Squier Classic Vibe Strats come in different colours, so you can pick your own kind of Strat. They can be found at about 500 bucks online and maybe a little over 500 bucks at music stores.
– Body: Alder – Neck: Maple, C-Shape ( Polyurethane Finish ) – Fingerboard: Rosewood, 9.5 Radius (241 mm) 20 Medium Jumbo Frets ( Dot Inlays ) – Pickups : Three Single-Coil Pickups with Alnico magnets – Controls : Master Volume, Tone 1 . Bridge Pickup Tone 2 . Middle Pickup , Tone 3 . Neck Pickup – 5-Way pickup selector switch
The neck is really smooth to play on, it’s a C-shape neck. The guitar feels smooth with the finish on it. One problem with this is that the paint scratches off pretty easily, which doesn’t look good at all for a new guitar. Other than that, the neck feels great and I personally like them to be a little bit thicker, but that’s just me.
The pickups are really good pickups for this price range of guitars. They have quite high output compared to most other Fender Stratocasters from Squier. You also get a lot of tonal variety because you can play around with the tone knob on each pickup which makes it easier to find your own sound by experimenting with different tones. There is only one pick up selector switch instead of five switches as it is on most Strats. You can also change the pickups for other single coils if you want to – I would recommend installing some Fender Vintage Noiseless Pickups, but they do cost a bit more than what this guitar costs.
The neck and middle pickup have no tone knob, which means that all your neck and neck/middle tones will be of high output. This isn’t really a big problem though as you will notice that once you start playing it.
One thing that is quite different from Fender Stratocasters of previous times is the string tree on the headstock. The string trees usually make sure the strings aren’t going out of tune by touching eachother when you use a tremolo bar (if there’s a tremolo bar installed). The string tree on this guitar doesn’t really do much, however I think it is for aesthetics only.
I personally don’t use tremolo bars, but if you do want one, go ahead and install one on this Stratocaster as there’s plenty of room for it under the strings. You also get two tone knobs instead of just one. One to control the neck pickup and one to control the middle/bridge pickups so you can set different tones with each pick up – which makes it easier to find each sound you are looking for – I love that about this guitar.
The tuners on this baby aren’t locking tuners or anything like that, so it does come out of tune pretty easily whenever you use the bar. I would recommend installing locking tuners on this guitar for easier tuning, but it’s really not a big deal if you don’t want to – it is very easy to tune your guitar by hand.
The neck feels great and smooth, which helps with playing fast solos. The pickups are pretty good pickups for Fender Stratocasters in this price range. You also get more tonal variety compared to most Strats that are around the same price because of the 3 tone knobs on each pickup instead of just one tone knob like most strats have. It does come out of tune easily when using a tremolo bar so I’d recommend installing locking tuners on this baby. However, once again, this doesn’t really matter if you don’t know how to tune a guitar by ear. Overall this is a great guitar for the price and I do recommend it!
