Fender Lone Star Strat

I bought this in 2000, built in Corona California. It's got a beautiful Candy Apple Red finish and a white perloid pick gaurd. Nothing different about the configurations. I love the Duncans. I would never buy a strat without humbuckers. The Duncans get rid of that strat "buzz".

You can get a fat sound from the humbuckers, or draw in some nice blues tones with the old single coils. You get a very nice crunch out of the humbuckers, so it adds a nice edge to your sound. Only problem is there are a lot of strange spots on the guitar. For example, on the 16 frett of my a string i get a very strange vibrato like sound. Other than that you can get all the strat sounds with the extra humbucker crunch.

The screws were a little too tight when I bought it. I've noticed fenders tend to have that from the factory. Everything else was sturdy and has held up nicely. Have had no trouble with the pickup placement. Although there is a connection problem when putting the pickup selector to the middle. I get no sound out of the guitar, unless i fiddle with it a little. That is very annoying. The intonation had to be adjusted but other than that it's same old fender.

The guitar has held up very well over the years. The frets need polisihing but that's about it. The finish still sparkles after a fresh polish. Nothing has come loose, or rattles. Perfectly fit for live play.

I have dealt with fender, though not for my strat, but my amp. The service i got was an 11. They were very friendly and got my problem fixed fast. It was a warranty problem and the service shop was trying to screw me. Fender faxed them a copy of the warranty and dealt with them. Only dealt with them once, but it was about as good as it gets.

I've been playing about 4 years, and this was my first guitar. It has been everything i needed thus far. I don't think I'd ever buy another new fender. I'm sure i'll have this guitar my whole life. For a fender made past the 70's I think it's much above average. I chose this fender for the sole reason of it's humbuckers. Although, the beautiful finish added to the purchase.

Read the other reviews for the features. Mine is a '96, first year made, black with a maple neck. Neck is super fast, got it used from Elderly Music in Lansing Michigan, nice folks to do business with. Neck has nice toner on it, vintagey looking, frets nicely dressed, came w/OHSC (black tolex, COOL) and a nice black leather strap (bonus on a used guitar). Setup was OK for someone else (9s, action too low, etc.) All that was fixed (by me) easily. If you don't know how to set up your own electric guitar LEARN! There are numerous books (Dan Erlewine has a good one), articles and web info on the subject. Now if you have a fine acoustic that needs a neck reset, by all means take it to a good repairman. If your electric needs a refret, ditto. But to do a setup? It's not rocket science, if you take your guitar to a repairman to have it setup you are merely proclaiming your total patheticness to an uncaring world. Please.

For me, great. Mine is all stock, I love the texas specials and the pearly gates. I play it straight into a '93 Fender Pro 185. Sounds super, I play through the clean channel at a goodly volume, mostly rhythm for a praise and worship band. I like Eric Johnson's (as well as Jimi's and Stevie's) clean strat rhythm tones and this setup gives me that sound. I'm not a tube snob. I'm over that. I've owned a '60 Fender Showman, a '56 Fender Deluxe and 1 '71 Marshall 100 watt. I bought them all a long time ago when such things were affordable and have since sold them for food and drugs and family responsibilities. My Pro 185 is solid and reliable and never needs tubes and sounds great. I did have to raise the pickups on the strat for my sound. There are factory specs on strat pickup height all over the web but the bottom line is what sounds good to you. It takes a phillips screwdriver, your guitar and your amp and your ears, NOT a guitar repairman. Please.

Well I didn't expect the guitar to be set up perfectly for me so I wasn't disapointed. All materials and hardware are first class and everything was properly adjustable. Nut was cut a bit deep for me so rather than going for a new nut I filled in the low cuts a bit with a mixture of bone dust and super glue. That's a trick I learned from Dan Erlewine's book which I picked up at the local library. A somewhat tricky operation but well within the capabilities of the avg non retard. Take your time and think. Please.

Of course it'll withstand live playing, what kind of retard question is that? It's a USA Fender strat. It's my only electric, I'm a working stiff. Please.

No experience.

I'm 52, I've owned a boatload of stuff, who cares? This is a great guitar for me, might be for you, dunno. Please.

