2021 Fender Player Stratocaster Limited Edition Surf Pearl
Long name, good guitar.
I'll first answer the question of what makes this particular version of the Fender Player Stratocaster a limited edition.
Answer: Special colors for the body and plastics. Surf Pearl is one of two Guitar Center exclusive colors (the other is Shell Pink), and as far as I'm aware, this is only one of two versions that has the mint green pick guard. I'll mention the other in a moment. However, exclusive to this guitar is the slightly darker color pickup covers and a tremolo arm (as in the "whammy bar") where the plastic tip matches the knob color.
I'll get to the story of how I bought this but first a few notes on the colors and specs.
What is Surf Pearl?
It's Surf Green with a very fine metallic flake that's almost sand-like in texture. You don't see the shimmer unless the guitar is literally right next to you.
There is a no-flake Surf Green CME Special Edition of this guitar at the time I write this. The shade is distinctively different but yes, definitely a Surf Green. It also sells for $50 less than the Guitar Center guitar even though it's exactly the same, hardware-wise.
Which of the two surf colors are better? Neither is better than the other. What I can say is that if you want a surf color with just ever-so slightly more "pop" to it, that's Surf Pearl. However, if you prefer a traditional Fender surf color that's more "smooth" in appearance, that's Surf Green.
Per my last article, you know I traded out a bunch of guitars to get this one.
The story of this guitar buy
This was rather interesting.
I had no intention of buying the Surf Pearl version of this guitar. What I wanted originally was the Buttercream finish, with the "backup" color being Polar White.
Of the two Guitar Centers near me, one store had both guitars in stock, so I drove on down there to check them out, and this is what happened:
The single Buttercream model had a bad nut where the B and high-E had some sitar noises going on when playing those strings open.
Both Polar White guitars (this store had 2 in this color in stock) had the same problem.
I asked the salesperson if there were any other Player model Strats in stock. Yes. There was the Surf Pearl guitar.
I tried it out and liked it. But I also tried out a Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster. This was really nice, but the pickups just weren't bright enough for my liking. I also tried out a Squier Classic Vibe Jazzmaster. Also nice, but the sound of it didn't really work for me.
The Surf Pearl Strat is what I bought - but - this guitar journey wasn't quite over yet. I mentioned to the salesperson that there was another Buttercream Strat at the other Guitar Center store. He said what I could do is buy the Surf Pearl guitar now with all trade-in and discounts applied, and then just price-match it at the other GC store if I wanted to swap it out with the Buttercream model at the other store. I agreed with this just in case the other Buttercream Strat ended up being a dud.
I left that GC with the Surf Pearl Strat and then immediately drove over to the other GC store to see Buttercream Strat #2.
In I went, found the guitar, plugged in, tuned up, played it, and...
...another bad nut. Sitar noises on the B and high-E.
I asked a salesperson there if that Buttercream Strat was the only one in the store, as sometimes they have more than one in the back that hasn't been unboxed yet. He said yes, that was the only one. I said thank you and left with my Surf Pearl Strat.
It took playing five to find a good one
It took me trying five Player Stratocasters to find one that didn't have a nut with slots cut incorrectly. Two Buttercream, two Polar White, and ending with the Surf Pearl which was the only one of the lot with a proper nut.
This is precisely the reason why I went to try the guitars in person, and why I bought the Surf Pearl Strat right there and then before trying Buttercream #2 at the other GC store. If I hadn't, there was the real possibility I might have ended up with nothing.
The buy of this guitar was one of those "I'd better chance it with this one and take it now just in case the guitar at the other store is a dud...", and I was right.
When buying guitars, it's okay to accept playability flaws if the guitar is cheap. But this guitar is not cheap. It's not Fender Custom Shop expensive either, but still, it's best to check guitars of this price in person just to be absolutely certain everything is okay.
Here are the specs of the guitar for those of you that care about such things.
The body wood is alder with the aforementioned gloss polyester finish.
All three pickups are labeled as "Player Series" Stratocaster pickups with alnico 5 magnets. This lends to a very bright, trebly sound. I did not have to set the pickup height that high because the output is certainly there. Output for a Stratocaster, that is.
String saddles are bent steel. I may change these out for full-block saddles later.
The bridge block is full size and not the skinny block Squier uses.
The neck shape is the "Modern C" and does agree with my fret hand quite well.
