Fender Standard Stratocaster

2000 MIM, 21 vintage sized frets (filed the sharp edges off) replaced stock tuners with Fender locking tuners, replaced stock ceramic pickups with GFS alnico, replaced nut with Graphtech nut,replaced stock trem block with Callaham machined steel block and added two more trem springs for five total, replaced stock tone capacitor with .047 uf paper-in-oil type, added bridge pickup to middle tone control, replaced stock saddles with solid stainless steel saddles. Still looks stock with black alder body and maple neck, white pickguard. I also shielded the routing and underside of pickguard with aluminum tape.

It was noisy when I first started playing it, I had bought it for the body, but a friend talked me out of taking it apart. So I thought a few upgrades and it would be okay. After several years of adding this and changing that, I realized how great these MIM strats are for modding. This one sounds great with effects or without, stays in tune with extreme whammy use. It's rather mundane appearance belies it's sonic capabilities. Through a Fender silverface champ I can hear the Beatles' "Nowhere Man"

Only issues were sharp fret ends, and stock nut was cut funny, the "b" slot was closer to the "g" slot rather than an equal distance apart like the other slots. I've taken care of this baby since it was almost new when I got it, it still looks new even though I play it a lot, considering I have other guitars.

After the aforementioned upgrades, I don't foresee any issues or problems that can't be rectified, Stratocasters are so popular and aftermarket products are readily available and reasonably priced. Heck I might get a stock one just to have another project.

Uhhh..found it in the classifieds of local newspaper.

Been playing seriously about 26 years, I have a '90 Strat Plus, '97 Epiphone Les Paul, Laney LC-30, silverface Fender Champ, assorted practice amps and effects. If it were stolen I would be very angry considering the amount of time I've invested in this guitar. I could always get another, however. I bought this for only $250 and spent maybe $200 over several years and I don't think I could replace it at retail. There is nothing right now that I wish it had.

2008, Made in Mexico Strat, 21 frets, we all know what a Strat looks like, right :-), S/S/S, Alder, Fender non-locking tuners, 25.5 scale, fairly thin C Shape neck. Rosewood Fingerboard(I only dig rosewood & ebony).

Giving this a 9 for features. The Strat is incredibly flexible --can find a jazz tone with a little experimenting, country, rock & pop.
Has 6 screw tremolo & very comfortable body.

As-is with the thin strings it came with I was still impressed. This guitar excels at a shiny, glassy sounds. It has some nice bite in position one(bridge pup). I adore position 5(neck pup). And 2 & 4 are interesting and noiseless. Middle pickup alone is nice for riddem.

Excellent variety, I find all the positions usable and working the tone knob can get you into jazz territory.

I'd love to have no noise and the same 1 & 5 position tones. Maybe will upgrade the pickups but the stocks are good. Their out maybe a little low but doesn't bother me.

I tried three lefties out at two different stores. The setups and quality vary great from Strat to Mexi Strat. The one I fell in love with was set up really nicely. The trem was set to floating position and in balance with the tension of the light Bullet strings. The neck felt fantastic in my hands.

I actually had the idea to relic/distress a sunburst Strat but the brown busrt on mine is way too stunning to mess with. It's freaking gorgeous.

I got lucky. Someone set this up well and it was only sitting in the store for a day or too before I got her.

This is a very solid guitar. It will last. I always bring a back up.
Strap buttons are solid. You can enjoy this guitar for 50 years, I bet.

Never dealt. I'm afraid of large corporate support systems.

Been playing about 25 years.
GEAR: Carvin AE185, Ibanez MIJ Roadstar II, MIM Jazz bass w/badass, Short Scale SX Jazz bass, Yamaha Acoustic, M-Audio 88ES. ProCo Rat, Zoom GFX-1, SansAmp bass DI, Carvin bass amp, Peavy Combo.

I asked if it had swimming pool routing the guy didn't know, I found out later it doesn't but position 1 & 5 are routed for humbuckers just in case. I would get another Strat if this one was thieved.

