Fender USA Professional Stratocaster 3 Tone Sunburst HSS Rosewood Neck (2019)
The American Professional Series arrived in January 2017 taking over from the long-standing “Standard” series and brings a few new features to this iconic guitar model. This Limited Edition Stratocaster has an Alder body finished in a crisp 3-Colour Sunburst hard wearing gloss polyurethane. The Maple neck, with Rosewood fingerboard, has a modern deep “C” profile, designed for speed and comfort; it's equally at home playing big chords or intricate lead work. 22 Narrow Tall frets, a 9.5" radius and 25.5" scale length make this Stratocaster feel familiar and comfortable.
Defining features come in the form of the Tim Shaw designed V-Mod single coil pickups, super dynamic and offering a multi-dimensional tone, these pups are voiced individually for each position, mixing alnico magnet types to produce powerful, balanced tones with original Fender secret sauce. With an additional Shawbucker Humbucker in the bridge you get even greater tonal variation and with the treble bleed circuit, tone remains clear and consistent even when lowering the guitars volume. This model comes complete with an Elite ABS Hard case. In October 2020 the Professional series would be updated as the Professional II.
Personal Comment:
This was my first guitar purchase as I returned to guitar after a 40 year break from performing and recording. Despite an initial confusion regarding the numerous guitar models available, and after much homework I purchased this 2019 Stratocaster model on-line, as we were all experiencing the beginning of “Lock-down”. As I took the guitar from its case, it brought back memories and I instantly took to the guitar. It felt like a Stratocaster… it sounded like a Stratocaster… I was happy for a while… until the Custom Shop versions would take my interest in time to come. Despite that, this lovely guitar has really been overshadowed by my Custom Shop Strat's, I do love the beautiful rich 3-Tone Sunburst finish, the Tim Shaw pick-ups are modern sounding but certainly still sound like a Stratocaster. The Humbucker at the bridge is very useful and definitely gives the ability to thicken and drive the tone. The tremolo is very stable and I found you could really pull that arm and the guitar would remain in tune. While I do like this guitar very much, but as I don’t play it regularly, it will be going up for sale.