About two years ago I bought A Squire Strat classic series, Changed the bridge pick up. added the tone control on that pick up too. Played with the set up a lot, couldn't get the action really low, but came up with some compromise, after a series of trail and error of shims. Flatten the frets then crowned them, not a bad set up after a lot of tinkering.
My preference for a Strat is my basically my go around guitar amongst the Tele and Les Paul, probably the comfort of the contour body as well as using the floating bridge with out the bar.
Someone at work mentioned that he rented an American Strat to do a gig and was impressed with the super low action of the guitar. So I researched the net on this subject and went off to my local music store and auditioned a few Fenders strats.
I will say that the Mexican strats are great, the action is low as well as the appearance. Plug em in and they sound really good, not much different then the squire strat, they are priced between the American standard and the Squire axes.
I read about the Fender American special strat, spotted one in stock and went back to the store to try out one. The sales man was gone for a while and while I waited I compared a Mexican Strat to a standard and noticed the Standard wasn't as stingy in the upper frequencies as the Mexican, while auditioning on a Fender twin amp.
Although the American Special was water damaged he brought out American Standard in its hard shell case with cream colored with a maple neck and just looking at the complete package simply wowed me. I went into the loud room, fired up an orange combo an played both modes of clean and distortion, I was sold by the vibe and super low action. Throw in the case strap allen keys, cord, Fender strap with a bonus Apex clamp tuner, the extra $ was worth it.
My preference for a Strat is my basically my go around guitar amongst the Tele and Les Paul, probably the comfort of the contour body as well as using the floating bridge with out the bar.
Someone at work mentioned that he rented an American Strat to do a gig and was impressed with the super low action of the guitar. So I researched the net on this subject and went off to my local music store and auditioned a few Fenders strats.
I will say that the Mexican strats are great, the action is low as well as the appearance. Plug em in and they sound really good, not much different then the squire strat, they are priced between the American standard and the Squire axes.
I read about the Fender American special strat, spotted one in stock and went back to the store to try out one. The sales man was gone for a while and while I waited I compared a Mexican Strat to a standard and noticed the Standard wasn't as stingy in the upper frequencies as the Mexican, while auditioning on a Fender twin amp.
Although the American Special was water damaged he brought out American Standard in its hard shell case with cream colored with a maple neck and just looking at the complete package simply wowed me. I went into the loud room, fired up an orange combo an played both modes of clean and distortion, I was sold by the vibe and super low action. Throw in the case strap allen keys, cord, Fender strap with a bonus Apex clamp tuner, the extra $ was worth it.
)
And I must mention to SteveB above, that the current model Mexican HSS humbucker splits to single coil when combined with the middle pickup, that's how Fender did the wiring. (Don't know about other Fender HSS models) However there is no control there to split the pickup when it's selected by itself.
