A cheap not-Strat Strat that's actually good
It might be cheap, but this guitar has it where it counts.
To start off, no, this is not as cheap as the Squier Bullet Strat. You will spend a little more to get this guitar, but only a little more. It's the Sterling by Music Man Cutlass SSS.
There are two immediate things about this axe that make it better than the Squier.
First is that it has two knobs instead of three. This means tone control on every pickup setting, whereas with traditional Strat wiring you get no tone control on the bridge-only pickup.
Second is the truss rod adjustment location at the heel. You'll see a black notch after the neck pickup and before the neck. That's the wheel where you make the adjustment. This is, without question, the easiest possible way to adjust neck relief. Why? Because you never have to detune the strings. With a headstock location, at least two strings have to be detuned to make a neck relief adjustment. With the wheel at the heel end there's no such requirement. Just pull the strings slightly out of the way, tighten or loosen to your desired relief, and that's it. Done and done - and you can do it 100% from the seated guitar position too. Very convenient.
Actually, there's a third immediate benefit over the Squier. The volume knob is away from the bridge side pickup. A very common complaint of Strat owners is that they keep hitting the volume control accidentally. You will not have that problem with the Cutlass.
Now aside from all that, yes this guitar sounds like a Strat and it looks cool in Daphne Blue. The neck has the oh-so awesome satin finish, just like Fenders do. The truss rod is dual-action for even easier neck relief adjustments (as if it wasn't easy enough already). Tuners are all proper die-cast metal secured with nuts on top. Even the neck connection is more stable with a 5-bolt pattern.
Yeah, you get a ton of guitar for the money with the Cutlass SSS. But of course the best part is that this guitar is cheap. More expensive than a Squier Bullet, yes, but still far less expensive than the nearest available Fender.
Are there any downsides? The output jack is on the side of the guitar like a Telecaster instead of on top like a Stratocaster, and the headstock does look slightly "stubby" with it's 4x2 tuner layout. But then again, that is a staple of Music Man design.
And yeah, that's it. Those are the downsides, if you could even call them that.
Basically put, this is pretty much the best not-Strat Strat there is. Much easier neck relief adjustment, volume knob won't get knocked accidentally, sounds right, and is priced very nicely. Trust me, you can afford this one.
I should also mention there is a gorgeous rosewood board version and a very nice looking HSS version as well - all for the same price.
The cheapest Squier Strat
Is this guitar any good?
Of course it is.
Over the weekend I ran down to a Guitar Center to pick up a pack of strings, saw a Special Edition Squier Bullet Strat in Sea Foam Green, and tried it out.
Now to note, this is literally the cheapest adult size Strat that Squier makes. And it's still as cool as it ever was.
I have to admit that I had a wave of nostalgia hit me while playing this guitar, since I owned a Bullet Strat back in the day. This one pretty much follows the exact same formula, with the only thing really changed is that it's now made in Indonesia and not China.
Actually, one other thing changed. This one does use the new updated Squier logo. Yes, this does look better than the old logo. Even the BY FENDER under it looks better with the all-caps treatment, similar to the look of a 1960's radio. It's a cool look.
When the logo even makes the cheapest model look cool, you know it's a logo done right.
Also notice it says STRATOCASTER on the headstock and not BULLET STRAT. It's also cool to see that. Technically, this does make the guitar a "real" Stratocaster.
Does it sound good? Yes. Does it play well? In stock setup, no. The action from the factory is of course ridiculously high and the guitar needed a setup.
The weight is good and this guitar had a very familiar feel to it. Same satin urethane neck finish, same control layout, same everything as the Bullet Strat of old...
...and that's a good thing. I'm glad this guitar is still being made. It's a beat-around guitar that absolutely sounds like a Strat is supposed to. Yes, it's cheap, but still great.
The tale of the terrible Nissan Versa
I just traded out this car. This is my experience with it.
Versa was a car I had for a little over 2 years. I bought it originally for three reasons. It was cheap. It was a hardtop (meaning there was no sunroof that would ever leak), and it wasn't a big stupid truck.
Said honestly, I could have - and I say this loosely - probably gotten another 50K miles out of this car. Mine was one of the better Versas out there because it had an automatic transmission and not the dreaded CVT. Any Versa that has the manual gearbox or AT is typically a good runner - if you can deal with the car's quirks, which I couldn't.
A short list of the quirks:
- Geared too short - The transmission was a 4-speed automatic. For traveling at 60mph or less, no problems. But for highway speeds over that, the revs go over 3000 RPM and stay there. This car desperately needed a 5-speed auto transmission but there were only 4 gears. Lots of high-rev droning noise at highway speeds because of that.
- Subframe bushings - I never got these replaced because of the crap involved to get the job done. These subframe bushings are not expensive at all. The problem is getting the old bushings out. It's not an impossible job and could be done over a weekend, but I just couldn't be bothered with it.
