Fender Highway 1 Strat HSS

This is a follow-up review. I posted my original review in the "Fender Highway 1 Strat" section. Now that the HSS section exists, I figured I might as well post my follow-up here. Anyway, I've had the guitar for about a year now. I figured it would do the good to see a review of the guitar that wasn't written immediately after it was purchased or tried out in the shop. Now that I've had the guitar for a year, I know what it's capable of and I think I can provide the readers with a much more informed opinion on the guitar.

Anyway, the features (still all stock):
Rosewood fretboard, 22 frets.
Maple neck.
Large headstock.
Cocoa transparent finish.
Black atomic humbucker in the bridge.
Two standard single coils in the neck and middle.
Vintage trem.
Came with a deluxe gig bag.
Basically a regular strat with a humbucker in the bridge.

I still play metal (Ozzy, I attempt Dream Theater from time to time), and I've also moved onto some classic rock (Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top). I've since gotten a new amp, a peavey classic 30. Compared with my old peavey rage 15 watter, the sound is obviously far better. The hss pickup configuration makes this guitar very versatile. I can go from screaming humbucker distortion to twangy single coil sounds with a flick of the pickup selector switch. I've managed to set my amp up so that I never have to touch it. I can just roll back the volume on the strat to lower the gain, and eventually get a nice clean tone. Switch to one of the "in between" positions, set both of the tone knobs to 0, and you'll get a very deep, warm, muddy overdrive which seems very well suited for blues. The best clean tones this guitar makes come from the "in between" positions. They provide a very woody clean sound, almost like an acoustic! Overall, the pickups are great. I absoloutly love the humbucker, and will never consider putting a different one in. The single coils sound exactly like single coils should. They are a liitle noisy, but that should be a dead issue by now. If you can't take a bit of noise, don't buy a guitar with single coils.

The classic 30 isn't exactly a high gain amp, so I will probably end up getting an overdrive pedal eventually, for when I feel like more gain. On it's own, the strat coupled with this amp can produce excellent Randy Rhoades type sounds, or growly classic rock sounds.

Anyway, this guitar is very versatile sound-wise. You can cover almost any genre with this guitar. Metal, classic rock, blues, jazz, country. The only thing missing for me is a neck humbucker. However, as some reviewer here once said "different horses for different courses". For what this guitar is made to do, it's perfect.

From the factory, the guitar wasn't set up perfectly. That doesn't matter though. All that matters is that the guitar can take a good setup. My rating for this category is based on that, not how it came from the factory. Once this thing was set up properly, it played great, and still does. I have the action set pretty low, and I get minimal fret buzz. If you don't strum too hard or press too hard, you won't get any buzz. The neck on this guitar suits me perfectly. I haven't tried a guitar that feels better to me (yet). The guitar didn't have any flaws when I got it.

The finish is thinner than most (that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone reading this review). Because of that, it is a little easier to scratch up. Since I first got it, a few scratches and dings have surfaced. If you can't take take, don't get this guitar. I treat my instruments well, so, this isn't really an issue for me.

This guitar can certainly withstand live playing, although I've never played live before. The hardware will certainly last, as will the finish if you treat it right.

I've heard many people bitch about vintage trems. I can't say I've ever had severe tuning problems with mine. If you wind your strings properly, stretch them properly, and occasionally tighten the tuners, you should be fine. Look at Yngwie Malmsteen. All his guitars use vintage trems, and he quite often goes crazy with them. He doesn't seem to have tuning problems. If you set it up properly, you shouldn't have any severe problems. I will admit, the vintage trem can't compare to a floyd rose as far as tuning stability goes, but it can come much closer than you think if you know how to use it.

I've still never dealt with Fender directly, so, no rating here.

I'll now have been playing for a bit under two years. I'm still quite pleased with this guitar. I can safely say I'll never make an effort to get rid of it. I'd be really pissed if it ever got stolen. If it were stolen, I don't know if I'd get it again. This is a great guitar, but, I may still want to step up on the Fender ladder, or try something new. When I first tried it out at the store, I compared it to an Ibanez RG, a Gibson SG special, and some ESP. The RG was decent, but the pickups blew and the neck didn't really agree with me. The SG was too expensive, and the ESP just plain sucked. This one was clearly the most versatile and wasn't insanely expensive.

Anyway, even after a year of owning this guitar, I still love it as much as when I first got it (if not more). I still find myself itching to play it every day. That right there has got to mean something. Pardon any spelling/grammatical errors. I didn't proof-read this.

2004 Fender U.S. Highway 1 Stratocaster HSS

Alder body, maple "C" shape neck, 25.5" scale, rosewood fingerboard, 9.5" radius, 22 frets, satin finish, 2 vintage single coils (neck and middle positions), Atomic humbucker in the bridge position, vintage style tremolo

This is a cool combination of vintage and modern styles, with the added edge of a humbucker.

No single guitar ever has or ever will have all the features that one could want, but a Strat is essential, so it gets a 10 on features.

The stock Fender humbucker sounds great. The single coil pickups are a little weak output-wise, but nevertheless sound good clean. The guitar excels in overdrive and high gain amp settings. Single coil sounds are very much like Hendrix or SRV. The humbucking sound has just the right amount of brightness and clarity, and has great sustain. I might try different single coils in the neck and middle positions, but other than that, the guitar sounds great.

