I will be looking forward to seeing/hearing them! Cheers MitchWell, I'll keep the stock look and as a matter of fact even the stock pickups for now. Only upgrade I'll be ordering are the graphtech saddles to get the string spacing right and then the most important thing is: play that beauty.
I'll try to find the time and post some clips
So a few weeks ago I put my Gibson LP Studio online for sale since I wanted to downsize a bit and I could use cash (got laid off):
View attachment 56082 View attachment 56083 View attachment 56084 View attachment 56085 View attachment 56086 View attachment 56087
Got the guitar in a trade 2 years ago and although it was a nice instrument every time I'd look at it I'd be like meh. I know that being superficial when it comes to instruments is stupid; it should play well and sound good but in my experience if it's visually pleasing it makes you pick the guitar up more often which is certainly a good thing.
Dude offered me a Mexi Strat in Candy Apple Red for trade; my favourite colour on Fenders. I thought what the hell, let's go check it out and see if I like the axe well enough to give the LP away for it.
Long story short, I walked out with it and took some pics in the sun:
View attachment 56088 View attachment 56089
Now this is my first "real" Fender, all my guitars including my Custom Strat have a fretboard radius of 12" and I wasn't sure if I was gonna like the 9,5" on this one. I have to say it doesn't really make all that much of a difference to me.
She feels amazing, unlike the feeling I get with some cheaper Mexi guitars that is hard to describe I love the neck and the finish on it, the rosewood board is pretty and dark and altogether if it didn't say made in Mexico on it I would believe if someone told me it was a USA Fender.
Now I probably got the worse part of the deal if you look at it in regards to cash, my LP came with a hardcase and the dude only had a Fender gigbag for me. But I really love this guitar so far, the feel, the sound, the handling and it's a nice change (I seem to need here and there, most of my guitars come and go, a few stay and are here for good)
Now he already took care of the most important things on it, it has locking tuners, the trem saddles got upgraded to Fender ones, he installed a bigger block, it has a bone nut, the electronics were redone and he even threw in a roller string tree and a Fender Strap.
The only issue with the guitar that's easily fixed is the alignment of the strings, the high E is a bit too close to the fretboard edge. That's nothing I haven't seen before though and I'll do the old shifting the neck in the pocket and retightening the screws trick here.
Soundwise I really like what I'm hearing although doing the A/B test with my Custom Strat I don't feel like the current Singlecoils sound all that much more Fenderish compared to the Areas to justify hum. So my next step will probably be swapping out the pickups for the Area 61/67/58 set. DiMarzio has done a great job on these, probably the closest you can get to the real deal with humcancelling singlecoils.
What's left to say? This will be my new blues axe, I changed my Custom Strat to a HSS setup since I play lots of Hard Rock with the band and need that extra push from the Humbucker, I'll be doing Hendrix, SRV and Clapton on this. And some Dire Straits tunes of course since it has almost the same look as the red Knopfler Strat.
New guitar and a job interview tomorrow, so hopefully employment. Let a new chapter begin!
p.s.: I dubbed her Candy. My GF said that's a strippers name and the guitar is a slut but oh well, she's always jealous when she sees the way I look at my guitars