The neck itself has a satin urethane finish on the back and gloss on the front. The headstock is glossed just like the neck is, which is proper. Nothing looks mismatched.
Frets are not the narrow-tall found on the American Pro II Stratocaster but rather the older medium jumbo - which I prefer.
The nut width is 1.650" (in comparison, the Am Pro II has a 1.685" nut width).
Is the Player Stratocaster the old American Standard but now built in Mexico?
No.
2016 was the last year Fender produced the American Standard Stratocaster before switching to American Professional. The Player Series out of Mexico didn't appear until 2018.
The '16 Am Std Stratocaster has a neck with 1.685" nut width and "Custom Shop Fat '50s" single-coil pickups, neither of which ever appeared on the Player Series as far as I know.
Also, the Am Std Stratocaster does have a Micro-Tilt adjustment on the neck plate, which the Player Series doesn't have either.
And if you really want to get ultra-specific about it, the Am Std had a "tree" style string retainer on the headstock whereas the Player has a "wing" style.
At a glance, the Player looks like the old American Standard from 2016, but it's not. Pickups and neck are the two main differences. There may also be some other electronics differences I'm not even aware of.
However, this brings up an interesting point...
The Player is a decent modern Stratocaster...
...provided you can find a good example of one such as I did.
It's worth it to hunt for a good one of these.
Maybe you'll get lucky and get a great one on the first try. Or you may have to do what I did and try several before you find one that doesn't have any issues with it.
If it's a Stratocaster you want, and you want it made by Fender, be willing to try a few of these before committing to a purchase.
When you find one of these that's sorted properly, the feel, playability and sound is all there. It's "all Fender," as it should be.
Is Mexico making a better Stratocaster these days?
Yes and no.
No, in the respect I had to try five of these before finding one without a nut slot issue.
Yes, in the respect you get better color choices and "more normal" electronics and pickups.
I'm going to directly compare the SSS (meaning not HSS) Player vs. American Pro II, starting with colors.
Colors
(M next to the color means maple fingerboard only, P means pau ferro fingerboard only, R means rosewood fingerboard only, MP means choice of maple or pau ferro fingerboard, MR means choice of maple or rosewood fingerboard.)
Player: 3-Color Sunburst (MP), Black (MP), Tidepool (M), Polar White (MP), Buttercream (M), Capri Orange (M), Silver (P)
American Pro II: 3-Color Sunburst (MR), Olympic White (MR), Mystic Surf Green (MR), Miami Blue (MR), Mercury (R), Dark Night (MR), Roasted Pine (MR), Black (M), Sienna Sunburst (M)
The Player, while having fewer color choices, does have the better color options.
Pickups and Electronics
The Player has alnico 5 magnet pickups that I best describe as "the most normal." They have a reliable and predictable sound to them, with the only real (and very welcome) change being there is tone control wired to the bridge pickup.
The Am Pro II has V-Mod II pickups. V-Mod means "vintage + modern" and this is the second generation of them. It is Fender's attempt at getting the best blend of vintage and modern tones in a pickup set. V-Mod II pickup magnet configuration is as follows: Front side neck pickup has alnico 2 magnets on the bass side and alnico 3 on the treble side. Middle pickup has alnico 5 on the bass side and alnico 2 on the treble side. Rear side bridge pickup is all alnico 5.
Only one complication exists for the V-Mod II, and that's the push-push tone control that adds in the front neck side pickup on selector positions 1 and 2.
V-Mod II tone is decent, but it's the push-push to add in the front neck side pickup that gives the Am Pro II the advantage over the Player - if the two tone types added in are of any use to you.
For some players, the Am Pro II is the dream Stratocaster they've been waiting for because of that push-push. Now they finally have a Strat where in addition to the regular 5 positions, bridge+neck is now there for Telecaster-like twang, and bridge+middle+neck is also there for a "fuller 2."
However, if all you want is a regular Strat with regular pickups (meaning no fancy dan pickup magnet mixing) along with tone control wired to the rear bridge pickup, then the Player is the better option.
Longevity considerations
In the end, the Player model isn't necessarily any better than the American Pro II, but I do believe it will age much more gracefully. The Player as it gets older will age just like any Stratocaster does. As for the Am Pro II, absolutely nobody knows (because it's still far too new) how those mixed-magnet pickups will age or whether that push-push will stand the test of time or fail quickly.