- Really cheap interior vinyl - I, like many other people, like to clean my car's interior to keep it smelling good and looking nice. Well, I noticed something whenever I tried to use a safe-for-vinyl-interior cleaner. The coloring actually started to come off the vinyl, right on to the towel. Fortunately, I didn't wreck the interior because I figured out what was going on quickly. But after discovering this, I only lightly wiped the vinyl surfaces dry with a polish cloth after that. The factory vinyl from Nissan was just of a very poor quality.
- Poor gas mileage for what it was - The 1.8 motor averaged about 27 MPG. If the transmission gears weren't so short I could have easily achieved a 32 average. I did try hypermiling the car for one fill-up and did eke out a 40 average, but that involved a lot of coasting in neutral and no A/C use. So yes, the 1.8 can get 40 but you really have to work to get it.
- Bad highway manners - I felt myself fighting with the car whenever on the interstate with it. There was nothing wrong going on, but the driving character of the car on highways just wasn't good.
- Speedometer 3mph too slow - From what I understand this is a standard thing Nissan does.
- Seat recliner levers on the inside of the seat - Not a problem, just weird. Both recliner levers face the middle of the car instead of the doors.
Stupid things due to the dopey previous owner
None of what I'll mention below was Nissan's fault but rather the guy who last owned it that did stupid stuff to the car.
- Crappy window tint - The last guy who owned the car decided to install tint on every window, including the windshield had a stupid kid racer style thick stripe on the top. All the tint looked blurry and distorted. I routinely had to roll the windows down just to see outside the car clearly even during day driving. The rear glass was the worst, with tint so crappy it made white cars look pink.
- Possible "cold air intake" mod buffoonery - I suspect the previous owner had a dopey intake mod installed, but before trading in the car he put the stock intake back on. Fortunately, there were no engine issues and it seemed to breathe normally. But from what I saw in the engine bay, I'm still pretty sure that dopey mod had previously been there.
- Crappy aftermarket radio - The radio worked, I'll give it that. But it wasn't installed well. The adapter kit used to make it fit the double DIN sized hole didn't fit quite correct, so it was slightly loose. And once I took out the radio to take a look at the wiring (I was considering buying a factory Nissan stock radio to put back in there), I found a massive tangle of wires. No way was I going to be able to get a stock wiring harness working ever again, so I just put the dopey radio back.
Good things I can say about the car
- Side mirrors were nice. They're big and easy to see stuff with.
- The 1.8 engine is fast. Easy to get up to speed and always had the power there when needed.
- Steering wheel is thick and felt great.
- Very comfy seats.
- Excellent A/C system.
- Always started on a dime. Never an engine problem with sputtering or stalling.
- The low tire pressure monitoring system actually worked right if there was a low tire.
- Very tight turning radius.
- Cavernous interior space. You can fit a ton of stuff in this car.
- Taller than it looks. It towers over Camaros and Mustangs. And yes this means the car has great headroom.
- Gigantic glove box. It goes waaaay back into the dash.
- Windshield washer reservoir could take an entire gallon by design. No leaks. Filling the reservoir was also very easy.
Things I learned
Never buy a car that's been modded by the previous owner
The car I drive now is used but as far as I can tell is all stock and never been modified. Factory radio, factory glass with no dopey aftermarket tinting, factory everything. And it's lovely.
Modded cars are junk. Undoing all the "improvements" the previous owner did just isn't worth it.
Window tint ruins cars
Prior to the Versa I never owned a car with aftermarket window tint on it, and I never will again.
If I ever feel the need to darken the glass, I'm just buying a cheap shade set. Just slap it on when needed it and take it off when done. No glass mods needed, and it works.
All aftermarket stereos are terrible
They all look stupid and don't match the look of the car, and none of them fit correctly. If anything, it's better to convert that space into a pocket for usable storage.
It's definitely better to just keep things stock. Modded cars as I've come to learn are just awful.
Thinning the hoard
This has been a year of change for me, some of which has included just getting rid of stuff.
When it comes to hoarding, there were three things I was guilty of. Hoarding guitars, hoarding GPSes and hoarding wristwatches.
For watches, I had about 25 watches at my worst. It's down to 17 now, and the plan is to get that number down to under 10 before the year is out.
As for the GPSes, I currently have 6 of them, but did have more. Several have been sold. While technically true I have a legitimate reason to own each, the reality is that I only need 3. One for daily use which is the 51 LMT-S, one as a backup in case my daily fails, and one that operates on two AA batteries if the car charger port fails.
Where guitars are concerned, at worst I had 7. Now I have 3. One Schecter, one Fender, one Squier. The only reason I keep the Fender is because it was an 18th birthday present from my father, and the Squier because it was my very first electric guitar. Both the Fender and Squier don't work and need repair for whenever I get around to it. The Schecter is the only 100% working guitar, and that's all I need.
