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Post subject: any recommendations on the Surf Strat
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 6:28 am
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does anyone have any recommendations or thoughts on the Squire Vintage Surf guitars
http://shop.fender.com/en-US/squier-ele ... 20509.html
out of the box, is this thing going to need a lot of tweaking? is it going to loose it bindings in 13 weeks? How are the electronics? How are those lipstick pickups as compared to the stock ones? Are the pickups going to howl when I have her plug into the front end of a JCM 900 and throw a Muff Pi in the chain? Has anyone obtained one through mail order? How was the experience?

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'79 Fender Strat 3 bolt
'95 Takamini Sante-Fe New Yorker Parlor
'96 Fender American Standard LH
'98 Gibson SG LH
'03 G&L ASAT LH
Marshall JCM 900, BOSS, EH, Dunlop effects


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Post subject: Re: any recommendations on the Surf Strat
Posted: Fri May 06, 2016 4:49 am
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StratDragon wrote:
does anyone have any recommendations or thoughts on the Squire Vintage Surf guitars
http://shop.fender.com/en-US/squier-ele ... 20509.html
out of the box, is this thing going to need a lot of tweaking? is it going to loose it bindings in 13 weeks? How are the electronics? How are those lipstick pickups as compared to the stock ones? Are the pickups going to howl when I have her plug into the front end of a JCM 900 and throw a Muff Pi in the chain? Has anyone obtained one through mail order? How was the experience?


Just gonna toss my $.02 in here just to get things started for you.

First and foremost, the majority of inexpensive instruments today, regardless of brand, usually need a setup "right out of the box", particularly and especially if you're going mail order (Musician's Friend, Sweetwater, Ebay, etc).. Most, if not all such instruments typically receive a setup at the factory, however you must remember that after that setup was done, the instrument was boxed, shoved on a pallet, put in a warehouse, shipped to a distributor, yadda, yadda, and along the way that shipping carton has likely been bumped, knocked around, exposed to a variety of temperature and humidity condition and so on. In short, do NOT expect this instrument to play like a $4000 Custom Shop instrument that was placed in your hands by your local Fender sales rep! These days, even instruments that are purchased in a brick & mortar store often forgo any form of setup...they come out of the boxes, get tossed on the shelf and then beat on by every weekend wanker who happens to walk by. With most mail order companies, the instrument is never even taken out of the box before it's shipped to the customer...and the gods help ya if they happen to ship it UPS!

I happen to do my own setups and I will (usually) do a full setup on any new or used guitar I purchase, regardless of where (or who) I bought it from. That said, for someone who doesn't know how to do their own setups properly, you may wish to plan on a trip to a decent qualified tech before expecting much from the instrument. It -might- play pretty decent out of the box, but there's an equally fair chance it's gonna need some tweaking at the very least. This is NOT a reflection on the brand or quality of the instrument, it's simply the nature of how most music retailers do business these days. And in the case of mail order and shipping, never blame the guitar maker for the guys at UPS who like to wing such things out the back of the truck onto a concrete loading dock!

Not sure what you're referring to with binding...as far as I can see, this particular model doesn't have any. That said, my experience with instruments that have bound fretboards and/or bodies, it's usually more about how/where the instrument is kept than the price level of the instrument itself. Leave the instrument in a hot, humid environment and chances are the binding is going to peel regardless of how much the guitar cost. That said, even my old $100 Memphis LP knock off still has it's original binding...yellow as hell after 30 years of being around a heavy smoker, but it's never peeled or chunked off. While I'm not always successful, I do try very hard to take pretty good care of my instruments. On the other hand, take a $2000 Les Paul, knock it around, expose it to extreme temp/humidity chances, etc., and you can bet that binding is gonna peel too.

The pickups....eh. Ok, I will admit that I'm rather bias here and that as a general rule, I just don't really care for most stock Fender pickups...not even American Standard (sorry folks, but MIA pickups just suck). Given a choice, I tend to prefer Duncans or EMG's (and in my mind there is a SIGNIFICANT difference between genuine Duncans and "Duncan Designed"...not the same thing). I do have a '93 Black Label Fender with the special buy GFS over-wound Strat pickups that I am quite fond of and I do have a set of Fender Vintage Noisless in my '85 MIJ Squier that sound -very- sweet in that particular guitar (although those same pickups didn't sound nearly as good in my '96 MIM), but given a choice, I would personally take EMG's over just about any brand of pickup out there....that's just my own personal taste. With this in mind, I had played one of these Surf Strats a few months back as I was curious about the lipstick tubes as well and honestly...I just wasn't impressed. Based on the look, I had half expected it to sound like a Danelectro, but to me, it sounded pretty much like a run of the mill Strat...perhaps a tad thinner...nothing really special or extraordinary about theses pickups IMO. Pickup sound however is, obviously, a VERY subjective issue...everyone has different tastes, so they could in fact work quite well for your own particular needs (which I'll come back to in a bit). In other words, YMMV.

As far as the hardware goes, I don't really remember ALL the details, but looking at the listing, it all looks pretty decent...good quality saddles, vintage tuners., etc.. I do know that as a general rule, the Squires typically have a slightly thinner bridge plate than genuine Fenders do and they frequently have those crappy half-sized pot metal trem blocks. Depending on what yours comes with, I might at least budget for an extra $25 for a better block (check out Guitar Fetish...while they're not as good as Callaham, their steel trem blocks are a GREAT bargain and a very worth while upgrade!). For a newbie, I probably wouldn't sweat this much at all, but for someone with a more experienced ear, it might be something to keep in mind.

