I'm in the market for a new strat, and I've had my eye on the american vintage 57 strat and now the Hot Rod version of the 57 has kind of caught my eye, but I haven't gotten my hands on either of them yet. I play mainly blues so I was just wandering if anyone here has had any experience with either of these guitars and if so which tone is more of a good bluesy kind of John Mayer tone?

Thanks a ton!

http://www.fender.com/products/search.p ... 0100102806

http://www.fender.com/products/search.p ... 0100132809

looks like the main difference is the pick ups. I have a 62 reissue strat that plays well and i did play a 57 Reissue. I didnt play the hot rod version (57 or 62) but i watched a video with a guy testing it out and to me it wasnt worth the extra hundred bucks.

How do the small vintage frets play? Is it not worth it to upgrade to the medium jumbo frets?

"How do the small vintage frets play? Is it not worth it to upgrade to the medium jumbo frets?[/quote]" (for some reason the website wont let me use proper quotes

The vintage frets play great. I was a little hesitant at first but to me i felt no difference from going to my godin lg which has medium sized frets.

Neither has a weak scooped sound, so forget Mayer tone. The VHR least of all, thats mid humped on the bridge and pretty level on the mid and neck pickups. So maybe if you dialled all the mids out on your amp and stuck to the neck pickup, on the 57RI. You'd get somewhere near.
Don't worry about fretsize it is largely hype that you can't bend on small frets. No one who recorded a strat before 1980whatever when Fender started using bigger frets had a problem.
I feel very very little difference between the radi'i of the guitars too.
The neck is arguably nicer on the VHR, a much rounder shape at the rear. But still definitely a V, if that's your thing.

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No no and no

Well ok I guess that just really leaves the pickup differences. the hot rod has samarium cobalt noisless in the neck and middle and the dimarzio tone zone in the bridge while the american vintage just has vintage 57 pickups in all three positions. I am kind of looking for a good amount of kick out of my bridge pickup... is the single coil vintage pickup going to deliver those thick overdriven tones? and how do the SCN pickups compare to the vintage style pickups in the 57ri?

john mayer tones are mid scooped. however ive heard several demos using 5762 pickups and get pretty close.
the avri 57 is very classy, and a beautiful strat. has 7.25 radius vintage frets and 57/62 pickups.
the hr 57 strat is a terrific strat also, i own one, zz doc just got his, and nik has one as well.
i can only speak for myself, but im sure these guys will nod their heads in agreement when i say it really sounds awesome, i cant say it sounds vintage, but it still sounds like a strat.
if that makes any sense.
if you want a great clean sound, slight overdrive before it turns muddy the avri 57.
if you want a good clean sound, but can over drive, and distort nicely and still be silent, and the bridge have an awesome humbucker bite, hr 57.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

I Played Both The Day I Bought My 57 Hotrod. The Main Difference Is The Tonezone Pickup. I Think And I Know You Get Alot Better Sound With It. I Sometimes Run It Through My Bass Amp Without Any Effects. I Love It. Try Both. I Think You May Agree.

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Vintage Hotrod '57 Strat, 81 G&L L2000 Series E Bass, Fender Musicmaster Bass Amp.

If you are looking towards that scooped tone, why not order a Mayer sig? They are about the same price as vintage reissues in my neck of the woods. Neck size is larger C but not too huge. If you don't mind rosewood fretboard that is the ticket for the your style.

Well even though I am trying to pull the mayer tone I also play some indie-ish stuff and I do use some high strung chords with a good ammount of overdrive and some delay... While I love the single coils of a strat for cleans I think I would like to have a humbucker in the bridge to help me bang out those strong chords. The question is can that dimarzio tone zone mini humbucker really nail those overdriven tones?

One vote for the Hot Rod

i vote for the hr 57, i play blues, rock blues from bb king ,to mayer, to clapton, to popa chubby,
to bonamassa, gilmourish.
to be honest, this strat imho will cover all these, and yes the tone zone is thick and creamy.
i think youll be happy.
i have 4 strats, am std, cp 60s, am deluxe, and the hr 57 is my no 1, plus the scns, do sound different closer to single coils than in my deluxe.

i think you should by it, try it out for 2-3 wks and if you dont like it, return it.
mf,gc,sweetwater, sam ash all have pretty good return policies.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

Just wanted to bump this thread up, looking for more opinions.

Thanks.

They don't.

I have two Strats with SCN's and while they do sound somewhat "stratty" they really do not compare to a good set of Custom Shop single-coils or (if you need noiseless pickups) the DiMarzio Virtual Vintage types. The SCN produces an audibly darker tone overall and lacks the nuanced "spank" and "sparkle" of Fender's CS '54s, Fat '50s, or their hallmark 57/62 set.

HTH

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