This is a 97 bought used for $700 with HSC. You know the hardware, so I'll skip all that. This one has the three tone suburst and a tortise shell pickguard. You know the features, already: 2 single coil texas specials and 1 pearly gates humbucker and standard strat controls.

I mostly play Gibson Les Pauls and historically have played for 10-15 years the type of music that is now being called "pop punk." Greenday, Pennywise, Offspring type bands were actually around before blink 182 (who I do like, though) and other modern day "pop punk" bands that get so much crap now. I have owned a wide variety of guitars and now own everything from Gibson Les pauls to Jackson dinkys to martin acoustics. I play through a marshall and through a class A tube amp. I like to think I have a lot of tone experience. Anyway, this guitar offers a very wide variety of tones that you can dial in during live situations with ease just by switching pickups and rolling up and down the volume pot--I have the humbucker cranked up really high and use it for good crunchy rocknroll rhythm playing. The neck humbucker I have cranked up medium high and it is good for singing lead & SRV type tones (I believe this is the pickup that SRV used and nails that tone for blues). The middle pickup I have cranked down low and roll off the volume and play clean tones with it. I use the in between bridge and middle for a hum-cancelling sound that is a little thicker for clean tones with a little more depth. In spite of the humbucker, this guitar does not sound anything like a Les Paul, which I guess is a good thing because it is a strat and should sound like a strat--which it does. The only negative tonally I would add is that this guitar does not do pure, clean, shimmery fender-type tones with the texas single coils quite as well as regular strat pickups--they have too much bite and treble. If you lower them down and roll the treble down quite a bit on the guitar and the amp, you still get a really good clean tone, but really not as good as a regular strat--again, not what this guitar was intended for, but not perfect strat versatility, either.

I bought it used and the setup was horrid--but I bought it from someone who clearly didn't know how to play and who knows what he tried to do to it. After spending $50 for a full setup this thing plays really well. The finish is really sharp on the body, although the finish on the neck is starting to chip away slowly around the frets--this kind of just happens over time on these and adds to the vintage look, IMO

Fine to gig with--I try to bring a backup anyway. hardware is solid, high quality guitar all around. See my comment above though re neck finish.

never tried

If I were looking for a hard rockin, blues playing strat, this is the one.

It's made in 1997 USA, stood 1 or 2 years in the guitar shop and then in 1998 I bought it, Its finish is sunburst with the special pickguard, 2 texas special SCs and 1 perly gates HB. Normal Tuners, STandard Bridge, comes with black case ...

PERFEKT! it's THE guitar for me. I play mostly rock, blues, soul, jazz funk, and you can fit all. The texas special SCs are good for funk, jazz, soul etc. and the perly gates HB on the bridge position kicks ass for rock, hard rock, etc. ...
I use it with a Fender Hot rod deluxe and a marshall drive master.
The sound of the HB ist not as dark as that of my les paul (gibson), but a bit more agressiv and with more power ...

unfortunately, the action wasn't set up very well and now, after 5 years, i didn't have it set-up well because of my own lazyness, but the next months i will do that.

But on the otherside, it was flawless, very well finished, and everything is fine!

it WILL and DOES withstand live playing ... i play every gig since 1998 with it and it went through hell but still does its job perfectly.

I normally play with a backup guitar because strings can always brake. But the guitar itself would never give up!

never dealt with them

I own 4 Electric guitars, but I like this one best. The only bad thing is the action which wasn't perfect, but except from that, all the other things are excellent!

I love the beautiful Neck, the color of the wood, that there are no sharp edges because everything was rounded, the sweet tase of the wood.

I's a real working machine!!!

I recently acquired a used a "Lonestar" Strat. I also own a 2001 American Series Strat, which I will use as a point of comparison. The sound of the Texas special pickups seem like they have a "Mid" boost to them. I'm not sure if they have that much more output of regular Strat Std. pickups, but these have a certain edge and bite to them that focuses in the mid area. The tone of the Lone star is much more round, fuller sounder with a bit more depth to it than a regualr Strat. However, the down side to that is it lacks the clarity, snap, a bit of the sparkle of an American series strat. These diffs, can be heard clearly thru clean and overdriven channels.

