Fender Cyclone

2000 Mexican Fender Cyclone
Red
Pearloid pickguard
3 way toggle switch
S/H pickup configuration
I have no idea what its made of
Strat-style bridge
gig bag included

The Cyclone looks like a Mustang. I like the sound alot. I play alot of punk, grundge, classic rock and the occasional blues (only the songs I write). This guitar holds up very well. I have only one complaint. The little strap-holder thingy keeps coming unscrewed. My friend Austin's does too. Other than that, No Complaints

My brother, Josh bought it at Mars Music in Plano TX. I liked the action very much. The pickups were apparently fine, too. I liked the guitar the second it fell into my hands. The finish was good. With the exception of frequent stops at the local music store for broken strings, No Complaints

I dropped this guitar so many times from the strap thingy coming unscrewed while playing live. With the exception of a half-dime sized chip on the butt, its fine!

Like, Josh, Fender was nice when they said "no" to painting mine Lake Placid Blue. Thats okay...got one of those reissue Mustangs(trash) with the LPB finish.

Been playing for 5 years. I own a Legend something (ripoff of a Jackson), a crappy reissue mustang, THE CYCLONE, a Peavey bass amp that I borrowed from Josh, a DS-1, and a Digitech RP2000. I hate the Mustang. DON'T BUY IT! but BUY THE CYCLONE!

Read other reviews for specs.
Paid $300 used, this is my second model.
Made in 2000.
Candy Apple Red finish.

I give it an 8 because of it's simplicity, which I like.

This guitar, like every other mid-priced stock Fender I've played, sounds good. Not bad, by any means, but not great either.

The Tex-Mex single coil in the neck sounds great. It is primarily a Strat pickup, and you can get a nice, warm, rounded tone with it. Great for playing bluesy solos. The tone really shines with a cranked tube amp.

The Atomic Humbucker isn't so great though. If you play with a lot of distortion, you probably won't be able to notice the tone as well. It sounds fine distorted, but when played clean it suffers. I found it to be very harsh. I eventually replaced it with a Super Distortion by DiMarzio, which has increased it's tone a significant amount. The only flaw with replacing the pickups was that the output is so much hotter in the new pickup that it doesn't round off well with the neck single coil.

Since I bought it used, I can't vouch for the factories set-up, but nearly ever Fender I've played straight out of the box has been set-up poorly. The first Cyclone I owned, which I bought straight out of the box was set up poorly.

After buying, I took to a shop to get a good professional cleaning and set up. The guitar plays very smoothly. You can get very low action, which is how mine is set up. The neck is fairly smooth, although a bit small for my hands.

The paint job is fantastic. The guitar has been dropped (and thrown) many times and there are hardly any scratches on it. The ones that did appear were able to be buffed out usually.

The pearloid pickguard has already begun to peel bad, to the point where I will probably peel the rest off to get a flat white pickguard. This will eventually happen to all pearloids, but it's obvious they used cheaper materials to make these.

Now, for the bad parts:
The saddles are cheap and move around constantly. They also came with very sharp, unrounded tops that cut my hard when playing.

The tuners are fairly cheap, and not to mention, a pain in the ass to restring, especially when you are in a rush. I know a lot of people have had tuning problems with their Cyclones, but mine has always stayed in tune fairly well, even while using the tremelo arm.

The tremelo arm has very stiff action on mine, it came this way. I use the arm quite a bit, and it never seems to knock it out of tune, or at least way out of tune.

The back-plate was made uneven, so any time you want to restring, you have to remove it. The strings do not fit through and go to the saddles. This is very annoying.

The wood seems good enough, it could have been made of Alder, which would have probably increased the tone noticably. It is made of poplar. It is heavy and stays balanced well while strapped on, though.

The guitar has with held countless hours of hard bedroom playing, as well as several band practices, and it has never failed me yet.

The tuning pegs are alright, but if gigging, I would replace with locking. The guitar is heavy, so the strap will fall of time to time.