I LOVE: The body, neck & tones. I HATE: the location of the volume knob and I hit the 5 way switch a lot when its in 4 or 5 position.
I wish it came with Sperzel locking tuners but I ordered them and will install them very soon.

Now that I've played it for a week I see that it actually doesn't NEED locking tuners. I was lucky, the tremolo springs/claw were set up well and bending is very musical. I believe you can make the case that this guitar sounds as good as $3k PRS or a $3K Les Paul in its own way. I don't know if the PRS has 5 usable tones or can shimmer like a Strat. IT DOES SOUND LIKE A STRAT. Also important is that the 25.5 scale works better for me. A very flexible instrument. With upgrades LOOK OUT!

2008 upgrade. mexico. 21 medium jumbo frets. s/s/s. pickups. alder body. midnight wine w/ rosewood fretboard. vintage tremolo. w/nice padded fender gigbag.

sounds good. fits my oldies music style. pickups needed adjusting. no problem though since it comes with a nice, informative instruction booklet explaining how to set it up.

here is the category where i have to warn: buyer beware. action needed adjusting too. poor set up from the factory, and dealer didn't bother. the edges of the frets were sticking out and sharp. and the worst problem of all is it had high frets causing buzzing on the 5th and 6th strings near the middle of the board. i returned it and they ar first just raised the strings and i said it still buzzes, which they did, and so they finally agreed to keep it and re-dress the frets. took about a week, but at least they did fix it. in honesty i blame myself partly for the problem though, because i didn't try it out before buying. always try it our first! if you mail order you can't try it till you get it of course, but i have bought many guitars by mail order and have always had good luck that way, so i figured a new guitar hanging at the store would surely have been quality checked and set up. WRONG. don't take anything for granted at music stores.

i think it is okay for live playing... now that i had the defective fretboard corrected! seems generally durable all around. i would use a backup guitar though at a gig with any guitar, so that question is really pointless to me.

as stated above, i had to have the frets dressed under warranty. comes w/ limited lifetime warranty. never dealt with the company directly. would have rated this category higher, but they tried to get away with fixing it on the cheap, by just raising the strings and hoping i didn't know anything about guitars and wouldn't notice. hell i could have done that if i thought that was a good enough way to fix it. but i like low as possible string action thank you! and anyway raising the strings also has adverse effect on intonation, so don't let anyone try to "fix" buzzing frets on your axe by raising the strings, unless it's a miniscule amount. they DID fix it, but omly after i had to complain twice about the same problem. but i've bought many guitars from them before and they have given me good service always except this one time, so all in all i still recommend them. just stick to your guns when you know you're right.

been playing off and on 35 yrs. or so. if stolen, i would buy it again, but only after a thorough going over. i love the strat tone. oh the tremolo arm spring was missing too, but they gave me one free so no problem. the only thing i don't like about strats is the chopped off "comfort contoured body". i think it would look better and have better sustain if the body was the same thickness througout. i mean come on. it's just a thin body electric, not a big jumbo flattop. it doesn't need the angles cut off the body to be comfortable. teles and les pauls don't have that and are perfectly comfortable to play. but anyway overall it's still a great guitar value. would have rated this higher except for the poor quality control at the factory and disingenousness at dealership.

Fender Standard Stratocaster MIM.2006. 21 frets. Slightly hotter 3 single coils. Upgrade version. Vintage style bridge. Standard tuners. Fairly thin and playable neck.

A great deal more tonal variety on the upgrade MIM stratocasters. Substantially more beef in the neck and greater variety and flexibility in bridge pickup...perhaps a little less harsh and more responsive to rolling off a little tone. This is a backup guitar, intended as a cheap substitute for a much more expensive VG stratocaster when I don't feel like traveling with the VG. I play it through a great 1964 Princeton -non-reverb- primarily. If this is going to be your main axe you probably still want to swap out the pickups.