Overall a solid guitar. If you want to move away from the classic fender strat sound and go with something a bit more beefier and fuller sounding (but at the cost of clarity and sparkle), check out the Lonestar. I find the SD PG Bridge pickup is a nice touch as it sounds much more deeper than the bridge pup of a std. Strat - which can sound thin, brittle, and ice picky at times (unless you swap it with a Fralin hot vintage or a SD stacked bucker:).

My Lonestar has a maple neck, alder body, Amd. Strat style bridge, medium-jumbo frets, Fender/Schaller Tuners, 2 Texas Special pickups (as found on the SRV signature) and a custom SD Pearly Gates on the bridge/lead- by the way this Pearly Gates is not the same as the one you can buy directly from Seymour Duncan, the Lonestar has custom wound Pearly Gates made especially for Fender which differs from the retail version.

I play mostly blues/jazz/and some rock. My main amp is an all tube 30 watt. I really like my Lonestar b/c it has a unique tone, the mid and neck pickups can be very punchy and aggressive ala - SRV when you have the tone knob dialed to 10 (pickup-selector position 4 and 5). When you roll off the tone knob, it soothes it down for a more subtle sound. The mid/neck texas special pickups handle overdriven tube distortion very nicely and articulate well. On clean channel, they are very bell-like and chime nicely with a round, full sound. When you roll of the tone you get a more balanced, calmer sound. I find these pickups to be very versatile.

The SD Pearly Gates has nice output and distorts extremely well. What I like best about it is that it sounds nothing like a single coil, so it adds an extra dimension to the Strat. With the tone up you get a sharp Texas-style biting sound and when you roll the tone down to around 3-4 it gets nice and warm and smooth (selector position 1).

Pickup position 2 (1 bridge coil + mid) gives a great twangy sound for country-picking techniques and position 3 (mid pickup only) gives a good rhythm sound that sounds much more passive than any other position.

Overall it is an extremely versatile guitar sonically and its an excellent match for someone who has good chops and a good ear. I find it responds well to volume/tone adjustments which is awesome b/c it gives you so much more control over your range of sounds.

I have read earlier reviews saying it sounds "too trebly/sharp" or "lacks the classic strat snap". Well, if you have a good tube amp, and you know how to use volume/tone/EQ knobs to shape sound & tone, and you have decent chops...you can ignore those comments:)

A little buzzing on the frets but nothing that I couldn't fix...overall very good quality.

Solid built guitar, I've had no problems yet.

N/A

The Lonestar is a great axe that's really versatile and has a strong voice to it. It encompasses the classic Strat sound and then some! I wouldn't advise beginners to get this guitar b/c it takes a good amp/chops/ear to make it shine. But thats the great thing about it b/c it separates the men from the boys right?

American Std. body w/Maple Fretboard. 2 "Texas Special" Pickups and 1 SD "Pearly Gates"...The rest of the features have been covered extensively (see below).

First of all the 2 Texas Specials are extremely punchy and piercing and they sound great thru my 30W all tube-combo boosted with a TS9 tube screamer and .10 GHS Nickel Rockers. This guitar is suited for blues and jazz players...rock players should give it a cautious test drive and metalheads should stay away. The Pearly Gates are a nice addition as it adds another dimension to the guitar. The key to this guitar is knowing how to control the TONE knobs. If you want a smooth sound you can roll off the treble and lower the volume a bit or if you want piercing sounds (ala SRV) crank the tone and vol. You definitely want to play this guitar thru a nice TUBE AMP. Very bright clean tones and an overall UNIQUE sounding guitar. BUT the pickups tend to be EXTREMELY noisy - so if you are very anal about that then oh well - that's the price that must be paid for tone :P

Fender Quality as usual. MADE IN AMERICA

I've had this guitar for about 6 years and I havent even needed to adjust the truss rod yet...by the way I've changed string guages about 20 times so far:)

In MY opinion I've had a great experience with this guitar and it sounds terrific to me - very lively and wild. Great clean tones. IF you have BAD CHOPS then stay away from this guitar b/c it will leave you with no place to hide!

