Fender Highway 1 Strat

I REVIEWED THIS GUITAR A YEAR AGO. YOU GUYS KNOW THE FEATURES, 1 VOLUME , 2 TONE CONTROLS, 5 WAY SWITCH. MINE IS HONEY BLONDE WITH A MAPLE NECK..

I PLAY FOR A LOCAL CLASSIC ROCK BAND SO IT FITS OUR LIST FINE. NOW I HAVE MADE CHANGES TO MINE SINCE LAST YEAR. FIRST, AND I ADVISE EVERYONE TO DO THIS,SWAP OUT THE PICK UPS !!! I PUT IN VINTAGE NOISELESS VINTAGE FENDER PICK UPS, TALK ABOUT A NIGHT AND DAY DIFFERENCE IN SOUND. DO YOU GUYS KNOW THAT THE HIGHWAY ONE VOLUME POT IS ONLY 250K ?? WELL THATS WHY IT JUST MIGHT SEEM A LITTLE THIN ON SOUND. ALSO A SLIGHT TRUSS ROD ADJUSTMENT WAS MADE NOW THE ACTION SETS LOW AND BUZZ FREE. NOW WITH THE UPGRADE THIS AXE RATES 100

ITS MY BABY SHE PLAYS AND SOUNDS AWESOME, THE THIN FINISH IS STILL NOT WEARING OFF WHICH REALLY WOULDN'T MATTER TO ME IF IT DID BUT IT STILL LOOKS NEW AND THIS HAS BEEN OUT ON A TON OF GIGS IN THE PAST YEAR.

HASN'T LET ME DOWN YET

NEVER DEALT WITH FENDER DIRECTLY BUT MY LOCAL SHOP IS A FENDER DEALER AND THE TECH IS A GOOD BUDDY AND HE TAKES CARE OF ANY PROBLEM I HAVE WITH NO QUESTIONS ASKED AND IS THE ONLY PERSON I TRUST TO TOUCH MY STRAT

WELL BEFORE THIS GUITAR WAS UPGRADED I LOVED HOW IT SOUNDED BUT HATED 60 CYCLE HUM. NOW THAT IS GONE AND WITH THE FENDER VINTAGE NOISELESS PICK UPS THIS GUITAR IS NOW PRICELESS TO ME. DO YOU AND YOUR HIGHWAY 1 A FAVOR AND SWAP OUT THE PICK UPS. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT

this guitar is based on the standard strat template (well it is a strat), featuring three single coil pickups, vintage style trem, modern sealed fender brand tuners, 5 way switch, volume/tone/tone controls, maple neck/fretboard, jumbo frets, 4 piece alder body, and a thin acrylic transparent finish. came with a fender gig bag. has all the features i need, and one or two that i dont.

i play blues al a SRV (or at least i try) and lots of clean, jangly jazzy/pop sort of stuff. i do classic rock every now and then. the blues tone are great. neck pickup has this thick wiry tone about it that sounds great for clean lead, but is even better for overdriven lead.it can get too muddy for rythm if there is too much gain though. the neck and middle together sound is the reason i bought this guitar. it is my ultimate clean sound and has plenty of warmth and clarity, nice and jangly. it also has this great, chewy/glassy sort of tone when pushing the power tubes of a good amp. i dont use the middle pickup alone very much, but its just a bit thinner sounding than the neck pickup. bridge and middle together doesnt get used much, unless i
use my mod. i have wired the bottom tone control to blend the neck and bridge pickup in series. this creates a wide spaced humbucker tone (that doesnt buck hum) that makes the bridge pickup useable. otherwise its too thin and sterile sounding. bridge postion with mod is beefy, and can really give an already breaking up tube amp a push over the edge. sounds are great, a very versitle guitar, but one gripe. hum.
it hums at high gain, and there is no hum cancelling positions like on some other strats. doesnt worry me too much. i turn down on my guitar when im not playing. i would give ten if there was a better bridge pickup.

this is where a lot of corners were cut in the building of this guitar.first off, there are four pieces of lower grade alder that really show through on the finish. why they would offer only transparent finishes on these guitars is beyond me. the finish itself is another story. very thin and easily chipped. ive only had mine 9 months and it is already looking beaten up. its not like i dont care for it, the chips just appear. the colour is nice though. saffirire the neck was laquered, then the tops of the frets just sanded flat. the frets have squarish top, and lots of laquer build up on the edges.its fine now after a bit of playing though. action was fine when it came from the shop, but im one of those weird guys who like the action high. after i locked down the trem, and went up a guage in strings, i couldnt get the action high enough.i shimmed the neck the other way, so its fine now. one more comment on the finish. i kind of like it, even though ive been bitching about it. i like the relic look, and this guitar will get there soon. for those of you who want that played in look too, but cant afford a real relic, get one of these, and just play it hard for a few months.