Here's the problem. I've had a couple of the MIMs and the real problem is that every single one has some sort of quirk or flaw. The quirk on this one is that there's substantial buzz on the 14th fret only when the action is set low. To avoiid it is to raise the action to a point at which the axe isn't nearly as playable or comfortable. Tightening the truss rod, readjusting the bridge saddles, ...noting quite achieves the end of the buzzing without substantially raising the string height and sacrificing a little playability.
Unless you're buying one of the higher end MIM strats, including the Baja or the 60th anniversary blizzard pearl edition, you cannot be assured of 100% quality with MIM strats. They've upgradded the pups but the quality control still lags behind.

No problem here. It's workhouse like all strats, MIM, MIA or MIJ. BTW the MIJs were so much better than the average MIMs and certainly there's no comparison to an MIA.

I'd love this guitar but for the fret buzz. I'll probably have to swap out the nut or the bridge, but certainly invest more in it than I had intended.

Ash body, Clear Poly finish, light RW fretboard MIM, 99/00 model yr
Bought used $300. +$50 generic hardshell case, from local shop Dec 96

Comparable to the newer models. Ash gives slightly diff tone than the 96' painted bodies. Actually set up & fretwork better overall than the new ones, plays great. My first Strat, always been a humbucker guy. S/S/S ceramic pups sound fine to me. For what it is and considering the cost, a 9.

Just fine for what I do. Classic rock covers, Country, Americana, and Church Praise. Love the classic front/mid pup combo. Good cleans, and decent grit thru some tubes or OD box.
I play straight into a Crate VC2110. A small one ch class A tube amp from 95' or so with a small reverb tank w/no effects.
Very quiet for a single coil axe.
Classic Strat chime and jangle.
Likes: Comfortable to play, nice variety of tones.
Dislikes: Threw the trem arm in the case, nothing wrong with it tho. Kind of a hassell to restring, moreso than a stop tail or tune-o-matic bridge. . Took a while to get used to position of 5 way switch, kept hitting it, but got used to it in about a week.

Guitar was used but in excell cond. Well set up. Have not found any flaws really.

Solid guitar. Dependable enough to gig w/out backup.

Not applicable, bought used.

Been playing 30 yrs. Upright, Martin D28, and various banjos and such. Bought as replacement for sold Epi LP Custom. Covers the country stuff better than the Epi LP, a little more versatile, but I still miss my humbuckers and Gibson scale occasionally.

Chrome Red (Candy Apple) Maple neck. Finish was perfect.

This is the third Mexi Standard I've owned, the first two was stolen. And I also have a Deluxe Players Strat. The pickups in this new one were as hot as any I've seen on a Mexi or American. The sound blew me away and I really didn't expect it. I got this orginally for looks, but It will quickly become a main gigging axe.

Best out of the box action for a Mexi I've every played from Fender. Set up was low and mean. Modern C neck is thin and fast.

So far so good. Never gig without one or two backups no matter what the main axe is.

Never used it.

35+ years, I have other Starats, Les Paul, 335, Peavey amps and Fender amps. I've had two stolen and replaced with the same.

Candy Apple Red finish, maple neck and maple fingerboard w/t medium frets, standard fender tremolo, standard tuners, MIM Pickups S/S/S. This was bought new in 1994, used for a about a year and has been unused until this year. This was my first brand new guitar and thought that this was a great choice at the time. Big fan of David Gilmour and wanted a guitar like the one he uses in concert.

I bought this guitar because David Gilmour played a similar guitar during the last years of Pink Floyd.

This guitar required extensive work to get it to play and sound well. See the rest of my review.

Currently I use it with a gdec to work on my playing skills, a Line 6 POD xT and Pocket POD when giging.

This guitars electronics were the poorest example of guitar building I have ever seen. Leo Fender would never have signed off on the MIM istruments if he saw this guitar. Basically, if the wiring under the pickguard required a building code inspection, it would have failed miserably. Bare (yes BARE) wire was used through out the circuits. Poor quality pots. Lots of 60 cycle hum when playing at clubs.

