Telecaster Guitar Forum - View Single Post

Tom S · March 5th, 2008, 02:19 PM

Well, Fender certainly has a ripe audience here. C'mon folks, this time around, you've got to be at least a little skeptical...

According to Jay Piccirillo, marketing manager (for basses), “So we set out on a journey; asking ourselves, ‘What makes a great Strat® great?’ We stripped these instruments back to blank bodies and wood, and tested individual specs one at a time—alloys of bridge blocks, saddle material, neck and body finishes; rebuilding them from the ground up. We left no tonal stone unturned. These experiments helped us distill the recipe.”

So apparently, previous Fender Strats do not have "the" recipe. I guess that somewhat negates all the comments by famous players that Fender uses in the video on the American Standard site. And further, how does this necessarily translate to the Telecaster?

Supposedly, the new bridge plate increases resonance and sustain. Oh, really? Is there any way to document this? Is this due to old-style strat saddles or the two extra screws? If two extra screws makes an obvious difference, why aren't those similar Squier bridges all the rage? I must have missed all the buzz about how much more resonant Squier Teles were with these extra screws. And where is the hue and cry over how poorly resonant the modern-style bridge plate is in the previous American Standard? I haven't heard it.

Here's a good one: "Thinner finish undercoat lets the the body breathe and improves resonance." How? Are they kidding? Lets the body breathe? Under the "top" finish? Are previous American Standards a little suffocated? And just what is the "finish undercoat"? How does thinning it improve resonance? Does anyone seriously believe that by solely using a "thinner" undercoat (whatever that is), and leaving the rest of the finish as before, the guitar will now "breathe" better? If that were true, and assuming a guitar body "breathes" at all, why not just eliminate the "finish undercoat"? Wouldn't that make more sense? Bottom line, this is all gobbledygook. Try covering your head with two plastic bags of the same thickness, then switching the inner bag with a thinner one to see if you breate any better.

"A new neck treatment-tinted for a richer presentation, with the fingerboard buffed to a high gloss, The back of the neck still has that silky satin finish." This says nothing about the neck other than the finish. If they have made any actual geometric changes to the neck (changes that could actually be worth talking about), they haven't mentioned them. So the only conclusion one can make is that this is purely a cosmetic change, probably in response to the fact that a lot of people complain about the too-light look of current necks (that look too much like less-expensive models).

I generally like Fender guitars, and I'm not saying the new American Series are not perfectly fine guitars. In fact, I believe Fender is making a better product in recent years than they ever produced in thier entire history. But are these latest changes really improvements or an attempt to once again breath some new life (with new hype) into an ongoing bread and butter product line?

March 5th, 2008, 02:19 PM	#13 (permalink)
Tom S Friend of Leo's Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 2,208 49 Photos	Well, Fender certainly has a ripe audience here. C'mon folks, this time around, you've got to be at least a little skeptical... According to Jay Piccirillo, marketing manager (for basses), “So we set out on a journey; asking ourselves, ‘What makes a great Strat® great?’ We stripped these instruments back to blank bodies and wood, and tested individual specs one at a time—alloys of bridge blocks, saddle material, neck and body finishes; rebuilding them from the ground up. We left no tonal stone unturned. These experiments helped us distill the recipe.” So apparently, previous Fender Strats do not have "the" recipe. I guess that somewhat negates all the comments by famous players that Fender uses in the video on the American Standard site. And further, how does this necessarily translate to the Telecaster? Supposedly, the new bridge plate increases resonance and sustain. Oh, really? Is there any way to document this? Is this due to old-style strat saddles or the two extra screws? If two extra screws makes an obvious difference, why aren't those similar Squier bridges all the rage? I must have missed all the buzz about how much more resonant Squier Teles were with these extra screws. And where is the hue and cry over how poorly resonant the modern-style bridge plate is in the previous American Standard? I haven't heard it. Here's a good one: "Thinner finish undercoat lets the the body breathe and improves resonance." How? Are they kidding? Lets the body breathe? Under the "top" finish? Are previous American Standards a little suffocated? And just what is the "finish undercoat"? How does thinning it improve resonance? Does anyone seriously believe that by solely using a "thinner" undercoat (whatever that is), and leaving the rest of the finish as before, the guitar will now "breathe" better? If that were true, and assuming a guitar body "breathes" at all, why not just eliminate the "finish undercoat"? Wouldn't that make more sense? Bottom line, this is all gobbledygook. Try covering your head with two plastic bags of the same thickness, then switching the inner bag with a thinner one to see if you breate any better. "A new neck treatment-tinted for a richer presentation, with the fingerboard buffed to a high gloss, The back of the neck still has that silky satin finish." This says nothing about the neck other than the finish. If they have made any actual geometric changes to the neck (changes that could actually be worth talking about), they haven't mentioned them. So the only conclusion one can make is that this is purely a cosmetic change, probably in response to the fact that a lot of people complain about the too-light look of current necks (that look too much like less-expensive models). I generally like Fender guitars, and I'm not saying the new American Series are not perfectly fine guitars. In fact, I believe Fender is making a better product in recent years than they ever produced in thier entire history. But are these latest changes really improvements or an attempt to once again breath some new life (with new hype) into an ongoing bread and butter product line?