IMPORTANT: Take all opinions with a grain of salt b/c in my 10 years of dealing with musicians/guitar techs/music store people I've realized that they are not the most intelligent ppl on earth - hey I consider myself half-retarded:) GO to the music store and TRY IT OUT! PLAY IT YOURSELF! TONE IS VERY SUBJECTIVE! See if YOU like it and don't rely on others to hear for you.

By the way for those of you who make comparisons btw the Strat and Les Paul...you should all burn in guitar hell. A STRAT will always be a STRAT and a LES PAUL will always be a LES PAUL! That's a FACT. Get both slappy slappy ding-dong.

Just want to clarify that the Lone Star or currently known as Fat Strat Texas Special is a versatile guitar that can nail a Les Paul and a Strat at the same time. This Fat Strat can sound more like a Les Paul than current production Les Pauls.

The Pearly Gates Plus is NOT a bright pickup like many reviewers claim in this page. The flathead screwdriver was invented long time ago and it is used to adjust polepieces to tailor the sound of your guitar.

The problem with guitar players is that either they are scared or lazy to play around with pickup heights and action of guitars let alone experimenting with amp tone controls. Come on guys, you bought it and it is yours. Break the guitar if you want to, but please do some adjustments. It is like adding salt to fine entree to suit your taste.

One thing for sure - if you use the Pearly Gates with solid state amps then it is nail-across-the-chalkboard time. They were designed to be appreciated thru a tube amp and thru a tube amp the Fat Strat Pearly Gates Plus sound warm, smooth, buttery, like a moist banana chiffon cake.

Mine is a 1999 Lone Star. Maple neck, 24 fret, absolutely gorgeous darling Shoreline Gold. Think the body is ash or alder. Medium-weight, perfect. The guitar of course came with the SD Pearly Gates 'bucker in the bridge, and the Texas Special single coils elsewhere. Came with absolutely drop-dead cool flaming orange lined hard Fender case. Nice touch.

I made significant mods to this guitar to customize it for my needs. I play in a very contemporary church worship service, everything from hard rock to country, so needed a versatile guitar. 1) Wasn't fond of the full-size 'bucker in the bridge position, and wasn't overly fond of the sound of the Pearly Gates. Seemed very bright and trebly...almost like a louder single coil. Replaced with Seymour Duncan Li'l 59 single-coil sized 'bucker (changed pickguard, obviously). 2) Replaced tremolo unit with LR Baggs X-Bridge piezo-acoustic unit. In this configuration, the jack becomes a stereo jack (can go to two separate destinations, i.e. pickups to amp, Baggs bridge to soundboard). 3) Replaced stock tuners with Sperzel locking tuners.

Like I said, I just wasn't fond of the Pearly Gates...very bright and piercing to my ears. For what I play, the Li'l 59 is perfect to be able to go to for hard rock stuff. In position 2, it splits that coil and joins with the middle Texas Special for that love-it-or-hate it (I love it) quack sound. This is really like having two guitars. People who review this guitar and say that the Pearly Gates allows you to "sound like a Les Paul" are smoking something...I have a Les Paul Goldtop, and the Strat will never, can never sound like that...and that's okay. It "approximates" that idea, but really doesn't come close. Your audience doesn't know that anyway, so who cares? We do, right?

One note: if you're thinking about doing this operation, and thinking that the position 2 will still be dead quiet, it may not because the replacement bridge 'bucker has to be built a certain way for that to happen...I'm not a techno-geek, but I called S.D. and asked (when I was shocked to find after the replacement, I had noise in that position) and they said I'd have to send the Lil 59 to them to reverse the polarity or something like that. I live with the noise.

I hear a lot of controversy about these Texas Specials...I think descriptions of "rude" and "twangy" are accurate...they have their own sound, and I've grown to like it. Very bright and very sparkly, they make you work for the love. Not to sound like every other guitar geek, but you really can cop some pretty close SRV tones...if only we could play like him. But if you like that sound, the Texas Specials in this guitar will do that. I love position 4 out of phase also. I have come close to replacing these pickups, and held back every time...I think I would miss them.

I do a lot of volume-pot manipulating to change the amount of overdrive, and this works very well on this guitar. I use a POD, usually on the Brit Hi Gain setting, with the drive set at about noon. With the Strat volume on 9 or 10, I can get a very big hi gain sound, good for hard rock stuff. Backing off to 6 or 7 cleans it up quite nicely, for punchy, bubbly clean tones.

