Since I started playing the guitar 30+ years ago, Fender Stratocaster was THE guitar for me. Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Ritchie Blackmore - all my heroes played Strats. But growing up in Hungary in the 80s there was no chance for a beginner to get a real one, so my first guitar was a Musima Lead Star - the GDR copy of the Fender Strat.
Many years have gone since, I was lucky enough to have had a few guitars, most of them chosen for practical reasons. I love all of them, but something was missing... So I decided to acquire a Player Strat – and on the very same day Fender released Player Plus series. Trouble again... But then I checked the specs: locking tuners - great; rolled fingerboard edges - great, like my other guitars; noiseless single coil pickups - great, I have all other pickup combinations but this; push-pull to add neck pickup to positions 1 & 2: so all possible pickup combinations are available – and that was what I had already wanted to make on my Musima 30 years ago. Alea iacta est - the dice was thrown.
Today she arrived and after a small tuning adjustment I took her to our weekly rehearsal. I use a Line6 Helix LT and my new love sounded great with that, especially with the tones I designed with a Variax Spank (Strat) model in hand. Other patches of mine that use humbuckers as input cried for a higher pickup output level to which these noiseless single coils are not capable of doing, so I may need some adjusment. But it is not the guitar's fault, it is just personal preference.
The noiseless pickups sounded great and are really noiseless. The push-pull function adds such tonality that is unusual for a Strat, but can come very handy in a few situations. Rolled edges with satin finish played like a charm.
Locking tuners did their job, I am sure they will be even better with fresh strings. I decided to fix the tremolo when I take the guitar to my favourite luthier to adjust it to my needs, I suppose tuning keeping will also be even better after that.
All in all I can say that it worthed to wait for my childhood love to come, I will not leave her ever.
