I thought in this article I give my thoughts and experience with this particular guitar.
This is the first Fender that I ever owned. I read on forums and sites throughout the net that Fender made a quality, sound, musical instrument. I will admit at the time ( August 2006 ) I had my sights zero'd in on a Dean Cowboy from Hell guitar. At the same time I was also looking ardently at all the available Fenders to be had. I did play a Dean from Hell at Tom Lee music before I settled on the American Deluxe Strat. I was so close to buying the Dean, it wasn't funny. The only thing that deterred me was the DFH is it's strictly, pretty much a metal players guitar. A part of me was torn between playing Blues or going Metal. Traditionally, I'm more of a Classic Rock Player. I felt I needed to go in one direction or the other ( Blues or Metal ). As Fate would have it, I went Blues.
My travels ended me up at Tom Lee Music once again, ( closer to home this time ) locally. I went in there with the attitude, "I'm not leaving here without a guitar." All the quality guitars were locked to the walls to prevent careless people from playing them and damaging them. Made sense. So I got there opening time in the morning and got the salesclerk to unlock "ALL" the guitars.
I played everything they had. Five or six different models of Startocasters as well as a half dozen different Telecasters. Once all's said and done, I narrowed my guitars to a 60th Anniversary American Deluxe Strat with an Ash body and a ‘60s Custom Telecaster with Bigsby. Both were running near the same price range and I kept going back and forth between the two. I could not decide.
The Tele unfortunately had a white wash paint job on it. Parts of it allowed the wood grain to shine through, while other parts of it was a solid white. Looked rather hideous to my eyes, but it played like a dream and the tones it could produce was most satisfying. The Strat was capable of producing a wider spectrum of tones and played equally well. What decided everything for me was this Strat was a 60th Anniversary Edition. It had the Ash body ( most strats are supplied with an Alder body ) This Strat was the creme' of the crop in it's class. I just couldn't say no....
Now the story changes.
I got it home and played it for a few hours. I was hearing a buzzing of the frets, although not to deaden the strings vibration completely. Just enough to hear it through my amp. Didn't really notice it in the store. I tried this and that to make it go away but it wasn't going away. Evidently, I ended up lowering the string postion and resetting my intonation. It helped, but didn't cure it. Later, I found out my neck of the guitar had a slight bow in the neck and would require a truss rod adjustment as well as recalibrating the string height to the frets and recalibrating the intonation.
My other problem to compound my woes was the damn thing wouldn't stay in tune! My guitar does not have the locking string nut on the top of the neck for the head. It also supported a tremelo bar. So everytime I used the tremelo, it would go out of tune. I read that the tremelo could be set up in various ways. It could be set to sit flush against the body of the guitar so when you pushed down on the tremelo bar, the tremelo would allow slack to the strings and give it a dive bomb effect ( kinda ). But it acts more like a Bigsby in sound rather than a Floyd Rose whammy. The tremelo can also be set to have it raised off the body so you can either push or pull your tremelo bar to make the strings slacken and tighten for a more diverse whammy effect. My guitar was setup like that from the store. I found out to have that and to be able able to utilize it effectively, I would require that locking nut on the strings.
I took my guitar back to the store to see what could be done about this matter. They said I could either replace the neck ( for $300 ) or get the locking nut installed and I would have to leave my guitar at the store up to two weeks. The catch is, to install the nut would require drilling of the neck. Then you're at the mercy of the technician doing the work. One careless mistake and my neck would be ruined. I really didn't want to take either route. So I brought it home and there it sat.
I didn't play it for quite awhile after that. I was disgruntled with my purchase and was growing weary of looking at it and not playing it. A buddy of mine came over some time later and said he could fix it when I told him about it. So I gave him the guitar and he kept it for a week to do necessary repairs. I seen him a week later and he said he got "most" of it's issues ironed out. The string height is still a touch high for my tastes, but he stated that's as low as you can go. It did however, play 100% better than when it made it back to my hands. String action is quite good. I asked him if it would stay in tune now. He said to give it some time and use the tremelo alot. The nut at the neck is made of plastic and the strings are probably "sticking" in their grooves. He recommended some nut lube for the situation and it seemed to do the trick. Currently, it stays in tune quite well ( even when I use the tremelo bar alot ) So I give him many thanks. Talented fellow.
The tremelo is now ( and forever will be ) setup with it sitting flush against the body. So I can only dive down with it. I have grown accustom to it now and fits in well with blues style guitaring. I believe this tremelo was built with that in mind.
I currently own a Traynor YCV50 Watt Blue amp with the extension cab. My next issue with this Fender was getting a sound I liked from the Traynor. All my other guitars support humbucker pickups. That style of pickup is much easier to get a creamy, rich rock tone from ( even with my Traynor ) My Traynor amp can be best compared to the sound of a Marshall amp. It can produce Fender clean amp tones and it can produce a Marshall style tone ( if you take the time to dial in the chicken knobs ) I've never been a crystal clean player and prefer some grit behind my tone. So I dial it in as close as I can get to the Marshall tone.
That said, a Fender uses single coil pickups, giving it a single coil sound. I found the strat produced a brighter sound with alot more twang behind it. I dialed my Traynor in this way and that to try to get a tone that was satisfying to me since I was so accustomed to the humbucker sound. Once again I was at a crossroad. I couldn't get a tone I liked. So I started playing my guitars with the humbuckers and the Fender once again sat on it's stand, not getting played.