I would bring a backup, but I would bring a backup no matter what. I think it could withstand live playing without a hitch, there is a good chance that some tuning problems may occur, but that can be resolved by switching them out, which I recommend doing anyway.

I have never talked to Fender regarding this guitar in particular, but have dealed with them on other occasions through my local shop (ordering schematics, etc.) They always were fast about getting things to me. I will leave this catergory blank, though, since I've never called them directly myself.

Over all, this is a nice intermediate guitar. It will blow cheaper guitars out of the water, but it could never hold up against any American made gear. The guitar is obviously suited for heavier rock, but I have found good blues tones in it. It is just a guitar to be worked with and will need some modifications in order to bring out it's full potential. It's obvious that the main flaw is the cheap stock Fender parts.

I just wish Fender had put on better stock parts, because modifying things can get so expensive. I defaintely wish it was made of better wood and they would have opted for different tuners and saddles. A bigger selection of colors would be nice as well, I've thought about getting it refinished, but I probably wouldn't risk it.

I've been playing for about 5 years now, and this is my second Cyclone. I sold my first a few years back in order to buy another guitar. I have owned several others (Epiphones, Fenders) and this one was probably better than them all.

If lost, I probably would upgrade to better gear, but that is just a personal preference. I am sure this guitar will get better with age.

Since the release of Deluxe Cyclones and the Squier line, the regular models are no longer being manufactured.

Specs:
2002 Mexican made Fender Deluxe Series Cyclone
22 Fret Rosewoood Fingerboard on bolt-on maple neck
Master Volume, Master Tone controls / 3-way selector switch
1 Tex-Mex Strat single-coil (neck) and 1 Atomic Humbucker (bridge)
Traditional strat-style spring-block tremelo
Mustang-style body, made of Poplar
Horrid tuners and poor-quality bridge saddles

I give it a 6. Most who would be reviewing this guitar a month or so after aquiring it, would probably rate it higher, but they probably haven't experienced the quality of an American-made guitar.

Amps used: Fender 30-watt Champion 30 DSP solid-state amp, and Fender '65 reissue Deluxe Reverb 22-watt tube amp

The Tex-Mex single coil is actually pretty good. It would probably shine on a guitar of better craftsmanship. When my guitar had its "good days", I could get a very smooth stratocaster-like sound (and I should know, I have an American Fat Strat). Played clean, the humbucker is a little thin, without much character. Somebody coming from a cheaper guitar might not think so, but it just doesn't even come close to measuring up to the Seymour Duncan Pearly gates in my fat-strat. Driven, it gets a very crisp crunchy sound that really suits grunge/punk music. I actually miss that characteristic of the humbucker, but still don't think it would be worth sacrificing the deep, solid punch of my Pearly Gates HB for that sound. I could use the guitar to play Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Weezer, Foo Fighters, etc. As far as tonal palette, the guitar actually can span quite a range, but doesn't have a lot in the middle (does that make sense?) What I mean is between the humbucker and the single coil you can get sounds from each end of the spectrum, but they don't blend very well to get the sounds inbetween. Sustain isn't great, but passable. The bridge saddles are really cheap and I think they hurt the sound tremendously. Rating this category is hard. It doesn't exactly measure up to higher-end guitars, but I really think it's well above average for the price range. Hmm, duck 4 points on the overall (comparing it to all guitars) but give it and extra 2 for excelling within its price rangel. Comes out to 8.

THIS GUITAR HAD HORRIBLE ACTION. I'm not going to waste time getting into everything that was wrong because, well, it was just everything. With some work the guitar became playable, and after a lot of work played very well, but it just wouldn't ever hold tune. Replacing the tuners helped a little bit, but the poor bridge was at fault too. Eventually, after installing $80 Schaller tuners and several major adjustments the bridge, I traded the guitar in. The finish is actually quite durable. It never got a scratch on it until the day I traded it in, when it got a small gash right in the front of the guitar on the car ride over. I'm gonna duck 5 points for the lousy hardware, but it gets 2 points for the incredible finish