The nut was poorly done but didnt know any better when I first bought it. Just plastic with notches. Tremelo started making alot of spring noise when diving after a few months.

Suprisingly, the body finish was great and the neck had great feel and frets.

I made this guitar my personal project as this was a guitar I bought new and wanted to make the most of it. I read the Guitar Player Repair book, deceided what I wanted to do and what the budget would be, and here's what I did.

1) Installed new TUSQ nut ($9.95)- Very easy to install. Nut was pre-slotted. The nut slot is curved and all I needed to do is remove center foot on the bottom of the nut and some light fitting to get the fit correct. Great improvement in tone and asthetics.

2) Replaced pickups with Fender American Standard Pickups, all new Fender 5 way switch, Fender volume and tone pots, and insulated hook-up wire. ($111.50) - Got a deal on the P/U's and electronics at my local music store. Soldered it up myself.

3) Replaced Pickguard, knobs, switch tip, tremolo tip with mint-green parts from AllParts. ($28.00) I did this for two reasons. One, I kept the orginal pickguard with electronics intact in order to take pictures and send to Fender. Second, I wanted a clean canvas for my new pickups and like the mint green look with the red finish.

BTW..Fender never responded.

4) New tremolo springs ($5.00)- This took care of the spring noise

5) Setup ($0.00) - I used everything learned from the repair book. I had just about every tool needed except the feeler gauges. I got a set from a pawn shop for $3.00. Toughest part was matching string hight to curve of neck. Made template for this myself.

I dont think there is a lemon law for guitars...but their should be one.

I just wanted a shiney brand new guitar and wound up dissapointed.

I should have known more about buying a new instrument. My bad and I only paid $399.

Had to invest time and money to make this a playable guitar for practice and playing live. Played my first gig after all these changes and could not be happier. Setup took the longest to do and required time and trial and error. Learned alot about setup and I'm glad I had the opportunity.

The sound with the new pickups are fantastic for blues and rock and roll. Learing to play "Comfortably Numb" and these p/u's nail that sound.

Note my rating is based after all the work I put into the instrument.

I realize not everyone would want to put this much time and money in guitar. Since the neck and body were good, and with replacement parts available, I took the plunge.

This a resuscitated guitar that is now a joy to play.

Bought it 1999. To all of you guys who wrote that a Mexican Strat sound and feel better than an American one - let???s trade immediately - my Mexican for your American. Shipping is on me!

To better understand this review wherever you see ???vintage??? translate it to ???crappy??? - that is a direct translation from Fender???s dictionary. In advertising hype Fender rules. And back to the features from the top down with individual ratings for each one in brackets:

Tuners (6) ??? work smoothly and keep the tuning well, but after a year the string posts became loose and wiggly. When I change strings I get the feeling they will come out of the base. It seems the posts are probably riveted to the gear and that has loosened. Tightening the button screws regulates the tuning action only, but does not fix the problem.

Nut (3) ??? Pure ???vintage??? ??? the cyclovac nut broke after a year and a half. Replaced it with a DIY brass one.

Neck (8) ??? Probably the best component. Fender says all necks are milled in California???s Corona factory, including the ones for the Mex strats. The woodwork is of very high quality. The truss rod works well. All adjustments I made to it worked as expected. Shape - a modern narrow ???C???. Too thin for my taste, but never the less comfortable and with a smooth finish and pleasant feel.

Fret board (5) ??? rosewood, no finish. Precise woodwork, but I personally do not like the feel of it.

Fret work (-10) ??? a complete disgrace. Probably the most disappointing aspect of the whole guitar, except for the ???vintage??? bridge. The frets are made of hard, wear resistant material, which is good. The fret wire is too narrow and too badly shaped (dressed). The neck itself might have been made in USA, but frets are probably installed in Mexico. Instead of levelling the frets by pressing/hammering them into position they just sanded off the excess heights. By doing so the fret profiles changed from rounded to trapeze. This cheap fix may have helped reduce the manufacturing costs, but if you try sliding up and down the neck your fingers will get stuck at each fret ??? definitely a ???vintage??? feature. I use 0.08s and it is impossible to set the action low enough without significant buzzing. Heavier gages might work better but I like the 0.08.