The guitar was set up very well. The action was just how I like it, frets were polished, and the guitar was very close to being in tune right out of the box. The pickup height was a little low, but I figure there's nothing to complain about there, everyone has their own preferences for that. The satin finish is very cool. The guitar itself is lighter than my other Strats. Everything was in perfect condition when I pulled it out of the box. Superb!

I find that most guitars hold up very well as long as you don't smash them on a stage floor. This guitar looks like it will hold up for a long time. It is very solidly built. The satin finish seems a little thin, but I guess I'll find out its durability over time. This is my new backup guitar for gigs (my main is a PRS Custom 24). I will rely on it heavily.

Never had any trouble with any of my Fender gear. Any diagrams or schematics I needed, or any questions I needed answers to are covered on Mr. Gearhead, Fender's customer support website (www.mrgearhead.com). Lifetime warranty, so I should be good.

I've been playing for 10 years. I own 3 Strats and 2 PRS's. These five guitars cover all the tones I desire. I checked out the specs on the guitar, liked what I heard, and ordered one. They were back-ordered at the time and I waited a little while for mine to be built and shipped out. I pulled it out of the box at the store, tuned it up and played it, and it sounded great. I couldn't ask for much more than that.

My main rig is a Mesa/Boogie Triaxis preamp, Mesa/Boogie 2:90 power amp, and TC Electronic G-Major running through a stereo Mesa/Boogie 4x12 cabinet. Everything is controlled through MIDI. I have one set of presets for my PRS's, and one set for my Strats. The Strats do not have high output like the PRS's, so the Strat presets in my preamp need the gain and volume boosted slightly. When I bought this guitar, it fit right in with my other Strat presets, no problem.

For $450, I got a guitar that rivals my $3000 PRS Custom.

The same as everyone else. I did have the trem blocked and 11's put on though.

I give it a 10 because it has everything I would want in a Strat and more (humbucker).

I like to play blues, pop rock, and 90's alternative. This guitar sounds great to me and suits my style just fine. I have seen some bashing of the pickups in other posts and beleive that if a player can't make this sound good the problem must be personal and not the guitar. This will sound like a strat with a humbucker, it will never exactly replicate a les paulr or other mahogony humbucker equipped guitars but that's not it's purpose. If you are expecting that, I would buy a different guitar.

The middle, and neck pickups sound very traditional while the humbucker is meaner and gritties. I am very happy with the range of sounds from the humbucker and beleive it gives you a lot more versatility than going with a standard sincle coil at the bridge.

To be honest, this guitar is flawless. It is very sturdy, the frets,and finish are also very smooth.

The finish is perfect.

This is definitely a 10.

I feel this guitar will stand up as ell as any fender guitar. The finish is a little bit thinner to cut costs but I see absolutley no issues with it. All of the knobs and switches are also spot on which is different than previous Fenders I have owned.

I have been playing for about 5 years. Currently I own an high end acoustic and this is my only electric but I have been through a mim strat, a mim telecaster, and a squier telecaster. I would defenitely buy another one as this guitar just seems to have "it" for me. I would have considered a G&L Tribute but this one just felt right.

Made in the USA 2002, 22 medium jumbo frets, vintage bridge, alder body, maple neck with 9.5" radius, 3 vintage style alnico pups with staggered pole pieces, this one has a HSS pickup routing. What I like about this guitar is it has some modern feautures like the neck radius and medium jumbo frets and some vintage feautures like the vintage bridge and pups.

The sound and playability is what I like about this guitar. Amps consist of a Fender Silverface Champ and a Mesa f-30 (great clean sounds) and a tonebone classic distortion that I play through the clean channel of the Mesa. I had been searching for a strat for about 6 months and had considered an American Series, American Vintage, American Deluxe, etc. but this Highway 1 just seemed to feel right and sound right.

I have been intrigued with the noiseless pups so after owning the H1 for about 7 months I dropped in a set of very well regarded 50's vintage style noiseless pups (not fenders) hoping I could keep the great sound of these pups without the noise. Here is the interesting part. The noiseless pups sounded very good, bell like and chimey. However, I preferred the stock pickups so the noiseless came out after a couple weeks and I have the original pups back in and I am very pleased with the sound again. These stock pups are somewhat darker with more midrange and don't have that twangy bright 50's sound. All 5 positions sound great and are very distinct. The bridge is biting, the middle is very clear and usable clean or driven, and the neck pup is throaty and woody. When driven these pups become rude and nasty in a good way - think Hendrix.

I bought this from a local small shop that is a Fender dealer so I think they spent some time with it before putting it on the floor because the set up was good. I inspected the guitar closely so it was in good shape with no other issues.

Here is the rub on this guitar. The finish is thin and not durable so any slight bumps to the finish either cause a dent or the paint comes off to the wood. However, I knew this in advance and for $535 bucks new it is what it is and I'm not worried about it. Other than that it is a strat and the reliability and durability should not be a problem.

Have not had to deal with Fender or have not had any warranty issues.

I have been playing for about 22 years. I also own a PRS McCarty, and a Hamer Newport. Both very nice and expensive guitars. Believe it or not I like this strat the best. There is just something about a strat the sound is so unique. If lost or stolen I would replace.

If you take your time and play a bunch of different strats you can find a good one without having to pay a lot of money. Strats are made different that most other guitars because they are held together by a bunch of screws, the pups are mounted to the pickguard, etc. Certainly if you buy a more expensive strat you will get a better paint job, maybe better pickups (but that depends on what you like), and better hardware. But I don't think that always necessarily means the guitar will play or sound better (with one disclaimer the electronics need to be of good quality).