I'll just say that had I bought the Am Pro II instead of the Player, the first thing I would do is buy a replacement push-push switch - even if that meant I had to call Fender directly just to get one.
A push-push potentiometer looks something like this:
The price of one of these isn't exactly cheap. Why? It's a very nonstandard type of potentiometer for a guitar. This thing is long because of the switching mechanism. Is this the one Fender uses? I have no idea, hence the reason I would ring Fender up to get exactly the correct potentiometer they use in production Am Pro II Stratocaster guitars.
I know that switch will be the first thing that fails on that guitar, so I'd buy one and keep it in storage until needed. And it has to be a "Genuine Fender" part just to ensure the stupid thing will fit in the guitar correctly. The cost would be ridiculous, like $25 or so (which is a lot for one potentiometer), but I'd buy it anyway just to make very certain I'd have a replacement ready for the #1 thing to fail on the guitar first.
And then there were two (guitar minimalism)
Okay, technically three.
I just parted with 4 guitars and replaced them with a new Fender Stratocaster.
The details of the new guitar will be covered in my next article, but for now I'll just say in brief that the guitar is a new Fender Player Stratocaster in a color called Surf Pearl.
As of now I only have two working guitars. My first guitar, a 1989 Squier II Stratocaster, and the new 2021 Fender Player Stratocaster. I also have a non-working 1993 Fender Stratocaster that is in pieces at the moment (it needs a neck, among other things).
The guitars that are gone are the SX Furrian Fat, SX Furrian, Glarry GJazz and Glarry GTL. Those were all traded out.
This also marks the end of my Telecaster phase.
The hoard is thinned yet again
Every few years it seems guitars find their way into my living space and I have to flush them out. Before getting the '21 Strat I had six guitars, and now it's three. At my worst, I had seven. I've never been in double-digit territory with my number of guitars.
The main benefit of owning a bunch of guitars is you get to try a bunch of body styles and pickup configurations. My three Tele-style guitars were all different. One had traditional S/S pickups, the other had S/H and the third an S/S but with semi-hollow body and "ashtray" bridge.
The main drawback of owning a bunch of guitars is you can only play one at at time. This means guitars purposely have to be rotated in regular play just to keep them working right.
In other words, I don't like owning a bunch of guitars because they all have to be played, and all have to be maintained. After a while, rotating the instruments feels like a job you don't even get paid for, and that's no fun.
The dumbest thing I bought...
...was the bass. True, what I had was dirt cheap (under $100 new,) but the exact same thing happened that always does.
I buy a bass thinking that yeah, I'll use this thing all the time for bass backing tracks. The bass is bought, I'm all sorts of happy at first, it gets played for a couple of weeks, and then gets put on a stand and goes unplayed. And sure enough, I look at that bass later and question why the hell I bought the thing in the first place. That's when it gets traded out.
A bass for me is always a "sounded like a good idea at the time" purchase. At least I was smart enough to purposely go super cheap with it this time around.
For now, I'm done with basses unless I go all stupid again and buy another one.
Bass will now be done either by detuning my guitar or just using my synth.
Why the Stratocaster again?
I could have traded out all those guitars for a Fender Telecaster in the same color I bought my Stratocaster in, and for literally hundreds less. But no, I went Strat.
The main reason was ergonomics. The Stratocaster body with its contours feels better playing sitting or standing. With standing play in particular, I can angle the Strat body so the neck stays up whereas I can't with a Tele body without putting the strap through a belt.
The second reason was the sound. I've come to appreciate Stratocaster tone again. However, this is largely due to how Fender is making the Player Stratocaster these days.
I'll cover this more in my next article, but I greatly appreciate the Player requires no mods. It has a nice set of alnico 5 pickups and comes factory installed with tone control wired in on the bridge-only pickup selector position. This breaks with tradition as Strats typically don't have tone control wired there, but I very much welcome it as it makes that pickup selection so much more useful. And oh yes, I do use that tone control there.
The third reason is that I've come around to appreciating the Stratocaster overall again. I was anti-Strat for a long time. Not anymore.
There is The Big Question, will I keep it? Well, I just got the thing, so I have time to return the guitar should it not work out. But to answer the question, I'm mostly certain I will keep it unless it develops some wacky problem.