Bridge (2) ??? ???vintage??? all the way. The crappiest thing I???ve ever seen. The ???stainless steel vintage??? sections with the Fender logo on them rusted after only about year and a half. The height adjustment screws, due to the ???vintage??? construction, stick out and really dig into your hand when you try to play palm-muted chords. The tremolo springs are anything but springy. They kind of remind me of the ones used on my old camping bed - really hard, no elasticity, no range, cheap surface treatment. This bridge is completely unusable for any tremolo work. I got fed up retuning every time I touch the tremolo, so I blocked mine.

Pickups (4) ??? just replace ALL of them with whatever else you???ve got. You can tell they are cheap by just looking at the pole pieces. The top surfaces of the pole pieces are left as they were from the machining process, no polishing not even smoothing out the defects from the process, just covered with a cheap galvanised coating, which did not prevent them from rusting after less than three years. Absolutely no shielding of any kind, neither to the cavities nor to the pickups. All internal connections are done with unshielded cables. Although the pickups at different positions and their combinations do sound different they are thin, and faceless. It is very hard to get a descent sound out of them.

Controls (8) ??? All pots work really fine. After 8 years! they are do not show signs of wear. I guess it is because CTS do not manufacture different models for the Mexican and USA strats. The schematics of the wiring however is another sad ???vintage??? story. I could never understand the utterly useless, muffled a

Come on guys! To give this guitar a 9 or a 10!! How can this guitar possibly be anything more than a 4 ??? 5. Do you mean to tell me that this one can in any way compete with lets say a PRS, which got a 9-10! Get a life! The only reasons I can think of for such ridiculous scores are:
1. You are on Fender???s payroll;
2. You have never owned or tried a better one;
3. You are deaf!

By the way have you noticed that nearly all reviews for all sorts of gear at the end produce nearly the same average feedback score of around 8!!!!! It is not realistic for all kinds of gear to get the same rating!! Check out other reviews on HC! My guess is that soon you will see quite a few reviews after this one (from questionable sources), praising the Mex Strat in order to bring the score back to 8.

Now to the sound: I use gage 8 strings ??? DR or GHS. I have tried this guitar through a variety of combinations of amps and effects. Amps: Fender Bandmaster (all tube), DIY Marshall (all tube head), Fender Champ 25, Laney Hardcore amp. Effects: Boss GT-5, Roland GP-8, Boss ME-30, DS-1, MT-2, Line 6 POD, V-AMP2, countless DIY boxes and recently the good old Digitech RP-7.

I originally bought it just to try out my newly built DIY tube head. Therefore I went for the ???best of the cheapest???. But very soon I was getting really frustrated with it and I realised that I was thought the same old lesson again and again ???You get what you pay for???. Consequently I bought an American Standard Strat and this one is collecting dust now hoping that one day my son may take up guitar and I will give it to him as a present to learn on it.

The tone simply sucks. The neck pickup is too shrill, to thin with excessive highs. Your ears will bleed if you listen to it for longer periods of time. The middle one is just too flat and faceless. You would not notice if it went missing. Somewhere on the net I read someone praising it as being the best pickup they ever tested. This is just B.S. The sound is just unimpressive. The neck pickup to me is the best sounding of all three. There is too much bottom end, which needs some EQ-ing, but it still manages to create a sound remotely reminiscent of that of Ritchie Blackmore, who is famous for using the neck pickup. The combinations are wired in anti-phase, so they act as split humbuckers in positions 2 and 4. The sound however looses a lot of it brightness and definition in those positions.