As far as the e-tronics go, personally I don't have a problem with them. I will admit that when I do upgrades, yea, I usually change the pots and such over to CTS (or comparable), but that said, most of my less expensive instruments do in fact have their original pots and such in them and I've never really had a problem with them (although I had purchased a Bullet once on a whim that had a bad solder joint at the output jack...took 30 seconds with a soldering iron to fix). If I happen to be doing the upgrade anyways, yes, I will change them, but generally I don't sweat this too much. Even a CTS pot will start to crackle given enough time, sweat and abuse.

Now I will say that no, I do -NOT- buy a guitar, new, used or otherwise, thru "mail order".....I just won't do it. To me, a guitar is a very personal purchase and what's more is that being "musical instruments", even two otherwise identical instruments from the exact same product line...each usually has it's own unique personality, voice, feel, etc.. Even in the case of a complete newbie, I always recommend they go to a real music store and try a few, if nothing else to see what feels best in their own hands and to their own heart. You just can NOT do this from a catalog or online company. Strings...cables...hell even fx pedals, sure...these days I get most stuff like that on Amazon (when I buy new at least, otherwise it's usually Craigslist), but for an actual instrument, I will NOT buy it if I haven't actually played it myself FIRST. I just don't care how pretty it looks on the website as that tells me NOTHING about how the instrument will feel in my own hands.

I'm not gonna to comment on the question about how it will sound thru a JCM 900 because frankly, I just don't like Marshall amps. It's a taste thing, but personally I don't care for them.

Now with all of this said, I did read the other thread you posted over in the Strat forum, so I'm going to assume this is the purchase you were considering for your teenage daughter. The simple fact of the matter here is that unless this kid has already been playing guitar for a few years, she probably isn't going to notice too much (if any) of the small nuances from one instrument to another. Give a complete newbie a choice between a $1000 instrument and a $100 instrument, without showing them the price tag, and there's a 50/50 chance they'll pick either one...and it's usually a safe bet they're gonna pick their favorite color or the one they happen to think looks "cool" (seriously...how do you think B.C. Rich got popular? LOL!). And no, that is not a "chick thing"...A LOT of guys do it too. Take a lot of average teenage boys into Guitar Center, show them a Dave Mustaine "Angel of Deth" and watch the drool run down their chin, LOL! Either way, with something like those pickups on the Surf Strat for example, chances are the kid really isn't going to know the difference between a $15 set of GFS specials and a $500 set of Bill Lawrence pickups...so if the kid (or her mom) thinks the lipstick tubes look cool, that's probably a good place to start!

Now that said, I do think that the Squire Vintage Modified line as a whole are some very decent guitars, particularly for the price point. While I don't own one...yet, I've played a couple now over the past couple of years and I've been quite impressed. Again, I would seriously invest in a proper setup...and again I would recommend this for ANY inexpensive instrument, let alone mail order. Short of some major flaw or something (which is rare with the level of QC these days), REGARDLESS of the price point or origin of manufacture, 9/10's of how well a Strat plays usually comes down to the setup. As I've said sooooooooo often, even a $4000 Custom Shop instrument will play like crap with a bad setup.

Alrighty, quite a bit to digest there, but hopefully that will get you pointed in the right direction! I truly suspect your teenage daughter will be quite happy with this instrument once she gets a handle on playing.

Good Luck!


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Post subject: Re: any recommendations on the Surf Strat
Posted: Mon May 09, 2016 5:55 am
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yes, for my daughter and she's going mostly on looks. but she has some piano theory and ukulele which as chinsy as that sounds she has timing and strumming and knows something about how a chord is made so that mystery is long explained. Since I'm lefty she can't really get a feel for my guitars, and my trying on hers will be limited. I tried the Squire strats and Affinities and the Jags' at the local guitar store but it's in parking vicinity to a Taco Bell and the traffic from there to the fretboard and greasy hand prints and dings and scratches were there, the sounded good through a variety of amps and they felt decent, but this is her first guitar and provided she decides to pursue it it's likely not her last. The strat was the first "real" guitar I bought when I got serious and the weight and comfort was something I appreciated after I bought it, I bought it because I loved Strat players and a real LP was out of my price range (I owned one, a RH is IMPOSSIBLE to play if you are lefty without hitting every dial and loosing the last 8 frets) and I'm not a "vintage" snob, a guitar is a tool, if you want to keep it pristine seal it in plastic and hang it like a painting, if you want to rock it throw a PAF in there or a set of Dimarzio's and cut a big chunk out to route for an aftermarket whammy of it that's why it's made of wood.

_________________
'79 Fender Strat 3 bolt
'95 Takamini Sante-Fe New Yorker Parlor
'96 Fender American Standard LH
'98 Gibson SG LH
'03 G&L ASAT LH
Marshall JCM 900, BOSS, EH, Dunlop effects


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Post subject: Re: any recommendations on the Surf Strat
Posted: Fri May 13, 2016 11:18 pm
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Location: Illinois, USA
StratDragon wrote:
does anyone have any recommendations or thoughts on the Squire Vintage Surf guitars
http://shop.fender.com/en-US/squier-ele ... 20509.html
out of the box, is this thing going to need a lot of tweaking? is it going to loose it bindings in 13 weeks? How are the electronics? How are those lipstick pickups as compared to the stock ones? Are the pickups going to howl when I have her plug into the front end of a JCM 900 and throw a Muff Pi in the chain? Has anyone obtained one through mail order? How was the experience?


I have a Squire bass guitar, a very good experience
Thanks for posting the video, sounded like a winner.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.


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Post subject: Re: any recommendations on the Surf Strat
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 9:48 am
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They can call it a surf guitar but fact is lipstick tube pickups simply won't cut it. You need a good amp and great reverb to find that Dick Dale magic.


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