After being a strat man for the past 15 years, I've realized the answer to that question is- No.

A funny thing happened, I bought a no-name chinese strat copy from some guy for 40 bucks. Everything was out of whack on it. I had to dress the frets, adjust intonation, action, etc. Basically everything needed adjustments. But once that was done, I found that it had remarkable tone, a great neck, and great playability. I've had the guitar apart, swapping out necks, pickups, tuners, etc, and the workmanship on that thing is just horrible. None of the routes are smooth, the neck pocket was unevenly gouged out, and then spots haphazardly hit with a router after the finish was applied because the neck wouldn't go on. Their are paints drips in the body cavities, etc. However, the guitar has great tone because it is built out of great tone wood- no amount of workmanship can build tone into wood that has none. The cheapie guitar was just to get me through until I assembled a good strat. I started putting them together with high end parts, putting the best neck on the best body, and I quickly realized one thing- the best neck I had wasn't the Custom shop '56 reissue, or the custom shop '62 reissue, of the 1975 strat neck, or the american standard strat neck- it was the neck from the no-name chinese strat copy. The same was true of the body. After swapping necks, pickups and bodies back and forth, my little chinese guitar was once again assembled together and it's the best guitar of all the strats that I have (changed the pickups to lollar's,and had to put a decent bridge and tuners on it).

Why does a shoddily manufactured chinese strat copy sound better than a custom shop strat?


Years back, Fender started their "instantly collectible" marketing campaign, and at that point they adopted the strategy of selling instruments based on their dubious collectibility rather than their actual quality. Fender has entered the second "CBS era". They have abandoned quality and decided to market their instruments based on entirely unproven claims of collectibility. Now Fender is selling "custom shop" relics that aren't even manufactured in their custom shop- betting that guitar players will be satisfied with the custom shop label and not mind the fact that nothing about them is any more custom than an american standard strat. Fender is selling "abigail Ybarra" pickups on the marketing scam that this lady was "hendrix's favorite pick-up winder"- a claim completely without substantiation. Those pickups have no more value than any other hand wound pickups that can be found out there, and they don't sound any better either. Fender sells "master built" strats so that they can weave some sort of nonsensical collectibility into an instrument that is worth a quarter of it's sales price- so now, if you pay through the nose for a master built guitar, you can get the same quality of materials as one would have got in a standard run stratocaster back in the CBS era. They create endless runs of custom shop limited editions that are not one iota better than a standard strat. They package their sub-par custom shop guitars in an extra fancy hardcase. . .The list goes on and on.

Sure, you can spend 2-4 times the value of a guitar and get a good strat or tele, but why not buy a G&L if you just want a good guitar? You can buy an American made Les Paul studio with p90's for under 700 bucks, and the tone and playability is top notch. To go even further- there are plenty of 1970's strats around that are equal in tone and playability to modern custom shop guitars. Why are guitars built during a well known period of low quality and poor workmanship equal to current high end guitars? Because (just like my little chinese strat copy) the quality of materials used by CBS wasn't as low as the quality of materials currently used by Fender. Fender builds guitars out of the cheapest, crappiest wood they can get away with and then mark the price up anyway because they provide a little signed certificate with it attesting to it's custom origins.

Don't waste your money on fender guitars, and don't believe the marketing hype about their collectibility. Used Fender gear has been falling in price for a while now, and it will continue to do so. If you want to buy a strat, wait until Fender goes under or sells the brand and new ownership changes their strategy and starts marketing quality instruments rather than garbage with fancy certificates. The people running Fender now have forgotten that their customers- us- are guitars players. We'll sit there all day long trying to get just the right harmonics out of a bend. We'll run through patterns and scales for hours, we'll swap guitars back and forth to find the right sound for a recording. We're not dipshits- we know good instruments, and no matter how many bells and whistles they attach to a turd, we'll still know that it's a turd.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

What kind of answer do you expect in this Forum to such crap ???

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http://www.guitarmotel.com

too bad I wasted my money on two Fender guitars, Fender picks, and a Fender amp. And i fail to grasp your point here, so you fixed up a beat up old guitar and made it sound good. Big deal. Did you ever think that it's made by a different brand so the tone may sound different. And from what it sounds like you spent as much money repairing the guitar as you would pay for a standard stratocaster. As far as I can tell everyone on this forum owns more than one Fender guitar. Preachin to the wrong choir. Go play your $40 guitar somewhere else

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I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk...

"What kind of answer do you expect in this Forum "

Well, I certainly didn't expect them to let the French in. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be surrendering to a foreign nation right now?

"And i fail to grasp your point here"

And I don't blame you for that. It's obviously due to genetics. I hope your guitar playing is better than your reading comprehension.

seriously? you have to resort to verbal abuse. That's low. Real low. If you can't have a mature conversation about something here's a tip: don't post! So i say again, go play your $40 guitar somewhere else

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I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk...

it actually is thanks for you concern

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I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk...

"seriously? you have to resort to verbal abuse. That's low. Real low. "

No it's not. If God didn't want me to make fun of that guy, he wouldn't have caused him to be born in France.

Aside from that, shouldn't you be lighting some candles and maybe slaughtering a goat under the altar you keep your low-quality guitars displayed on?

already did that today. Me and my buddies had a blast, then we danced naked around the altar and sang "Iko Iko", good times

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I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk...

and if you don't have anything nice to say, shut up. We're all civil citizens here

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I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk...

Holy poop, guys. You should knock it off. This isn't why I come to these forums. You can go be fanboys somewhere else.

As for the tone thing; cool, dude. I like my telecaster more than any other guitar I could have bought for the price, no matter where it was made. But hey- That's my thing. It's my tele. It sounds amazing, feels amazing, and is what it is, and I like it for that. Your China-thing is cheap, sounds great, and is what you want.

Awesome. No joke, that's great.

But don't flame, guys. Just please- don't. It's not becoming of you.

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"Speak the truth, and speak it ever,
cost it what it will
for he who hides the wrong he did
did the wrong thing still."
-Miss Uel

smedleybutler,
Insulting someone from a different country than the one you are from is low. I thought they taught Marines (I assume by your name) more respect than you have displayed.
If you come to troll, you have come to the wrong forum.

I still have a cheapo strat copy, I only keep it for sentimental reasons (my first guitar). It sounds good playing with out an amp when I need to be quiet but it sounds like crap with an amp. I paid 89000 yen ($85) when I bought it. For a couple hundred bucks I could have it sound great or I could just buy a quality guitar that I don't have to work on.

If you no longer wish to purchase or play Fender products that is your personal decision. As for others here, we choose Fender products because of the quality in the products we have chosen. Why bother coming here and trying to intentionally start a fight.

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the vacuum store is a lot like the guitar store. but they do not attract the same clientele as the guitar store, cause if they did, the vacuum store would be loaded with a bunch of broke guys who just wanted to run the new vacuums.

Any further comment in this thread won't help.

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"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."

yeah intentionally starting a keyboard war is pretty low. i mean, i can see that you've only made a couple of posts,but please dont just come here and bag out fender. really not cool man.

EDIT; i just noticed you were mocking a country that you obviously dont live in...really bloody stupid idea man, and i bet ya you wouldn't say that if he was standing in front of your face. stop being a keyboard warrrior

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riley