In all fairness I have to say that playing the guitar clean through a good tube amp with a bit of delay and reverb does not sound too bad. But through overdrive and distortion effects it is horrible. From all the effects above I only managed to get somewhat descent (far from great) overdriven/distorted sound from the RP-7.

All said above, except I would emphasise again that the finish is pretty descent.

What durability it is rusted all over. As far as reliability goes you can gig without a backup, but have one just in case you break a string.

Once only I e-mailed them for a technical support. Got an answer within a day.

I first started playing more than 30 years ago and have been playing on and off. I am not a pro player, but building amps, guitars and effects is my hobby, so I do know a thing or two about guitar construction and sound. You can probably use the guitar for any style. It is versatile and usable to a point. I would not miss it if it were stolen. I might even pay the thief for getting me rid of it. I do not object as much to the sound that comes out of if as to its feel and action - the fret board, the fret work and the bridge. While the sound can be corrected to an extent electronically or by changing the pickups there is nothing you can do to improve the cheap quality and feel of the mechanical construction. If you look close at all metal parts you will inevitably notice the cheap ???vintage??? construction and coating. The wood work deserves much more credit, but it is seriously offset by the fretwork. If only the fretwork was better this guitar could have been a much more useful instrument.

It is neither the best nor the worst guitar I have tried, built or owned. It is just a mediocre 5. You could probably get a better value for the money from another brand, but this one is not such a bad choice within its price range.

Mine is a 2006 MIM sunburst finish,rosewood fretboard.I have kept it the way it is,except changing the pickguard to a White Pearloid one,which looks really sweet on this guitar.I'm glad that Fender did all these upgrades,because it really improved the MIM strat,and I would put mine up a American made one any day of the week.

It's a Fender,it sounds great!I use a Digitech RP 150 through a 1997 USA made,Peavey studio pro 112.Sometimes though,I like to play it straight thru the amp without any effects.

This is where I only give it aa 9.Mine was probably sitting on the store shelf for who knows how long(I bought mine in March 2007).When I got home,I had to tighten up the tuners,check the intonation and lower the action and do a complete set up.

I have been gigging with this guitar since March 2007,and it is my number one axe.I have used it without a backup and have not encountered any problems with it.This is the best guitar that I have ever had,and I have over 35 years of playing under my belt.

Fender is always great to deal with.They have a great customer support team that will assist you in any way.

I would definately buy another one of these.They are a great bargain for the money and sound great.Hats off to Fender for upgrading the standard and keeping it affordable.

Mine is a 2006,which has the sunburst finish and rosewood fretboard.The upgrades on this guitar have really improved it to the point where I would put this up an American made one,any day of the week.The jumbo frets make string bending a breeze,while the shielded compartment finally gets rid of that annoying hum that used to be in the older models.Finally,the increased trem block allows for more sustain and much better tone.I don't see the need for any modifications on this at all.It's a keeper just the way it is.

I like to play a mix of 80's hair metal and classic rock,I say to thos who don't think this guitar isn't suited to Metal,I say learn how to play!The tones that I get from this are just amazing.Great sounding guitar.Probably the best that I've ever had,in over 30 years of playing.

The only thing I had to do was,set the intonation properly,and adjust the springs in the back and adjust the bridge saddles,so as to prevent tuning problems.I never use a trem,so tightening the springs is no big deal for me.Plus,I also had to tighten up the hardware a bit.I don't know if that's Fender's fault,or due to the fact that this guitar was sitting on a shelf for almost a year.I bought this brand new in March 2007.

All in all,this is a quality guitar that I can use live and depend on.I don't have to worry about it breaking down on me,after all,if you take proper care of your instrument,there's no reason why it can't last a lifetime.I have used this on many gigs since I got it,without using any type of back-up at all.It's a Fender,it was made to last.

Never had to complain or deal with Fender for anything at all.

I've been playing for over 30 years,and I use this with a Peavey Studio Pro 112,and a Digitech RP150.That is all I need.I would definately buy another one if given the chance.I would like to have a Artic White one with the rosewood fretboard.