A hoard is a hoard even if it's small
You may be thinking, "Gee, what you consider a 'hoard' isn't really that much..."
True. The bulk of my watches are just cheap Casio pieces, and they all fit in a shoebox with room to spare. The GPSes barely take up any space. The guitars hardly take up any room either...
...but the practical side of my mind does not like owning things that have no sentimental value. Whenever I start to see stuff piling up and it's not getting used for its specific function, I then question why I even have them. If I can't think of a good answer, it gets sold, traded or thrown out.
Now let's talk about the Schecter
Yes, I still have it. Yes, I intend on keeping it. The Omen Extreme-6 has been serving very well as being my does-mostly-everything guitar. I say that because no one electric does it all, and to search for such a thing is a fool's errand. The closest you can get to is a guitar that does most of what you want, and in that respect, yes the Schecter totally works.
The Schecter has turned out to be the ultimate anti-hoarder's guitar. I totally didn't intend for that to happen, but it did and that's a very nice bonus.
Why is it such a good anti-hoarder guitar? Two main reasons, that being standard equipment and comfort.
From the factory, the guitar comes equipped with a mahogany body, maple neck with abalone inlays, 2-way adjustable truss rod, upper-mid-tier electronics, black chrome hardware and factory upgraded TUSQ XL nut. Everything on the guitar has proper fit and finish.
For comfort, the body is light. How light? Pretty much as light as a semi-hollow. The neck has satin urethane finishing, which I greatly prefer over high gloss. Very, very comfy guitar.
Very few electrics match what the Schecter delivers for its price point. Two that come very close are the Ibanez S521 and Yamaha Pacifica 311 - both of which are great guitars - but still don't give you as much bang for the buck as the Schecter does.
I also never find myself thinking, "Oh, I wish I had [insert-guitar-here], because then I could get the sound I want."
It is very nice to have a guitar where I don't feel I need other guitars just to get specific feel or tonal character. That combined with the fact of it having excellent from-factory hardware, feel and sound makes it the best anti-hoarder axe out there.
Again, I totally didn't intend for this to happen. I thought that I'd get this Schecter now, then pick up something else for what the Schecter couldn't do... but then discovered I don't have to. And that successfully keeps me from creating another guitar hoard. Very cool.
The other two Fender Vintera guitars that are almost winners
While these aren't as good as the Strats, they're still really good... except for just a few minor things.
I'm going to talk about two Telecasters from the new Fender Vintera series, that being the '70s Telecaster Custom in Fiesta Red, and the '70s Telecaster Thinline in Vintage Blonde.
Telecaster Custom
A Tele in Fiesta Red? Pure awesome. But what's not awesome are those skirted amp knobs and the bridge saddle color.
Yes, these are the only two things keeping the guitar from being a total winner. While I understand the knobs and saddles are period-correct, if the guitar had white knobs or knurled traditional Tele knobs, that would look better. And a little splash of gold color on the saddles also really would have worked well here.
Of course, you can do these mods yourself as it would be stupidly easy to do so. All you have to do is buy the parts. A Fender Pure Vintage Tele Brass saddle set is dirt cheap. Or if you want better intonation, the Gotoh compensated saddle set is also quite nice. For knobs, the Ernie Ball chrome plated set is inexpensive and look awesome. You have to buy two sets to get 4, but still, very nice.
Even though the mods are easy, my gripe is that you have to spend some cash after getting the guitar to make it look just right. Granted, the cash spent will be very small, but still, it's annoying you have to do that.
Telecaster Thinline
A Tele in Vintage Blonde? Again, pure awesome. This is a yellow with some transparency so you can see the wood grain through it. Very nice color.
My gripe with this one isn't the appearance. It's price and pickups. The guitar is over 4 figures to get it, the pickups don't have CuNiFe magnets in them, and I doubt the guitar has 1meg pots (probably 500K).
Currently there is no way to get CuNiFe magnet pickups new for a Thinline Tele. The last guy who was making them ceased production due to supply issues. Fender can't make them either, so don't ask.
What you get is the modern interpretation of the Wide Range Humbucker. Nice pickup, but it's not CuNiFe.
This means the extra cost is for the privilege of getting the semi-hollow ash body over the other Telecaster which has the alder solid body.
For me, this is a hard sell, especially for a Mexico build.
Granted, yes there are other Fender Mexico builds that bust over 4 figures. And I understand that the guitar is for all intents and purposes a '70s reissue with 3-bolt plate, bullet truss rod and all. But again, hard sell at over 4 figures.
The Custom is the better buy over the Thinline. Cooler color, less in price, and with some very cheap mods does make it into a winner.
One final note about the Custom. This is one of those instances where the pau ferro fretboard actually works to the guitar's advantage over rosewood. The board color better agrees with the Fiesta Red finish.