Next article will detail the story of the guitar purchase and other things. I actually wanted the Buttercream finish version and had no intention of buying a Stratocaster in Surf Pearl, so it will be an interesting read on why I got the one I did.
The 3.5" Garmin nuvi is still needed after all
A weird chain of events led to the point where going back to a GPS navigator made in the early 2010s is sometimes actually the best (if sometimes not the only) option.
The 3.5" screen Garmin nuvi was around from 2007 to 2011. The model you see above is the best one they ever released, the 2250LT. I own two of these. I also own the very last 3.5" model Garmin ever made, the 30LM, although it doesn't have anywhere near as much features as the 2250LT does (like traffic reporting when connected to a GTM36).
At the time I write this in 2021, all new cars now have an infotainment screen that starts at 7" in size and goes up from there. The problem is that in-car navigation is terrible, making that big screen useless for actually giving directions.
Is the smartphone a good alternative? It may not be. There are three problems with it. First, it can't be mounted anywhere because of modern car interior design. Part of the screen will always be blocked. Second, connecting it wirelessly to the car's infotainment system will at times drop connection, making that option useless. Third, the GPS antenna on the phone is weak and will also drop connection often...
...which is when the 3.5" nuvi, as old as it is, sometimes ends up being the only usable option.
Better to use a 3.5" than "mod" your car interior
I've read stories and seen photos of "mods" by guys who did some seriously stupid things to their car interiors just to get a good screen mounting position. Brackets and/or plates that required drilling holes, crazy gooseneck mounts, and so on. Not smart.
A 3.5" is basically the size of a car gauge. And because it's so light, it's unlikely a suction mount will fall when used with one.
Where a 5" or greater size screen can't go, the 3.5" can, and it's legal to mount it in the lower left of the windshield in all 50 US states...
...and that alone makes it worth having one, just in case you ever need to use it.
Reverse headstock S-style with "cheese wheel" for cheap
There are two things that impress me about this one.
The last guitar I mentioned was not cheap in price, but this one is and has some rather nice features to it.
This guitar is simply known as a Zuwei Customshop Series. I have no idea what the model name is because it's not mentioned. What I do know is that it's way under $300 new.
What we have here is a simpler design with S-style basswood body and S-style HSS switching, but with a reverse headstock and a 24-fret neck. At the butt of the maple neck you can see the "cheese wheel" for adjusting the truss rod, and that's cool. Very easy to get to.
However, this guitar has a few more tricks up its sleeve. It has that back-mounted output jack very similar to the Charvel I just talked about. It also has a deep cutaway on the rear of the bottom horn for easy access to the higher frets.
The cheese wheel and output jack are just really nice things to have, and this Zuwei has them for real cheap.
Given how low the price is of the guitar, even if the pickups don't sound that great, who cares? With the cash saved on this one, it can easily be put towards a replacement set.
Charvel is making the best "fast Telecaster" right now
This thing is nuts, but in all the right ways.
While this isn't a guitar I'd particularly own, I do appreciate it for what it is.
Quick specs out of the way first. Carmelized maple neck and fingerboard. 12"-16" compound radius on the neck. Heel-mount truss rod adjustment (easily accessible). Ash body. Hand rubbed satin urethane finish (meaning silky smooth everywhere). Fishman Fluence Open Core PRF-COC pickups. Gotoh Custom 510 Tremolo bridge. Die-cast locking tuners. "Luminlay" side marker dots. Ridiculously easy high fret access with "shredder's cut heel".
Like I said, this thing is nuts.
The worst part of the guitar is the name. Charvel Pro-Mod So-Cal Style 2 24 HH 2PT CM Ash. Yeah, that just rolls right off the tongue. Sounds more like an automotive part number for a Ford F-150.
My favorite part of the guitar is something Charvel doesn't even mention, the output jack.
It is ingenious where they put the jack. When standing you can snake the cable with the least amount of stress right over the guitar strap. And again, Charvel doesn't even list this as a feature, even though it is.
Now in addition to all this, the guitar just plain looks good. Charvel, somehow, managed to make a natural finish look great. Usually, the natural finish looks terrible because it causes the guitar to look like a coffee table. But not this one. This, in all honesty, really does look "pro".
Why wouldn't I own it? Too much shreddy stuff for my taste, but then again, that's Charvel's thing, so it's expected.
It pleases me to no end that Charvel made this. They put in all the good stuff but kept the styling classy and subtle.
Color me impressed.