Like I said, the finish is very durable, and there's nothing to worry about there. The hardware is thin and of very poor quality. Uh, I don't exaclty know how to answer the questions about being able to depend on it or using it on a gig without a backup. I know that Mexian made models can vary greatly in quality. Some Cyclones I've seen are worse than mine was, while some were pretty good. The difference is in the craftsmanship, NOT the hardware. They use the same cheap hardware on all of them... So I guess If you got a "good" one, you could depend on it, as the rest of the construction is durable. As far as gigging without a backup... I think it's a stupid thing to do in any case, but I wouldn't even dare gig at all with the Cyclone I had, just because you'd have to re-tune mid-song. I'm just going to throw out a number that sounds right here... how a bout a 7?

never had to deal with 'em

I sold this guitar after six moths of struggling with it. I have seen and played others, and I know some of them can be pretty good. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT THING: Never buy any guitar sight-unseen. I did the stupid thing and bought this guitar over the internet. Never happening again. I'm a lot wiser now, and a much better guitarist. I know Cyclones are not easy to find in the run-of-the-mill guitar shops, but If you want one (and you probably would if you need versatile sound and don't want to get a Strat or Tele) go hunt for one that you can try out before you buy. Mexican shop quality varies greatly, like I said. Even American shop quality can vary just a little, so I'd even try out the EXACT guitar before I'd buy, just to make sure I get the best I can get for my money. NO TWO GUITARS PLAY EXACTLY THE SAME. Guitars that are the same model do play similarly, though. The only guitar company I think you could maybe order one of their guitars over the internet is Rickenbacker. Partly because unless you live on either seaboard, finding a dealer is hard, but also because they are renowned for having just incredible quality. So, if you have your heart set on a Cyclone, know that it can be a very good guitar for the money, but stay away from Musician's Friend and the such. Always play the INDIVIDUAL guitar in-store before you buy. You can never be to careful. After all, it's your money. Now for the rating here. Let's see. On my personal experience I'd take away probably 5 points. I'd give it back 3 because I know the Cyclone really can be a good guitar, based on other ones I've played in shops and those owned by other people. So, 8. (Hint: If you wan't a more sure-fire guitar, try the Strats and Telecasters at the same price range. Craftsmanship is better on those models than on the more exotic Cyclone/CyconeII/Mustang/Toronado models. You probably won't have to hunt around as much to find a good one)

I own a 2001 Mexican-made Fender Cyclone. I bought mine in Dallas at Mars Music before they closed. It is red and has a pearloid pickguard. 1 volume and 1 tone knob. It also had an H/S pickup setup. I think its made of poplar. It also is heavy.

I play alot of punk rock. I play throught a 25w Peavey Bass amp (I like bassier distortion) and a Digitech RP2000. In all honesty, I can't complain. For the faster, more distorted songs, the middle pickup setting is awesome. I think the Atomic hum. is pretty good. I don't realy search for sounds. With the gain cranked to 10, the Cyclone sounds excellent. When our group plays cleaner songs, I usually turn the pickup position to the neck. No Complaints.

I'm guessing someone modified it at Mars Music because it felt totally right in my hands. I could not find anything disappointing with it. Mine does not seem to suffer from the Out of Tune thing. When I tune it, it stays tuned (I use Slinky 11s). I played my first show with this guitar and everyone thought it was a Mustang. No Complaints

Of course it will withstand live playing. I play with a heavy hand and break alot of strings. I never had to change mine until they get all funky. The strap buttons are solid but don't jump up and down with it. Too heavy and the strap will fly off your shoulder. I depend on it for every show we've had. I'd use it without a backup but I don't. I favor my lighter Mustang.

I called fender to ask about painting it Sonic Blue. They were really nice when they said "no"

I've been playing roughly 2 years and I love this guitar. Its a break from the crappy stock pickups that come with the new Mustangs. If it were stolen, I'd find it and kill the thief. Mine was one of a kind and could not be replaced. I compared it to my Mustang. The Mustang was lighter but sounds like crap with distortion. i use it mostly for Nirvana covers and clean songs. I wish it was a little lighter. After a back injury 2 years ago, its not easy to jump up and down with this guitar. That is primarily why I do my jumping with the Mustang.

