Electric Guitar Review

Well, it’s NAMM time again folks, and that means new guitars and gear coming out of the woodwork. For its part, Fender this week announced the release of a whole new line of guitars, dubbed the American Specials.

Comprised of the American Special Telecaster, American Special Stratocaster, and American Special Stratocaster HSS, this latest edition to Fender’s line-up is apparently aimed at the mid-market, bringing American Made quality to the sub-$1,000 price range.

All three guitars are decked out with alder bodies finished in gloss urethane, modern “C” shaped maple necks (9.5″ radius,) 22 jumbo frets, ’70s-style oversized headstock decals, and Texas Special singlecoil pickups (with the HSS Strat sporting an Atomic humbucker at the bridge.)

They also feature Fender’s Greasebucket tone circuit, allowing you to roll off the high-end with out adding copious amounts of bass (a really nice feature IMHO.)

Other features of the line-up will include an old-school string-through-body bridge with three brass saddles on the American Special Telecaster (the guitar comes in your choice of Olympic White or Three-color Sunburst.)

And the American Special Strat will be armed with a “vintage style” synchronized tremolo (the guitar is finished in either Candy Apple Red or Two-color Sunburst,) while the Stratocaster HSS will sport a rosewood fretboard, synchronized tremolo, and of course that Atomic bridge humbucker (the guitar comes in either Black or Three-color Sunburst finish.)

The guitars will ship with Deluxe gigbags, and are currently selling for a street price of hovering in the $800 range… a great price for and American made Fender… I’ll be interested to see how they handle.