not very durable in the finish area of things, but everything is built solid. because of it versitilty and solidness, i got rid of all my other guitars, but might buy another one for a backup (only for string breaks).

havent had to do any business with them yet, but my local guitar shop(where i bought it) is quite happy to do these things. the guys at barratts music are champs.

i love this guitar. it will be with me forever(maybe) coz it looks like it will last (maybe not the finish) its so comfortable and just moulds to your body. i know why blues artist use these so much. you can really connect with the guitar for those soulful lead moments. i bought this guitar based on it acoustic sound (unplugged). its a very vibrant guitar, very responsive. the neck is so comfy to hang on to, so much so that i cant put it down once ive started playing. this is a guitar that really makes you want to practice. i played all other guitars in the shop, but nothing compared. i played the american standards and all the other top notch guitars, but none had as much charm and value as this. ive been a bassist for 9 years, and when i picked up guitar, i knew the sounds i wanted out of a guitar. this one had them all. overall, im very pleased with this guitar. if the highway one teles are as good as the strats, i might have to get one of them as well. i am a very happy man.

I have previously reviewed this guitar and am very happy with it. All I would like to add is a comment about the finish. I have a green one with a maple fretboard. Wipe the body down with Lemon (or regular)Pledge furniture polish. The dull easily marked finish becomes dark and deep and much more resistant to wear. I have people come up to me at gigs and say how beautiful the guitar looks. Not what I expected when purchasing this axe. My drummer has a set with similar finish and he uses the same method to clean them with exellent results as well.

Honey Blonde, with a Dark Brown pick guard and Maple neck

I've always liked Strat's and this is the first one I've owned. It sounds like a Strat, a bit nosiy, but I like that Strat sound.
I don't use the tremolo that often, but I can see that heavy usage might cause the guitar to go out of tune.

I walked into the local "Guitar Center" and they had this really nice looking used Fender. I picked it up, and as soon as I felt the neck, I knew that I wanted it. The word that comes to mind to describe the feel of this neck is "Buttery". I love the way this neck feels.
It is the nicest neck of any guitar that I have ever touched.
I had to adjust the intonation and the pickup height and put on a new set of strings.
The finish looked fine and I could not find any flaws. Personally, I like the look and feel of the finish.
This was a used guitar (2003 model), I don't know why the original owner would have sold it, But I was the benefactor, so I'm not complaining.

I'm sure this guitar could outlive me. Yes the finish is thin, but it will just get that vintage look that much faster

Never dealt with them

I own 3 other guitars, all of which I enjoy, but I do seem to pick this Fender up quite often. I am just crazy about the feel of the neck on this guitar, it is the BEST I have ever had my hands on and that includes PRS and numerous Gibson models

every body knows this by now

I use this strat through a boss me50, crybaby wah, carl martin compressor, EH bug muff into ahot rod deville 410. i play blues, rock and roll, classic rock, rock, heavy metal, alt. rock, punk and ska... this guitar suits all my styles of music... it has a nice bright tone but with the big muff it fattens the bottom end a lot.

what can i say?
all i had to do was raise the pickups!

had it 2 years, very solid guitar! when i play other strats, sometimes i feel like they're going to break in my hands but this ones really solid.

never dealth with them

ive been playing 3 years and im 14 years old, (dont judge by the age.. im probably bette than you are, i know over 300 chords and i know 7 scales..Dorian pentatonic,Ionian Minor Major.. etc )If it were lost or stolen i would definately buy another one..

Usual strat stuff

This is hard for me to rate. I not really a big strat fan. So I'm not comparing this one to other strats. I'm giving this a seven cause you can gat alot of good clean sounds out of this guitar for anything you want just about. I think the shitty paint job just saves money, somehow I doubt it's makes any real difference. Takes some tweeking to get a good lead sound but it's there, depends on the amp. Does'nt take power chords as well.

This is where I sould of taken more time instead of deciding I wanted a strat and that an $800 strat was a steal cause it said "made in the U.S.A." on the headstock. Set-up from the factory was pure shit. Finish, real shit. Two dings on the top that I should of noticed. Maybe I get it painted one day and this thing will grow on me. But I'm think of selling it.

No problems with tuners, trem, or electrics. Seem solid that way.

Hav'ent dealt with them.

Cause it's american, I guessing it might hold it's value. Although I've heard the Japanese ones from the ninties are the only recent strats that are likely to appreciate. That just what I heard, could be bullshit. If it got lost or stolen, I'd get a decent sounding knock off for clean sound and save some dough for les pauls.