2003 or late 2002 Mexican made 21, frets, maple neck with rosewood fretboard, skunk stripe on the back of the neck, alder body, 1 bridge Atomic humbucker, 1 slanted single coil Tex-Mex at the neck, 3-way Gibson style toggle, 1 volume 1 tone, passive pickups. Graffiti yellow double cutaway body style, similar to a Mustang. vintage style trem with vintage style chrome tuners. Purchased with optional G & G vitange hardshell case.
I love the look of the guitar and love the graffiti yellow color, I also own a Strat in this color. The vintage style case also brings back good memories! The bridge hum and one slanted single coil is also my favorite combination it has a good middle sound.

For passive pickups these are very quite and get some good tones. I play through a Line 6 Pod Pro and like to use all sorts of vintage and modern tones and with this pickup combo I can get most sounds I'm looking for. I did find it a bit harder to get a good clean tone from the Atomic humbucker, but for distrotion tones it is well up to the task.
I'm an EMG active pickup guy all the way and will switch this guitar over to an EMG89 and SA, but I was impressed with these pickups for a stock setup.
The ground wire, that is soldered to the spring mount, was off when I removed the spring cover. That was a small chink in the armour. Not a big deal for anyone who has a soldering iron though

I ordered this guitar and it went straight from the factory, to the store, to me. The first adjustment I made was to tighten the trem flush to the guitar. I don't like floating bridges. I also am not a fan the the vintage saddles. Does anyone like these? I find myself grinding the side of my picking hand off from the saddles height screws. I will be replacing them with Graphtech saddles later. The overall string setup wasn't bad but the G string was too low and had to be brought up a bit to even out the action. I also switched the guitar to 10 guage strings and with the lowering of the trem and guage tension, the action and neck bow came out alright.
The string spacing, in relation to the neck was also off a bit to the left, but was corrected. And I noticed a tiny finish flaw by the neck in the neck pocket, nothing major, just a very small paint run.
The only other problem I can see is that the vintage style tuners are of lesser quality and will have to be replaced. They feel loose and turn too quickly, which makes it tough to tune in small steps.

The guitar overall feels really solid, the paint feels thick and the hardwars seems fine. I would probably change the tuners and pickups anyway, but I would have no problem using this guitar live, but not by itself. I've been playing live for 20 years and know better than to only take one guitar:) I've also learned to tech my own gear so nothing could happen to the guitar that I couldn't fix.

Don't know, and hope I don't have to find out anytime soon.

I've been playing guitar for 25 years and live for 20. I've owned about every guitar made and currently own 5 Steinbergers, 2 Fenders and a Fernandes. I just recently bought the Fender Strat and the Cyclone because of the look and memories that they brought back. I would change the pickups to EMG's no matter what was in it so that was no a problem. The guitar feels really great and plays nice. If it was lost I would probably replace it with another one. Overall It doesn't have the true Fender tone, but that wasn't my reason for buying it. I like the looks and the pickup configuration.

Bought a 2002 Mexican made Cyclone. Okay factory setup.
It has all the same features of the stock Cyclone, which you can read about. I did replace the tuners with Schallers. (Kinda expensive)
REALLY like the pickup configuration, though I want to replace the Strat Tremelo bridge with a hardtail. Tuners could be better, and I would reccomend placing them if it is a problem, though for most people it hasn't been.

