Just got home from a 6 month USAF "vacation" in the sandbox and decided I deserved a new guitar. Looking at the Fender "Fat Strats" because a couple of my buddies have them and say they're a good mix of sound styles with the two single coil pickups and a humbucker bridge pickup. Kind of the most bang for the buck. Heading to Sweetwater Sound tomorrow to check them out. Doesn't seem like a bad deal for $500.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/StratFatMBSB

Played a lot of Rocksmith and Rocksmith 2014 while I was away on my Squire mini strat...wanting to upgrade.

A friend took delivery of one of these new HSS Strats last week, black with black scratch plate and he has already declared that after over 45 years on Strats this one provides the best range of sounds he has ever had!

They are double that price over here - about �735.

The sweet water one is Most likely a Mexican Strat, which explains the price. You can't beat it for $500 though!

I've got a Korean made PRS which sounds and plays great for about the same price.

That's a sweet looking Strat, as Old Dux says guitars are very expensive over here, I picked up a Cobain signature Mustang a few months ago and it cost me around �700.

I love my Mustang, it fits me better than the Strat clone I started on and it sounds fantastic!

http://intl.fender.com/en-GB/series/artist/kurt-cobain-mustang-rosewood-fingerboard-fiesta-red/

Been a Strat guy for years. Looks like a nice guitar.

Welcome home Weasel and enjoy that guitar!

Never was big on white Sunbursts, but this is going to be a really nice guitar.

Welcome home, WK!

And have fun choosing your new guitar. What amp will you be running it through?

They have many different finishes, I just posted the one...lol. Probably go with one of the darker sunbursts...or which ever one jumps at me in the store. Got to take the wife with me to hold the checkbook so she may even have a say...lol.

No idea yet. I'll run it through my Rocksmith games on my computer for now. I have a cheap little Fender 10G just for giggles right now but want to get something with a few more effects and maybe pedals for later. Maybe something like a Fender Mustang combo...I don't know. That's why they have personal sales assistants at Sweetwater who know their stuff...lol.

Welcome back Jay.

I have read good things about the Fender Mustangs, and they impress on YouTube demos.

I used to own a Vox VT30 modeling amp, and it was very flexible and enjoyable. Louder than I could ever use indoors, too! But I didn't feel it captured the "Fender" amp tone as well as a Fender. After my arthritis got to where I hadn't been able to play in nearly 2 years, I sold it.

My original cheapo Peavey 10W practice amp still survives, though. I built a plywood cabinet, did a fabric wrap, and bought a Weber 12" speaker. Took the guts from the cheapo Peavy and mounted it inside. Gives me an incredibly full, rich clean tone (I rarely play distortion).

Not bad for parting out a $60 practice amp!



A couple years ago I hand wired a tremolo circuit and built it into the cabinet:

Yeah JC it will be a Mexican at that price, or it is an absolute steal. All of my Strats are American, but I do have a Mexican Tele, and it's a fine guitar (looks identical to the Squire in Adlabs pics). It used to be that the Mexican ones had inferior electronics, and I felt the nut and fretwork was inconsistent at best. Truth is you can have an amazing Mexican or a crap American, it's all about the individual guitar, innit?

Your PRS is a SE? I have one of those. It's the Custom-22 style. Decent guitar, but the nut was terrible and it needed a setup and some fret leveling. Nice looking flametop with zebras and a dark rosewood board. Problem is I can't play it sitting down. The bottom of the guitar is shaped so that it slips right off my leg.

Did you learn to play using Rocksmith?

I've always wanted to learn guitar and I heard from multiple people that Rocksmith works great to teach beginners, I've had it on my Amazon wishlist along with a basic $100 guitar for a while, curious if that's what you did?

Kludger, I started learning with Rocksmith and if you can live with the horrid GUI it's quite the thing. It also has something against my 3-screen system and the application will not start so I hardly play anymore.

If you get started you should check out http://www.justinguitar.com/ . Good lessons, and free.

-C-

Cool Charlie_SB thanks for that info.

I have 3 monitors too, so will do some research to see if there's any workaround, otherwise I guess I could get it for my PS4.

Welcome back Weasel_Keeper.....very happy to see you.

BTW...I just watched a short bit on TV about the Fenders, and how much the price has risen since the 70's.
I guess some can be 'very' pricey.

Probably a good investment.

Rocksmith works fine on my 3 monitor setup. I might be running windowed though, but it is fine.

I played quite a bit when I was young, and have just picked it up again.

I find Rocksmith a pretty good learning aid, and it does seem like it goes over the basics pretty well. Between that and some good Youtubers, it is a lot easier to learn nowadays than when I was young.



EDIT: To save some $$ just order the cable from Amazon, and the game from Steam, unless you are going to play on console.

Thanks for the useful info Mojo!

Our local music store has an American Strat for $700, which sounds like a good deal to me, but no way I'll get that past the wife!

My PRS is an SE-245 - single cut, looks and plays kinda like a Les Paul. Tone and volume for each pickup and a 3-way switch wired like a Gibson. I hears somewhere that Gibson had a fit and made them stop this design because it looks too much like a Les. Nut seemed fine to me, but I had to open the D and G a bit when I switched from the stock 9's to 10's. Since then it's been rock steady tuning wise.