Fender Standard Stratocaster HSH Electric Guitar
Built for heavy and aggressive sounds, the Fender Standard Stratocaster HSH has a single coil pickup between two humbuckers for precise tone selection.
Overall User Ratings (based on 2 ratings)
Submitted September 18, 2017 by Mike Douglass in Utica, NY
"Excellent modern Stratocaster!"
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I purchased my first strat from zZounds last year, an American special which I absolutely love. I use that one primarily for blues/rock and I loved it so much, that I wanted to get another one to use in the metal band that I play in. We use alternate tunings such as dropped C and that is the tuning I have this guitar set up in. I love the HSH pickup configuration and the coil tapping feature is great also. This is a Mexican strat which is not quite as nice as the American made but it is still a well made and great sounding instrument. I had a bit of trouble in that low tuning with tinking on the G string but a string tree added for the D and G strings as well as hybrid (bottom heavy top skinny) strings fixed that problem. I play this through a 120 watt, Bugera 6262 head and a Genz Benz 300 watt cabinet and it absolutely screams! Some naysayers tried to tell me that you can't use a strat for heavy metal but they are simply wrong! This guitar is great in that capacity! I recently finished recording a full length album with my band and the rhythm guitarist uses a Gibson Les Paul, which is a great guitar too. The strat and the Les Paul absolutely compliment one another. I personally prefer the chime and glassy tone of the strat, especially for lead playing. Overall, this is a beautiful guitar; it plays and sounds great and the craftsmanship is solid. For the price, I doubt you can do much better. I've owned guitars manufactured in Indonesia and Korea but in my opinion, American and Mexican made guitars are far superior. 5 stars!
Musical Background:
30 years playing experience
Musical Style:
Metal, Rock, Blues
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Submitted April 21, 2018 by Mark R. Garner in Covington, LA
"Versatile Axe Deluxe!"
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zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
This guitar is an Ultimate Axe for a gigging musician. It looks great. It sounds great. IT IS GREAT.
Sound
This model has a literal cornucopia of sounds. And all of them are good. The HSH pickup configuration teamed with the coil splitter and the five way selector switch offers a total of nine different tones. I like best the setting that combines the single coil middle pickup with the neck pickup in double coil mode. This setting absolutely sings when cranked up through the gain channel on my old Marshall Valvestate 30 amp. The bridge pickup in single coil mode has a texture not usually heard on a Strat due to the pickup being parallel to the bridge with no slanting to bring the high end pole pieces closer to the bridge. I find these humbuckers aren't as bright on those on a Gibson which is fine with me as I tend to roll off some of the treble on my bridge pickup. And speaking of treble on the bridge pickup... (see 'Features' section)
Features
This model has the traditional tremolo ("vibrato") bridge assembly which I prefer over the "modern" two point bridge. In addition to being able to split the coils on the humbuckers, this model has a feature that I absolutely love; a tone control for the bridge pickup. In addition to this model I have three Squier Strats and a Fender Standard model and on all of those the bottom tone control is assigned to the middle pickup with the other tone control being assigned to the neck pickup. Here the bottom "tone knob" is assigned to the bridge pickup while the middle and neck pickups share the upper tone control. The lower tone control also contains the coil splitter which isolates the outer coil for the classic Strat sound. The one drawback, however, to the coil splitter... (see: 'Ease of Use' section.)
Ease of Use
It's a Strat so it's already one of the easiest and most comfortable to play guitars on any charted planet. The pau ferro fretboard is silky smooth - this combined with a slender neck profile makes this a very "fast" playing instrument. The one snag in this amazing guitar is the location of the coil splitter. Raising the lower tone control splits the coil but the added height of the potentiometer gets in the way when swinging the vibrato arm into position. I generally keep the coil tap "off" so it's rarely a problem.
Quality
The headstock says 'Fender'. That, to me, implies 'quality'. This is my second MiM Strat and the quality to price ratio is exceptional. I also have a MiM 60's Classic Player Series Baja Tele and I honestly think the "Fenderitas" are among the best values to be found in any guitar line by any manufacturer. I have the Ghost Silver model and cosmetically, this guitar is really attractive. The color isn't really "solid". It has a metallic silver flake aspect like on a silver Honda automobile. The black & chrome double coils contrast nicely with this particular color. I added chrome control knobs for a little extra sparkle.
Value
Value? For the price it's a sweet deal. It looks, sounds and feels great. With the nine available pickup settings, no guitar in this price range comes close.
Manufacturer Support
I haven't had the need to contact Fender so I cannot comment on this.
The Wow Factor
Wow Factor... The ghost silver finish with the black pickguard and the chrome accents makes this guitar stand out from the morass of sunburst guitars out there, both the "cherry" and "three color" varieties.
Musical Background:
Former semi-pro now a stay-at-home jammer.
Musical Style:
Rock, rock and rock, with an emphasis on late 60's psychedelic ala The Beatles, Yardbirds, Pink Floyd & Jimi Hendrix.
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