Fender American Standard Stratocaster News . An American icon is setting a new American Standard.
Fender, the company that popularised the electric guitar and invented the electric bass guitar, is introducing a new line of American Standard Stratocaster (Strat) guitars, marking the first overall part-by-part detail improvement of the iconic instruments in eight years.
The new Fender American Standard Stratocaster (Strat) series stays true to the original classic models that made them timeless, while incorporating modern advances in design, materials, and production to make them the most versatile instruments available to today’s players and professional guitarists.
“Rock ‘n’ roll history does not follow a straight line,” said Justin Norvell, senior marketing manager for Fender electric guitars. “Every generation has had its artists that made that line take a sharp turn in a new direction, whether it be the fuzz-drenched psychedelia of the ’60s, the angular punk of the ’70s or the sturm und drang of the ‘Seattle Sound’ in the ’90s. At the forefront of all of those evolutions was Fender. Fender is ready for the next batch of players who will be creating and discovering that next sound.”
Following several years of research, experimentation, interviews with musicians, and isolated variable examination, Fender Musical Instruments Corp. has unveiled the new Fender American Standard Strat Series of guitars for 2008.
Fender American Standard Series supercedes Fender American Series
The Fender American Standard Series consists of the Standard Stratocaster, Stratocaster HSS, Telecaster, Precision Bass, Precision Bass 5-String, Jazz Bass, Jazz Bass Fretless and Jazz Bass 5-String. Left-handed Stratocaster, Telecaster, Precision Bass and Jazz Bass models are also available.
Available finishes across the range are as follows: 3-Colour Sunburst, Olympic White, Black, Candy Cola, Sienna Sunburst, Blizzard Pearl, Charcoal Frost, while the Telecaster is additionally available in Crimson Red Transparent and Natural, both of which have a 3-ply black guard rather than the regular parchment.
New Fender American Standard Strat
The Fender American Standard Strat Series (which supercedes Fender American Series) offers superior tone, performance, durability, and style, while retaining the quality and design that have made Fender Stratocaster popular for more than half a century.
The new Fender American Standard Strats have a new neck and body finishes, with satin finishes on the rear of the necks combined with gloss-finished headstock fascias, and even gloss-finished fingerboards on the maple fingerboard guitars and basses. In addition, the Fender American Standard Stratocasters have a new Delta Tone circuit governing the bridge and middle pickups.
The Fender American Standard Strat bodies have a new thinner undercoat for improved resonance. However, popular features from the American Series such as hand-rolled fingerboard edges and alnico pickup magnets are retained.
Relying on a reverse-engineering approach, Fender utilized precision tools and expert ears to isolate the elements that make their instruments so great: tone, comfort, playability and durability. Fender’s goal - to create instruments that inspire today’s players to “make history” with their music, from country to punk, blues to funk, and everything in between.
In summary, significant improvements to the Fender American Series Stratocaster (now replaced by the Fender American Standard Stratocaster) include a redesigned bridge, new bent-steel saddles with elongated string slots, a new neck and body finish, and a Fender-exclusive high-tech moulded case.
Buy your Fender American Standard Stratocaster from DV247 or visit DV Guitars in North London, Romford (DV Retail Warehouse) or Cambridge.
About Fender
Leo Fender founded the company bearing his name in 1946 in Fullerton, Calif., and by 1950 was leading what has become the most potent creative surge in the history of electric instrument design and manufacture. Fender’s monumental accomplishments include designing the first commercially successful solid-body guitar - the Telecaster; the invention of the modern electric bass guitar, which transformed popular music; and the introduction of the most influential of all electric guitars—the Stratocaster.
With such an enormous effect on popular music worldwide, it is safe to say that music simply would not sound the way it does today without Fender instruments. Elegantly enduring and revered classics of design, the Telecaster, Stratocaster, Precision Bass and Jazz Bass guitars transformed the way that music was performed, recorded and perceived by the entire world such that their very existence fueled not only musical revolutions, but also cultural revolutions. They changed the way musicians work with their tools, facilitated new sounds and techniques, and revolutionized the way the entire industry designs and builds instruments.
Fender American Standard Stratocaster: We can still improve perfection
“To take these instruments and to respect all of the classic aspects of their design—all of the things that Leo Fender got right at the outset, which are so remarkable—but also to say, ‘We can still improve perfection’, is exactly the spirit that Leo Fender himself brought to his imaginative work every day,” said noted Fender historian and author Tom Wheeler. “The results of this reintroduction of the Fender American Standard Stratocaster will be very impressive to those who take great care and interest in every detail of their instruments.”
As testimony to their original rightness, Fender instruments have existed largely unchanged for more than half a century. Yet time and time again exciting new life is found in them by the myriad artists who are inspired to play a Fender and express themselves. Leo Fender himself was continually discovering new life in his instruments as he strove to improve upon his incredible designs. That spirit of innovation and the interrelation of artist and instrument are still driving forces at today’s Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.
Buy your Fender American Standard Stratocaster from DV247 or visit DV Guitars in North London, Romford (DV Retail Warehouse) or Cambridge.