest subspecies and a fine choice for a fingerboard. Pau Ferro is more yellow than dark brown and is not as hard, but still considerably harder than what is defined to be hard maple.
The neck is a smooth C and finished in a satin urethane that prevents stickiness and in my hands, it was very comfortable and no arthritic pain struck me at all. The edges of the fingerboard are gently rolled, far more than the Player I but not as aggressively as what Sire does. I would call it a very comfortable played in feel. The 22 frets are what Fender calls medium jumbo, neither too wide nor too tall and complement the 9.5” radius well. The material is not specified but they are not my preference of stainless steel or the super hardened Jescar. Call them vintage if you prefer colloquial terms that just mean old style. The nut is synthetic bone but not labelled as Tusq. The scale length is the expected 25 ½ inches so for Fender players, it is old home week. The truss rod is adjustable at the headstock, a user level improvement over the vintage demand of neck removal. This has been a consistency in the Mexico built instruments for some time and folks who play their guitars, rather than just hang them on the wall will appreciate this adjustability.
The version I have shows a more cream coloured pickguard that appears older while not being so
The body on this guitar is alder and it is pleasingly lightweight. The body shape is classic Stratocaster and the fit and finish work looks great. The output jack is on the front as expected, so a straight plug rather than angled will be preferred.
The pickups in my sample are in the HSS configuration. I requested HSS because I recently reviewed the incredibly great Yamaha Pacifica Standard + which had come in that configuration and I see the two as viable options for the same buyer.
The bridge is an Alnico II Player Humbucker. Being Alnico 2 it is not overly hot and fairly neutral from a frequency response. There is no coil tap or coil split option for this pickup, so you will not get that classic Strat single coil bridge sound in this configuration but if that is important to you there is an SSS version available priced a bit lower. To me the humbucker sounds fine, and any missing bite is easily achieved in the tone stack on the amp or with an EQ pedal. The middle pickup is a snappy Player Series Alnico 5 single coil that still provides a really smooth and balanced sound. The hotter wind means that you do not get volume changes when switching pickups. The neck pickup is also a Player Series Alnico 5 single coil. The 5 way selector does what you expect. Bridge, bridge with middle, middle, middle with neck, and neck. Since most Strat players want to know, position 4 sounds exactly like what it is supposed to sound like, meaning glorious. There is a master volume, positioned nice and close to the bridge for volume swells and two tone controls. The middle tone adjusts the neck and middle and the far tone adjusts the bridge. Fender does not specify a treble bleed and I do not hear the presence of one. I do not disassemble guitars for my reviews unless specifically authorized to do so.
The bridge and tailpiece use the old style bent steel saddles, and I wish that Fender had gone with a modern saddle as I am less enamoured with a 70 year old design that has been improved over time. They did go to a two point vibrato (Fender still calls it a tremolo) that is very smooth and my definite preference over the ancient six anchor screw design. I give credit to The Arts Music Store. The tailpiece set up was perfect for me supporting a bit of up bend in addition to down. At the other end, the tuning machines are Classic Fender, meaning generic. This is cost issue, although for my preference, I would much prefer the Fender locking tuners by Schaller. I would also replace that friction filled string tree with one from Graph Tech. A $16 spend that makes all kinds of positive difference if you have a vibrato tailpiece.
As regular readers would expect, I hate the factory strings. They are the cheapest wire that I think is available and the Fender logo does nothing to make them better. The guitar comes strung with .009 to .042 strings, which is ok, but the strings feel so gritty and stiff that were I buying this guitar, replacing the strings with something decent would be job one. While I would go with my own signature balanced tension strings from Curt Mangan, for most people, I would propose D’Addario NYXL strings in as light a gauge as is comfortable for you. There’s no evidence of superior tone from heavier strings, but you should use what feels good to you.
Playability and Example Tones
The balance of this Strat is excellent whether playing seated or standing. It hangs nicely on a good strap and there is no fatigue built up as result of weight, although a good strap makes a world of difference. Yes I am aware that I repeated myself in the same sentence.
The out of the box set up was very good. The vibrato was set perfectly for my preferences and while the action was a bit higher than I would prefer, it was perfectly acceptable. Action is a very personal preference. There were no fret outs and no fret buzz.
The pickups sound excellent. I used several different amps including a Fender Blonde Tonemaster Deluxe Reverb, a Soldano SLO-Mini as well as a variety of known and trusted rigs in my Kemper Stage including my go to Super Reverb, a Deluxe Reverb, a Marshall 2555 Silver Jubilee and a VOX AC 30 with the channels jumped.
For the recorded examples, I used the Kemper into a Universal Audio Apollo and then into Logic Pro. While I think vintage, authentic and iconic are words that should trigger everyone’s bullshit detectors, given that this guitar is meant to emulate an old Stratocaster, albeit with some smart modernizations, I chose a Fender Tweed Deluxe as my amp for the examples, the well respected 5E3 and a favourite of my pal Fraser.
I chose two simple amp settings built using Kemper profiles built by the team at Tone Junkie. The clean is the profile for the Tweed Deluxe at 1 and the overdriven is the profile for the Tweed Deluxe at 3. In my preparatory research, many sources said that the amp at 3 is the optimal tweed overdriven tone. I cannot disagree, and found that turning the volume up more (profiles built at different settings) just thickened and muddied the tone.
IMAGE COPYRIGHT COPENHAGEN FINE GUITARS SOURCED FROM VINTAGEANDRAREGUITARS.COM
As you can see from the image above, the 5E3 is pretty simple. You will notice that as was common in this era (this is a 1957 build) there are four inputs, two for microphones and two for instruments. I used a single Instrument input profile rather than a microphone input profile or a jumped input profile. If you want those for your Kemper (or Quad Cortex, Tonex or Helix), check out tonejunkiestore.com
I did no post production on the example tracks. They are just what the profiles output to Logic Pro. The first track is the clean version as noted earlier and consists of a G chord played at each pickup switch position starting at the bridge and ending at the neck, followed by a basic I IV V chord progression and then some single note stuff. The second track is with the Tweed Deluxe volume at 3, and has a variation on the same I IV V progression and then some alternative single note stuff.
The two serve to give you a fair sense of what clean and OD sound like from this guitar into a very simple amplifier. Do note that the Kemper profile includes a light spring reverb and a very subtle slap back delay. I left both active because I liked the sound.
Wrapping Up
I’m impressed. Much more impressed than I expected to be, having been underwhelmed with most all the Fender instruments that I have played that were new in the last year or so. The Player II is a great guitar and if you are looking for the Fender vibe and the Fender look, you will not go wrong. If I were spending my own money, despite how excellent the Player II Stratocaster is, I would personally still go for the Yamaha Pacifica Standard + because while it is nearly $400 more, the frets are stainless steel, the Rupert Neve design pickups are outstanding, the bridge humbucker can be split by pulling up a pot and to me, it felt better. However, how the guitar fits you is far more important than how it fits me. But that is not the point. The point is that if you want a Fender Stratocaster, the Player II Stratocaster is a complete winner and in my opinion, plays and sounds as good as a Fender USA top model at less than half the price. It is a tremendous guitar. In my opinion, don’t buy a Player I on clearance. Spend the extra and get the Player II. It is a substantially better instrument.
If you want to try one out, or make a purchase, please either visit The Arts Music Store in Newmarket, or shop online as they ship Canada wide. I thank them profusely for their support of my work and for making this review possible.
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