I play pretty much everything, (except pop and obviously hiphop and folk crap) Newer rock mainly, but I like to play some great hits from previous decades. When you adjust the pickups just right it gives great sound. I play a lot of Chili Peppers, and with very slight overdrive and hard strumming using only the Tex-Mex single coil, you get an almost identical sound as Frusciante's strat. Under the Bridge sounds great like this. If you jockey with the settings it can also give a very bright, clean acoustic type sound. Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven comes out almost perfect. Now to the humbucker. The Atomic Humbucker can be both great and horrible. If you like light rock and grunge, like I do (Nirvana, Weezer, Green Day), you can get a nice, crunchy sound, which you can vary from playing Nirvana/Green Day to the little bit more distorted sound of Weezer. However, you have to have the tone and volume all the way up or you get a rather muddy sound. If you want a death metal sound, look somewhere else. With heavy distortion the humbucker is really blurry. If you keep the drive down, you can palm mute it pretty well if you're careful. Clean you can get an good, twangy sound out of the Humbucker. I like to play Sweet Home Alabama on it, and it comes pretty close to duplicating the Gibson sound. Don't really like Gibsons, well, actually I freakin' hate 'em, but this guitar does have the capability if you ever decide you want it. I think the sound competes with and even beats Epiphones/Yamahas/Ibanezes that cost more than 300 dollars over the Cyclone. In a lot of ways, especially in the range of sounds, it beats even "nice" Gibsons. ("nice" means expensive here, becuase "Nice Gibson" is an oxymoron)
Still, it's no Jaguar, but then again, what is? (I hope to get one soon) I don't believe anyone could ask more as far as sound from this guitar, even if its price were bumped up several hundred dollars.

Action used a little setup to get right, e.g. filing down saddles, adjusting hight. The workmanship on the body is really excelent. No complaints. The medium-jumbo frets take some getting used to if you're coming from a guitar with thin frets, but you can get some great hammer-ons ang pull-offs. I have a deep contempt for the Strat-style tremelo bridge. I removed the tremelo arm and never use it, as it just gets in the way. The tuners needed replacing, because they would never hold tune for even ten minutes of play. Most people haven't had a problem here, thought. I replaced them with $80.00 Schallers, (a bit overkill, I think) but I haven't had any problems since. If the tuners woulda been better, this category would have got a 9 or 10.

The first time I played on this guitar for an audience was to audition for my High School's Jazz Band, which I made. (I give credit to the awesome guitar) This was before I replaced the tuners. It went through the four-minute song without getting noticably out of tune, but other times befor I replaced the tuners, I ended up not playing at all because it sounded like absolute crap. I have dropped the guitar, quite hard, actually, and it has stood up without a scratch. I've taken it completely apart and put it back together, It has had over 200 hours of playing (I play at least 2 hrs. a day) and is still in perfect shape. It's very dependable, but I would definitively take a backup on a gig, because some envious person with a good taste in guitars might swipe it the second you turn your back. That'd be a shame really, because I'd have to run them down and bludger them to death with it. (I really don't think the guitar would be affected tham much)

Haven't had to deal with them, though I probably should have in the case of the tuners, but Schallers are better, anyway.

I've not been playing that long, A year and a half really, but I play every day at least two hours, as I mentioned above, and have have lived and breathed guitars ever since I got my first one, a crappy Squire Affinity Telecaster, which I'm thinking about completely overhauling, spare no expense. I have loved music my whole life and, though I don't want to suggest I'm a guitar prodigy or anything, it is something I have most excelled at. In chosing this guitar, I compared it to at least twelve other models, and though I'm ashamed to say it, not all of them were Fenders. Now that I've set it up myself, there's nothing I don't like about it, and I absolutely love it. I have played many guitars, from crappy to mediocre guitars, and even rather expensive ones. Ya, know, the ones when you pick 'em up in the store, the sales people look at you like, "What in the hell do you thik you're doing?", or "Put that down, because I damn sure know anybody like you who doesn't drive a Beamer can't afford it." This guitar is truly outstanding. As I mentioned above, if it were stolen, I'd track the unfortunate person down and beat them to death with it, but in the unlikely to nearly impossible scenario of me not finding them after ripping the wolrd apart looking for them, I would definitely by another one.

This is one of the older Cyclones - IE before Fender messed them up by putting the Competition Mustang stripe on them, and using the S/S/S combination with toggle switches instead of the proper and simple H/S combo that is all one would ever need to make rock music.
It's red with a white pearloid pickguard.

It has one volume and one tone but I think I would like the guitar better if it just had two volume knobs.

