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Pros:
- Lovely Lows
- Metal Friendly
- Energetic Sound
Cons:
- Soft Body
- Tuning Stability
The Squier series is famous throughout the modern musical world for the fact that the guitars part of it are both affordable and high quality. Fender has produced Squier series guitars for years now and these guitars have yet to be proven to be bad. A great track record indeed. The most amazing thing to happen to Squier lately is the reintroduction of vintage trends. Let us take a look at the Squier by Fender Vintage Modified 70’s Stratocaster and see what makes the reintroduction so amazing.
Body Quality
The body of the guitar is designed after the famous, vintage, and ever-present Stratocaster shape. This shape has been a part of the guitar manufacturing world for so long, some might think it is mandatory to have a Stratocaster at this point. It is not mandatory at all, but it is highly recommended since it is both a beautiful design, and very comfortable. The solid color of the guitar, combined with the beautiful squier pickguard makes for a vintage look that is incredibly appealing.
The body of the guitar is built out of basswood. This tonewood is a stable among affordable guitars because of its tendency to be extremely cheap to grow and work with. Great win for all manufacturers and a good thing for most buyers. Basswood has many good qualities, one of them being the tendency to give a deeper, warmer feeling to the lower tones on the guitar. The tonewood is also known to be rather light, making for a great long term practice guitar. The biggest and only drawback of the hardwood is that it is not particularly hard. This results in a lot of opportunities for the guitar to scratch, dent and if you are not careful, break. Just be nice to the instrument.
The neck of the guitar is made out of maple, a traditionally picked hardwood for necks. This results in the guitar having a rather sturdy construction without neck warping issues or permanent damage acquisitions. The sturdy maple should also last a while. The neck of the guitar is bolt-on, which acts very well in this case, even if the bolt on neck is not my favorite. The fretboard of the guitar is rosewood.
Hardware
The guitar comes with a 6 saddle vintage-style synchronized tremolo bridge. Which, in guitar language, means a good bridge. The action you get is nice, the tremolo is fun and the string stability is nice.
The nut of the guitar is made out of synthetic bone, which is a step above pure plastic. This provides enough string buzz mitigation to produce a nice, cleanish sound.
The tuning machine of the guitar is built in the vintage style and has a little bit of a hard time of keeping the guitar in tune for long periods of time. Nothing to worry about though, as this problem is easy to fix – don’t bend the notes too much. Or if you plan on doing just that, replace the tuning pegs.
Electronics
The guitar has a three-pickup setup, with each of the pickups being single coil. The triple Duncan Designed SC-101B Single-Coil choice for the guitar seems a little dubious to me. They let through a little bit of string buzz, but that does not get in the way too much. The greatest problem is that the homogeneity of the pickups results in a rather exciting tone.
This is where the controls on the guitar come in. The guitar has a single volume control knob, two tone control knobs, and a 5-way pickup configuration lever. This allows for a little more sound customization which results in a more exciting tone.
Squier Vintage Modified Sound
Overall, the sound of the guitar could be a little better, but it is nothing to look down on. Perfectly adequate for beginner players and even intermediate ones. The guitar has a clean sound, with a little bit of string buzz that can be easily mitigated with correct fretting. The single coils have a warm, twangy sound that will melt most hearts. The 5-way configuration setting for the lever allows for interesting pickup combos and makes the sound a little more exciting than the simple 3 way configuration would allow for.
Conclusion
This guitar is not for the advanced player. It is for beginners who know that they want a good guitar to work with. The guitar is easy to customize with pickups and replaceable parts. With the basis of the guitar being so good, this allows the guitar to have a longer lifetime, following you into the intermediate and advanced world as you replace the pickups. Definitely Recommended.
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