I was thinking... "what am I going to do with this thing?" " Should I sell it or figure something else out?" The answer to my problem was the Fender Startocaster lacked the sustain and growl I was yearning for and the Traynor alone wasn't providing it. I would get enough sustain and growl with my humbucker guitars using full gain on the amp settings with the addition of my Hot British ToneBone from time to time. The Fender does not sound good through the ToneBone. The Traynor is a "very" clean sounding amp. More of a country / blues amp than a rocker's amp like a Mesa Dual Rectifier.
It was recommended that maybe I should look into getting a Lexicon MX200 rack effects unit. It's a multi-effects unit that supports many different reverb and delay settings. I was willing to try one since I heard one in action before and was impressed with it's wide range of tones that could obtained from it.
Once that was hooked through my amp, I tried the Fender once more. Tada! WOW! is all I can say. I've put alot of hours into playing with the Lexicon unit since I've purchased it and have become quite comfortable with it. Dialing in tones with it's multiple settings is almost endless in possibilites. I have found some selective tones that compliment the Fender's single coil pickup arrangement. I can get some very nice blue tones out of my Fender now as a well as some crunchier, grittier tones.
With the S-1 switching system bulit into the guitar, it just magnifies that amount of tones I can get out of this guitar. It's actually a very verstile guitar and capable of playing all sorts of different guitar styles. I beleive it's not suited for metal music though, no matter how you dial your instrument in settings. If you want to play metal music, then buy a guitar made for metal music. The American Strat Deluxe seems to cover all the other bases though in musical tone arrays. It really is " an all-in-one " guitar.
The American Deluxe Ash Stratocaster guitar is for players looking for a traditional ash-body Fender guitar that “does it all.” The S-1™ switching system and three Samarium Cobalt Noiseles Strat pickups make this guitar extremely versatile and provide endless tonal variety. It also features a two-point synchronized tremolo with stainless steel saddles, modern C-shaped maple neck with a maple or rosewood fingerboard, abalone inlays and 22 medium jumbo frets. I initailly wanted a maple neck with a maple fretboard, but all they had at the time in that store was a rosewood fretboard. You gotta take what you can get in the real world.
Here is a schematic of the S-1 configuration. http://www.fender.com/products/s1/pdf/AmericanDeluxeStratSSS010-1200.pdf
Guitar Specs :
| Model Name | 60th Anniversary American Stratocaster Deluxe |
| Model Number | 011-6000-(700) |
| Series | American Series |
| Colors | (700) 3-Color Sunburst, (Polyurethane Finish) |
| Body | Ash or Alder |
| Neck | Maple, Modern “C” Shape, (Satin Polyurethane Finish) |
| Fingerboard | Rosewood, 9.5” Radius (241 mm) |
| No. of Frets | 22 Medium Jumbo Frets |
| Pickups | 3 New American Vintage Strat; Single-Coil Pickups with the Middle Pickup Reverse Wound/Reverse Polarity for Hum Canceling in the Middle Switch Position |
| Controls | Master Volume, Tone 1. (Neck Pickup), Tone 2. New Delta Tone; (“Delta Tone” system includes high output bridge pickup and special No-Load tone control for Middle and Bridge Pickups) |
| Pickup Switching | 5-Position Blade: Position 1. Bridge Pickup Position 2. Bridge and Middle Pickup Position 3. Middle Pickup Position 4. Middle and Neck Pickup Position 5. Neck Pickup |
| Bridge | American 2-Point Synchronized Tremolo with Stainless Steel Saddles |
| Machine Heads | Fender;/Schaller; Deluxe Staggered Cast/Sealed Tuning Machines |
| Hardware | Chrome |
| Pickguard | 3-Ply Parchment |
| Scale Length | 25.5” (648 mm) |
| Width at Nut | 1.6875” (43 mm) |
| Unique Features |
Stamped 60th Anniversary Neck Plate, |
So as you can tell I had a story behind this purchase. I guess you'd call my story a Love / Hate relationship with my Fender Deluxe. It's taken me approximately 10 months to get where I want to be with this guitar. If I had known at the time when I bought it, the headaches it would have caused, I probably wouldn't have bought it and went for my Dean from Hell instead. I came close a few times to selling it but that would have been foolish. Diffinitely, I would have lost money on my inital investment as it would now be looked upon by others as a "used" instrument.
I have officially owned this guitar for 1 year now. Now that I've ironed out all my personal issues with this guitar, I find I play it more and more and more each passing day. I am impressed with it's tonal capabilities and have grown accustomed to it's single coil twang. Since it's the 60th Anniversay Edition, it may be worth some bucks one day. A Collector's item. I have not altered any hardware or pickups in it. It's all stock... and sounds great that way ( as it was meant to be )
Although I went down a rocky road with this guitar, I find myself slowly beginning to love it. Each passing day I play it, makes me love it a bit more and a bit more. I'm not one one for selling off my gear, so there's a high possibility I'll own it for life ( sell it when I get too old to play it anymore ). Until such a time, it's mine to keep and proved itself to be a wise investment.
