I recently purchased an American Standard 2001 Stratocaster to replace my 2005 MIM that was NOT a good guitar! The "new" guitar is much better, but it still has, although to a lesser extent, a characteristic of the MIM instrument.

When fretting the 6th string approaching the 12 fret, the string just seems to go "dead." By that I mean that it's tone & pitch change significantly. The pitch progression up the neck gets less and less combined with a tone that sounds more like a "thump" than anything musical. There's a little bit of this issue with the 5th string, but no others.
The guitar is well intonated, and changing string gauge and brand makes no difference.

Everything on the guitar is standard with the exception of my having installed Fender locking tuners.

I'm looking for thoughts, ideas, solutions or even "you're such a idiot because ....".

Thanks in advance.

I'd look at two things. First, I'd look at the pickup height. Too high, and a fretted string, especially further up the neck, can do what you describe. The string gets pulled by the pickup magnet. Easy to diagnose by simply lowering all three pickups...a lot. See if the problem goes away. Then, ease the pickups back up.

The second possibility is the neck setup. Truss rod adjustment good? More difficult to check, but there's plenty of info out there, is whether the angle of the neck is good where it connects to the body. Could need to be shimmed. And, are the frets properly leveled?

Siamese - the pickup/magnet interference is something I would have NEVER though of, but it sounds like an interesting avenue to pursue.

But the neck angle / fret level is different. I'm a novice, but I know that neck/body joint can make a big difference in tone, but I don't understand how that can affect one string at one place. The action on the instrument is not particularly low, and that is something that I was going to work on. Could you elaborate please regarding your thoughts re neck/frets.

Thanks for helping.

Rick

First, I would suggest you troubleshoot the possible pickup height issue, as the possible neck/fret question may be moot.

With regard to the neck and frets, why would just one string be giving you problems, and only on certain portions of the neck? Let's look at it this way. Let's for the moment assume that the neck and frets are the problem. If the "system" was slightly off, would we expect ALL the strings on ALL the frets to suddenly have problems. Unlikely. More likely, that the problem would be incremental, making itself apparent SOMEWHERE on the fretboard. Without going into the reasons, some places on the fretboard are more susceptible to issues than others. Certainly the upper frets tend to be problematic.

So, start with the pickups. It's a common problem, easily remedied.

Then, check your truss rod (neck relief). A slight back-bow in the neck could cause the problem. If your neck relief is properly adjusted, then it's possible, but much less likely, that the angle at the heel is off. Imagine if you deliberately angled the neck back by shimming the heel. You'd "fret out" on the upper frets.

If you determine that the neck has no issues, then that leaves the frets (assuming, as you stated, that your action is reasonable). In which case you take it to the best tech you can find.

Thanks, Siamese - appreciate it. Will work the issue tomorrow and post what I find out.

Check intonnation , the saddle position , you should have same tone at the 12th fret as the open string.

Neck curve is good thing to check too , like a complete guitar set up . But IMO neck curve is not an issue at the 12th fret, curve is close to the 8th fret and and when you fret strings at 12th fret and higner fret, you are not in "the neck curve".

Siamese - you are the MAN! Well, I guess you could be the WOMAN! Regardless, you are named Guitar Tech of the Week.

The dead 6th string DID INDEED turn out to be caused by pickup height, primarily, as far as I can tell, from the neck pickup. Lowering that pickup R E A L L Y made all the difference and now there is absolutely NO dead spot on the 6th or any other string approaching, at or above the 12th fret. Actually, I just had to lower the bass side of the PUP to see the difference. More work to do on getting the action and tone where I want them, but my big problem, ever since I brought the instrument home, as been that deadness issue.

Thanks for the help!