I do, however, like the three way toggle and the way that it's positioned right next to the cutaway. Much like a Les Paul, it makes it easy to change pickups in the middle of a riff.

I'm pleasantly surprised that stock, this guitar smokes for the type of music I play. The main band I play in writes screamy hardcore along the lines of bands like Orchid, Neil Perry, Honeywell, et cetera. Tonally I prefer something with a lot of gain and a lot of bottom end (IE Mesa/Boogie.) It's not everybody's thing. I'm sure a lot of kids instantly saw this guitar as the quickest way to copy Kurt Cobain when they saw them, since it has the Mustang body.

Well, it doesn't take a lot to cop the grunge tone if you've got a thick distortion pedal or an amp with a lot of gain and you take out the mids, so the bridge humbucker will definitely get you there right away. No worries there. It's got a pretty good amount of midrange bite that helps cut through, although it's not vintage sounding in the least to my ears. I checked it out through my friend's Fender Twin at both 3 and 10, at 3 the clean tone was terrific, and cranked to 10 you can get a terrific rock sound a la the Stooges or the MC 5.

The Tex Mex single coil is exactly what I expected - the classic Fender single coil sound clean. It gets the standard Fender Strat neck blues sound with a little gain, and you can do Elvis Costello sounding stuff with a Twin cranked and the single coil engaged.

I haven't had any problems with microphonic feedback with either pickup! I don't know if I just got lucky with my particular guitar, or if this is the case with all of them. This IS a production model guitar, just like any of Fender's Mexican made guitars, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are any inconsistancies, but I think they did a really good job with the Cyclone as well as the Toronado.

This guitar can do jazz, funk, rock, and country. I've tried all of them out, and if the rest of your gear is tweakable and you've got good fingers, then this can do pretty much anything you want it to do.

Everything was proper and in order when I bought it from Music Go Round. The only problem I've had with this guitar is every now and then, when I try to switch to the bridge pickup, there's some kind of short that makes it go completely dead, but if I switch to the neck and back again it goes away. Weird.

The only problem I've had with this guitar is every now and then, when I try to switch to the bridge pickup, there's some kind of short that makes it go completely dead, but if I switch to the neck and back again it goes away. Weird.

This guitar will hold up live, I'm sure. With the proper care, the hardware will probably last as well. The tuners seem pretty solid although I wouldn't go beating them with a hammer or anything. I've seen these Fender bridges get rusted really badly before with previous Fender instruments I've owned, but then again the example I'm thinking of was a Squier I owned about 5 years ago.

I definitely plan on playing out with this guitar, but I bought it as a backup to my SG. If something happened though, I would have no qualms about using this as my primary guitar.

I've been playing six, almost seven years. I own a 1970 Gibson SG, a Mesa/Boogie Mark III, a Mesa/Boogie Recto 2x12, an Electro Harmonix Holy Grail reverb, and a Line 6 Delay Modeler. If this guitar were for some reason stolen, I would be upset, but this isn't irreplacable. I've just always wanted a Mustang since I was 14. Yes, Kurt Cobain did make me want to pick up a guitar. I've since moved on to other forms of music, but seeing this in music stores made me a little nostalgic for the years when I was just learning to play guitar. However, most Mustangs have a bridge configuration that I hate, single coil pickups that would need routing for a proper humbucker (I hate stacked rail type pickups), unreliable tuners, and a small neck with even smaller frets that my hands don't like.

I had a Jazzmaster before that I'm still kicking myself for getting rid of (one of the less expensive Japanese ones with a fake flame maple top, in tobacco sunburst with a red shell pickguard - d'oh!), and I've always loved the way their necks feel. This is about as close as I'm going to be able to get to the way that guitar played without searching Ebay for one of the less expensive Japanese imports that I love so dearly.

At the price these are going used, these are a steal for the quality.