US made Highway 1 strat. Maple neck. Three colour sunburst body. "Vintage style" pickups with Alnico magnets and staggered pole pieces. "Vintage style" tremolo bridge. Gig bag included. Finish thin and cheap looking (not that it matters to me).

I have been playing jazz for 40 years, mostly with archtops with heavy flatwound strings. This purchase was made to satisfy and old boyhood dream - being able to make those pre-Hendrix strat sounds (You know, Hank Marvin e.a. - and of course Mark Knopfler). The sound is the very strong point of this guitar. It's very easy for me to get the typical "Dire Straits" strat sound. It can be sharp and piercing or softer and mellower depending on the tone control settings. And it delivers those two pickup chicken-pickin' sounds just beautifully. Set up with not too light guage strings it is even possible to get a good jazz tone (11-50 flatwounds, wound 3' string, neck pickup with tone control set to 3 or thereabout). A strat may not be your first pick for playing jazz, but there may be occations where you don't want to bring your expensive luthier built archtop, and this strat CAN be used for jazz as well, provided it is set up with that in mind. Before buying tis guitar, I considered getting replacement pickups from Chris Kinman, but the sound of the stock alnico pickups are so good that I instead used the money for a digital recorder. I play through an EVANS amp with one 12 inch speaker (very, very clean, used by the steel guitar players and the jazz people), sometimes run throug a Behringer digital effect/COSM unit, and the guitar really can produce crystal clear notes, that you want to caress while playing them. BTW the choice of maple/rosewood fretboard seems to make a difference to the sound. I tried two samples with rosewood fretboards, but they were not as responsive an clear sounding as the maple neck versions. A shame for me, because I like the aestetics of a dark fretboard better - but the sound must have first priority.

Can't really comment on this, because I don't like the very light gauge strings and immediately exchanged the stock strings with 11-50's flatwounds. These give a reasonabel compromise, enabling me to play in the Dire Straits manner, blues and jazz. But of course i had to re-setup the whole instrument due to the heavier strings (two more springs in the tremolo, reset truss rod for a slight relief, higher action, reset intonation). One strange thing is that the pickup's pole pieces are set for a wound third string, which means that an unwound third string is much louder than the rest of the strings. Fender really should have taken into account that most people use unwound thirds these days. But since I actually use a wound third string, I think I shouldn't complaint. The neck is very playable with good fretwork. The finish is cheap, but I think this is one of the reasons why this otherwise great sounding guitar can be sold at such a reasonable price. Concluding I have to rate it only 7 in this category due to the pole piece set up, which doesn't suit the majority of players. Otherwise it would have been 8 or 9.

The finish probably won't last. Personally I don't care. I bought this guitar for playing it, not for it's looks. Otherwise it's built very solidly. I guess it could be run over by a burning tank and still be played afterwards. Ever thought of how hard it was for Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix to breake strats at their instrument destruction acts? I expect this instrument to outlive me. If a replacemnt is needed it will be because someone rips it off.

Don't know - never needed it.

Have been playing for 40 years. Other instruments: A couple of older and newer archtops + a couple of cheap acousticks. Evans Amp. Behringer digital effect unit. I probaly would buy it again if stolen. I love the sound, the playability and the versatility (when set up for it). I compared it to a DeLuxe strat with the new low noise pickups. The Highway one sounded much better. I think you get really exellent value with the classic strat sound for your money with the Highway 1.

The Highway 1 is basically a US Strat without the high gloss finish and the reputation. It is "handcrafted" in the US Custom Shop from high quality Alder. The neck is manufactured from Aged Maple, and so is the fretboard (on this particular model).

The pickups are Vintage Style Single-Coil Strat Pickups with Staggered Pole Pieces and Alnico Magnets, and there are three of them - in classic Stratocaster style. The finish is a low gloss, low cost, Sapphire Blue Transparent, which is easily damaged, but this makes no difference to the tone. However, I can see that this could upset some people, and so this is the only negative feature.

There are three standard Fender knobs, and a five-way selector switch. These are sturdy and well put together.

The guitar has 22 frets, and I managed to score a free case with it as part of a deal-to-beat, internet challenge.

These guitars retail at around $1999 in Nee Zealand, without a case, while a US Strat retails at $2499, so I believe that these are far and away the best deal. The only real difference, is the finish. And, the features you do recieve are easily suffiecient for any guitarist.

The pickups on this guitar are incredibly tonally diverse. Even a single pickup sounds completely different with Tone on "1", than with Tone on "10". And then there are the different pickup combinations.

I play it through a basic Fender Frontman 15G, and even then I can hear the full, rich notes of the bottom strings, and the crisp, screaching notes of the higher end guitar. A classic Strat. I play Blues-Rock and Classic Rock mainly, and for this it is the leading competitior. It is perfect for musical styles such as Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton etc.