Quick note on X-bridge: I don't use this all the time, only when I find myself without time to switch between electric and acoustic guitar. It sounds very convincing through a Tech21 Sansamp Acoustic DI, but when you start strumming hard, the fret buzz kills the "natural" acoustic tone. It's pretty cool. The design of the X-Bridge is nice, too. The tremolo arm slides in (don't know why all Strats don't have this...come on, Fender! Feel free to modernize some things on the old design!) and the tension is adjustable so it can swing free or stay right where you want it. I have mine set up for slight float, and use this quite often...it's become part of my style on mellow songs, quite lovely. Stays in tune fine, but I don't dive-bomb. The locking tuners helped this, too.

The guitar came with 9's, I used 10's for quite a while, tried 11's, and remembered how lovely the tremolo was with 9's, very easy and floaty, so I'm back with those. I have to be honest here: I hear a lot of guys talk about how much their "tone" improved with 10's and 11's...I don't hear a bit of difference. I think this is an issue you have to settle with yourself. String gauge for me is mostly about "feel", not tone. On my Les Paul, I like to fight the strings and bang them a little harder. On the Strat, I tend to play with a lighter touch, and the lighter strings just seem to make it easier to play.

Love the feel of the neck. The guitar is made very well, I think. Feels very solid. Finish is thick, doesn't chip easily. I like the classic Fender logo on the headstock, and the satiny finish on the neck. My guitar does not have the "swimming pool" rout under the pickguard like I've seen some guys mention. Mine has the classic three-pickup rout. Hardware and pots, switches have held up fine under weekly use.

See above.

Never used.

I love this guitar. I suffer from serious gas...have owned over 30 guitars in 15 years...I have been trading less and less the last couple years. I have owned a Strat Plus with Lace Sensors, a Mexi-Strat with Rio Grande pickups, and a Japanese Strat. This is my 4th and last one, and my absolute favorite, in sound and feel, of all of these. I have come close to trading/selling it twice (in fact had it on Ebay a couple months ago for exactly one day, and pulled it off after looking at the pictures I took and posted with the auction!!!). I have decided I will always want a Strat. My only other electrics are a Danelectro DC reissue (fantastic value, awesome unique tone) and a Gibson Les Paul Standard Goldtop. I'm down to the basics, and if I had to lose either the Gibson or this Fender, the Gibson would probably go, due to the Fender's versatility.

I think basically everybody else cover it in this area. Mine is a 97 50th anniversery model. I bought it off of ebay. One thing I noticed is that it seems that you can't just get the middle pickup by itself. Instead it sound like an inbetween sound of a traditional strat which is good because i don't usually use the middle pickup by itself anyhow. Other than that, this is the most versatile guitar on the market.

Well i guess my musical style is undefinable. I love to play lead and pretty much any genre of music with the exception of most country. I didn't like the sound of the texas specials so i changed them out for fender fat 50's and i can honestly say that is the best sounding strat i have ever played. I am not an immitator of sound but i do appreciate and recognize and i must say i really dig the sound of the humbucker on overdrive or anything heavier. It has a really smooth sound and in combo with the fat 50's this guitar rivals my prs custom 22 as my favorite guitar. Really an awesome guitar, but i just didn't dig the texas specials even though they weren't bad they just were too mid rangy and muddy for my tastes. Before the pickup change i would give it an 8 but after a definite 10.

I picked this particular guitar because of its sweet looking tabacco sunburst finish. The action was pretty crappy when i got it, and the tremelo is still a little loose for my taste but overall it keeps its tune, has a wonderful neck and plays fast and smooth.

Well i bought this thing used and i don't have any troubles with it. It was made in the U.S.A. so i don't expect any major problems in this area.

I do wish they would have individually drilled for the pickups to allow the guitar to resonate a little better. But to tell you the truth i probably wouldn't be able to hear the difference anyhow. This is a great guitar and able cover any set out there along side the right amp and/or effects. And at the price i got it, i don't think it could be beat. Maybe by a G&L but those are hard to find with one humbucker and two singles.