Its a 1998 mexican model with the standard tex mex single coil and humbucker at the back. Its black with a tortoise shell pickguard and i think it looks pretty cool. alot like a mustang, altohugh aliitle cooler. Ive only been playing for 2 tears and the only other guitar ive got is a yamaah pacifica standard which cost me #180
so this is a bloody big step up! i really like the solid feel and the sound is great.

I play mostly grunge like silverchair and nirvana and also a bit of black sabbath and it seems to tie in with that pretty well. Im running it through a BOSS GT3 effects unit and a 90w Carlsbro keyboard cobra amp (not bad for a 15 yr old :P). Ive gigged it a few times and it sounds a lot better than the pacifica.

I bought it second hand, and had to adjust the action a little as it was a bit high. The finish i thought was of high quality and the whole thing was pretty flawless ( alothugh the previous owner had thrown it a bout a bit: fancied himself as the next Cobain:P)

As i say ive only gigged it the once but it stands up really well in my opinion. A really grungy guitar.

n/a

Absoultley ten times better thn my pacifica :)

My Cyclone is a 2002 model, with 22 frets, and an alder body. Tex- Mex Single Coil in the neck and Atomic Humbucker in the bridge, with a 3- way switch. Nice hardware and a rosewood neck too. There are more specs on fender.com.

I play Hendrix/ Zeppelin/ Who and other blues based rock. The Tex- Mex is great for the clean, bluesy sound and in my opinion is the greatest Single Coil ever created. Its great for SRV- type tones also. The humbucker gives me the extra puch, overtones, and midrange boost I need, but noting compares to the Gibson '57 Classics on my SG. I use the Cyclone through a Marshall 100- watt valvestate and sometimes a Fender twin and it sounds fantastic. It is very versatile with these two pickups, although it could use another single coil. One isn't really powerful enough.

One not- so- great thing about this guitar are the finishes. They all kinda suck. I would vastly prefer a 3- tone sunburst or white, but the black and candy apple red are okay. Right out of the box, the action was great. Fast and easy to fret, but without cutting the volume too much. I like maple fingerboards better, so it would be nice if it had one. The bridge is perfect, and I really like the mustang/ jag type body.

I gig once a week, and this definately lives up to my standards. Sturdy hardware, nicely done finish, and wery dependable. A well built guitar with high- quality materials.

I don't know, i've never dealt with fender. I do all setting up myself. The warranty seems promising, though.

This guitar is great. I've been playing for 10 years and own 7 other guitars, but this is my favorite to practice and 2 favorite to gig. If it were stolen I would definately replace it. I love the unique, full tone and look of the guitar. Check one out, it's great.

You can read all the specs on the other reviews...

I play Nirvana, Silverchair, and Weezer, so mostly punk, grunge, and alternative. This guitar is great for that kind of music. The humbucker is louder than the single coil, but like someone said in an earlier review, its good for softer songs. The single coil also has an acoustic feel while the humbucker is bright with a slight crunch. I use Danelectro pedals...and with the T-Bone Distortion on, it kicks some butt!

The guitar was set up perfectly, no problems. Pickups were set great. The candy apple red is the most beautiful red I have ever seen. My neck is also a beautiful milky rosewood with creme inlays. The backplate is properly aligned to put the strings through, although some people said it wasn't on right. Also mine doesnt go out of tune while using the tremelo and I like it a lot.

This guitar can definitley stand live playing...it was meant to take a beating. The hardware is very good although you might have to put straplocks on just in case. The finish is really thick and looks like it could never be cracked. I would gig with a backup anyway in case a string breaks or something.

Have not dealt witht them for this guitar...but fender is great with repairing.

I've been playing for a few years now and already own a Fender Standard Telecaster. I tried it out against a 50s Strat and an Epiphone G-400. I really liked the Epiphone but Fender is more my style. I actually bought it without trying it out but it just had everything i wanted. The sound is great, the neck is sooooo comfortable and the guitar's body, color, and headstock are so beautiful. If it were stolen I would kick the guy's ass and take it back, because it is so wonderful for me. It reminds me of a mustang, but one thats a lot cooler. I recommend this to anyone looking for a good rock axe thats fun to play and very dependable.