There is a slight buzz before the amp begins to warm up, and that is a standard charectiristic of Fender guitars in general. This guitar recieves full marks for its punch and clarity. I even prefer this sound to the Fender 50th Anniversary Stratocaster, at $NZ2999!

I actually saved money on a dent on the top of the body (it isn't noticeable unless you are the player). So, I am happy enough with that. The rest of the guitar has been adjusted perfectly for my style. I love the feel of the guitar when I am playing, and the neck is incredibly comfortable for my palm.

The electronics have been put together perfectly, and there are no other noticeable flaws whatsoever. I am pleased that the Rockshop did such a good job to preserve the delicate finish.

Any Stratocaster is an amazingly dependable guitar, let alone an American Made one. This guitar could easily withstand serious concerts with style.

The finish is thin, as I mentioned above, but Im look after my guitar, and this doesn't bother me. I'm sure that I'll have another guitar before this becomes a serious issue, and to be frank, the thinner the finish, the better the guitar resonates.

Everything else is secure an strong. Being a Fender, I'm sure it could survive a lifetime. The tone is bold and smooth, and the guitar is easy to play. What else could you want?

Though I have not dealt with the company, I have dealt with NZ Rockshops, and they are incredibly helpful and supportive.

The guitar has a warranty of two years, and this is fabulous, as this will protect my guitar from malfunctions until it is no longer a problem.

This guitar was one of many, I tries, including Les Paul's, SG's, Telecaster's, and Hollowbodies. However, t his guitar was outstanding, and the only one that really impressed.

Before I purchased it, I had been playing a Squier Bullet Strat. This was durable, but did not even challenge the Highway 1, with its warm tone.

Over the years, I imagine I will purchase many guitars, but I do not believe that many will match the sound of this guitar. I am sure that this is about as good as it gets, and will keep this guitar for over twenty years if possible.

I think the great thing about this guitar is the value. Certainly, it isn't an American Strat or a Les Paul, but perhaps they are just names. I believe that this guitar outstrips them both, and I am proud of it.

Also, anyone can play this guitar. You don;t have to be used to high actions or heavy bodies, this guitar is incredibly easy to play. If it were stolen, I would immediately go to the insurance company and purchase another one with the money (I have had it insured).

This guitar is a lovely, powerful guitar, for anyone. It is so tonally diverse, that you can paly pratically everything - well. This guitar has my full support.

Honey Blonde... look a bit like the Mary Kaye model, USA, 3 SSS pickups. Caracteristics : see other descriptions.

100 % what I need, I'm a Fender man since age 14, and I'm now 55 !
My amp is a Performer 1000 from Fender, I play blues and boogie, rock'n'roll and a little bit of country music. I don't use effect, guitar through the amp and a little reverb (on 4/5).
Pure Fender sound...

Factory setting was OK... no problems !

It's a rock...

Never had to deal with them... after 5 Tele, 7 Strats + a Jazzmaster and a Jazzbass !

I own another Strat (customised American Standard), a DeArmond X135 (Jazzbox)and a Cort electro-acoustic.
After 40 years of guitar playing the Strat is definitively my nr. 1 guitar. I've played some Gibson Les Paul and ES 335 in the past, they're not for me !
I choose this Highway for his attractive price, his look "a la Mary Kaye"... If stolen or lost, I'll buy immediately another one, same features, same finish. I only wish it had golden parts to look even more as a Mary Kaye one... but for this price, forget it... MaybeI'll uprade it in the future...

Not sure on the year here, but its a clean one!
I dig the Mary kay finish on this one!

I play alot of blues and hendrix and Pink Floyed styles so it hits the spot perfect for me!
Peavey Classic 30 is my amp and I use it with a Crybaby and a Phase 90 and some drive pedals..

Its a quiet strat due to the fact that the former owner changed the pickups out for some duncan vinateg rails.
It realy is a good upgrade to it since I have played one before and the pickups were subpar in terms of tone.

it does need a setup! But thats not factory issue here just string change then setup ya know!
Pickups same deal.....
The neck pocket is tight and everything looks very good. fenders getting better due to new machines and tech.
More upgrade of my own soon.

I would always always always gig with a strat!!!!
I would go backupless! No prob!

Having had worked in music stores that sell fender I have delt with them and find them to be great people and nice to deal with when there is an issue.
But as always all companys have a few issues with customer support.........

Change the Pickups out!!!! you will ove it.
I plan to change the Saddles out for graphtech string savers and the nut will be changed to a LSR/Fender roller nut.
Sperzels and graphite string trees at the headstock. It'll be killer!
Get one NOW!