"The" Guitar Co. The '57 Vintage Reissue

2008 stratalike made in China. 21 vintage style frets on a hi gloss maple neck. Solid alder body, vintage 2 tone sunburst finish with mint green scratchplate and hardware for vintage vibe aplenty! Three single coil pickups, make unsure but unecessary! Bridge is vintage strat style with 6 points with tremelo arm. Vintage style tuners on a chunky neck. Case was discounted, tweed vintage style. Features wise, it's a strat type so you know what to expect. Versatile sound!

This guitar sounds great considering it cost 129 GBP! The tone controls actually do make a difference in sound, unlike a certain custom shop guitar i tried the other day that was ten times the price!
It does just what i need, and gives a surprisingly chunky sound, along with the normal spikey strat tone.

The guitar was actually quite well setup out of the box. I took it to my tech as i usually do with a new purchase and he found surprisingly little to correct, considering the country of origin!
The only thing i don't like is the tuners, they seem a little jumpy and have a fair bit of 'play' on them when changing tuning direction. I may replace them soon.

I've yet to gig this guitar, 31st July is my first gig. I never play without a backup, altho im goin to try to play the whole set on it (apart from the acoustic numbers.) Only the tuners are a source or worry...

The Music King were quite hard to get hold of as they are so busy selling these! That said once i did get through they were very helpful and dealt with al my enquiries ina professional manner. Im even thinking of getting a sonic blue one with rosewood fretboard for those beatles strat moments!

I love this guitar! I normally hate strats but saw the price of these and thought 'what the heck, if i don't like it i can send it back'. Well i am a convert, like i said previously i find this guitars pickup and tone combinations far more versatile than normal f*nders! It's not even too heavy and the neck is reassuringly chunky.
When i dropped this guitar into my tech (a guitar salesman of 25 years) he was unsure why there was no name on the headstock. He thought this was a ??300 strat with a new neck! He nearly fell over when i told him it was 129 GBP from China! He said the pickups are fantastic for the price and overall the playability is fab. He even asked for the company's website so he could check them out himself!
Love this guitar and if it falls apart tomorrow, id another two more just to make sure!

This is a modern copy of the maple neck strat, with the standard 3 pickup/5 way switch setup, and vol/tone/tone dials.

Made in the far east, almost certainly at one of the major OEM manufacturers. it has the small 50's style headstock, which is unbranded and EXACTLY the fender shape.

neck is 7.25" radius, medium jumbo frets with 21 frets, and the overall weight of the guitar is 7.1 pounds. It has vintage kluson style tuners.

It's maple necked, with a solid alder body. The bridge is six screw vintage style, with cast modern style saddles and a thinner trem block, like a squier.

The company who supply them offer them in a range of preiod correct colours which are startlingly accurate. I initally wanted sonic blue, but this was out of stock so i went for fiesta red, which is 100% fender correct. It has a mint green 3 ply pickguard, which actually suits the fiesta red really well.

as always, with a strat you can't really say it has 'tons of features' as the ratings for this category demand for a 10 score, so i'll settle for 9.

i was originally buying this guitar to pull it to peices, as it was a very cheap but very good start for a project. i had my eyes on some GFS surf pcikups, and some other stuff. as soon as i got it out of the box, however, i changed my mind. the stock pups are very, very nice, with a lovely bluesy neck sounds, that strat quack in the mid settings, and a bright attack using the bridge. great stuff!

i replaced the bridge with a wilkinson with vintage-style pressed steel saddles and a thicker trem block (which wieghed over 12 grams more than the stock bridge unit) to increase the sustain and give the guitar a more overtly vintage look, and this has improved the guitar's playability straight away.

i play surf music with it, and have the tremolo set to work (my other strat, a blackie copy, has a blocked off trem like clapton's) and the tuning stability is ok. not great, but good enough.

i use this through two vox valvetronix amps (30w and 50w) and this guitar plus fender twin setting, along with a danelectro spring king reverb unit equals surf perfection.

it came with d'addario 9s on it, which i HATED. i've put some rotosound 10s on it, and these have really opened the sound up - given it more bite and presence.

i love how good this guitar is for the price, and it honestly feels like a mid level fender (or maybe a top end squier). the tuners are maybe not the best, and i'll probably change these for some better kluson styles, but we'll see.

the guitar was very well set up out of the box, and the action was fine. i had to adjust this after swapping the bridge unit, but it was no big deal as the neck has truss rod access at the headstock end (yay!).

the pickups are slightly below fender's recommended height, but still sound great and i'm leaving them where they are for now. the fiesta red finish is excellent (just the right "is it red or is it pinky orange?" colour) and well applied. i'd bet my dog it's a poly finish, but that's no big deal.

the switches have no crackle or hiss. the nut is very well cut, and the neck feels great to play.

i'm using this guitar to gig with very soon, so we'll see how it stands up - i have the feeling i'm going to be checking my Boss TU-2 pedal between songs, but that comes down to the tremolo system. as i've already changed the bridge then the reliability question doesn't really matter. the strap buttons are just find.

i never, however, gig without a backup.

the company i bought it from - www.themusicking.co.uk - were very helpful when my first choice colour was unavailable, and the delivery time was excellent.

i've been playing for 15 years, and this is my second strat, having avoided them for as long as possible. now being more mature and interested in technique and tone, rather than just playing any old plank through a distortion pedal, i've come to love the sound and variety a strat gives you. plus they dont weigh a ton like les pauls :o)

if this were stolen i'd get another one. it's really good value for the money, and having stuck a waterslide 50s fender logo on it, it looks for all the world like a proper fender. sounds a lot like one, too.

i have a 'bitsa' eric clapton blackie strat as well, and that is great for blues stuff (12" radius neck = more space to bend) but the new strat works really well for surf and garage rock and roll, which is where my heart lies.

all in all, it's a great guitar for a great price. and if you don't like the parts, buy one anyway and swap them out - the neck and body are easily worth the price alone.