The best way to identify them is often by looks and measurements combined.
More pickups are getting added and the editorial comments are getting updated constantly.įender typically has no “set” look for their pickups and often no number scheme or another unique identifier written on the pickup itself. NOTE: This information is subject to change and I’m updating it all the time as I run into new or conflicting information. It’s not worth my time given all the amazing pickups that are available out there right now both used and new. Dealing with those old pickups is a complete game of “ it’s overpriced, it could be fake, it’s hard to tell, and anybodys guess“. My focus is to cover all the types of NEWER Fender pickups not older 50-80s pickups. Getting stuck on those would blind us.Identifying Fender pickups ranges from an easy to a difficult job at times. Considering all the benefits of this guitar, we can forgive quality control failures which occurred from time to time. It’s way better than Mexican ones, and yet it ended up being cheaper. The guitar is nearly as good as any American Strat you can get at the moment. It was designed to be a playing man’s Strat, but it turned into something completely different. It’s not the best sounding one, but the value for the money ratio is off the charts. Everything consideredįender Highway 1 is one of the best Stratocaster models Fender has ever built. You will definitely have to inspect these guitars closer, and look at every detail. Questionable quality control is something no one expected from Fender. Fender Highway One can go head to head with just about any Stratocaster in production, despite its lower price. It seems that Fender created a way better guitar than they planned to. Maple fretboard with medium Jumbo frets is still the magic combination. That is something most people were worried about. On top of a great sound, the playability of Fender Highway 1 didn’t suffer compared to the more expensive American Strats. They have been purposely overwound and the results are what every Strat fan dreams about. Whole frequency range is quite dynamic, and you can hear the saturation in every segment of the frequency scale.Īlnico III single coils are hot output pups. The range of the Alnico III pickups is borderline unbelievable. Quality control aside, the tone this guitar produces is just incredible. Even though these instances were rare, that’s the type of stuff that just doesn’t happen to Fender. Some guitars would arrive with the bridge off axis, while others had similar issues with different components. Quality control applied to Fender Highway 1 completely surprised loyal Fender fans. So far so good, right? There is one catch, though. Electronics were completely redesigned, featuring Alnico III single coil pickups which were much hotter than usual. Hardware came in form of a steel Vintage Style Synchronized Tremolo bridge on one side and a great set of tuners on the other. The neck was the standard maple design with rosewood or maple fretboards and 22 medium Jumbo frets. The finish, however was different.įender used satin lacquer instead of their usual choices for this particular model. We are talking alder body and the good old Strat shape. The body of the guitar is pretty much the same thing you can find on any American Stratocaster. That was pretty odd considering this guitar cost only a fraction of the price.
The guitar didn’t step outside of the established Stratocaster framework, but it did bring some solutions many found to be better than what can be found on regular American Fenders. With Fender Highway 1, this changed for a while. When it comes to American made Stratocasters, you need to be prepared to drop a generous amount of money for a good one. But was that really the case? Let’s find out together It appeared so since the price was kind of in that area. The release of this guitar raised quite a few eyebrows in the community.Ĭould they have seriously made an affordable Strat that sounded close to the high end ones? But those can’t even compare to the original.įender has been making attempts to produce an affordable Stratocaster. Fender tried to alleviate this problem in part by making Squier Stratocaster models.
Even the Mexican Strats, which are considered to be lower quality than those made in U.S, can be decently expensive. Strats generally cost a decent amount of money. Almost every guitar player, despite the genre of music they play, would absolutely love to have one of these.
That has been the case for a long time now. Fender Stratocaster is among the most desired guitars in the world.