FENDER AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL STRATOCASTER
Turn the clock back to the start of 2017 when Fender’s reboot of the long-standing American Standard series became the American Professional. These were bookended by the slightly more modern and upmarket American Elite series and this year’s more retroaimed American Original (previously the American Vintage range).
The Am Pro, whichever way you look at it remains the standard USA Strat and it takes some beating, distilling some six decades of the design into a highly functional, and pretty affordable, everyman package.
There’s nothing exceptional or unexpected in this dish but for so many of us that is precisely the appeal. The weight is good, likewise the colour choice, maple or rosewood ’boards of course, left-handed option and, let’s not overlook, an extremely smart lightweight and durable case. The specs define the modern instrument without being too modern, so the fingerboard radius clocks in at 241mm (9.5 inches), and the two-post vibrato has bent steel saddles, steel block and, yes, push fit, tension adjustable arm. The tuners aren’t locking but have staggered height posts: again the E and A string posts are taller than the other four and sensibly a single string tree maximises the down pressure at the nut of the top two strings.
But it’s the ‘engine’ here that elevates this reboot. Designed by pickup guru Tim Shaw, the vintage stagger V-Mod single coils look ordinary enough but mix magnet types. So, it’s Alnico 2 in the bass and 3 on the treble side of the neck single coil; Alnico 2 on the bass and 5 on the treble of middle pickup, while the bridge is all Alnico 5. They all use 42 gauge Formvar wire and are calibrated for their positions, plus the centre pickup is RWRP so the parallel mixes are hum-cancelling.
Another change for this year is a slightly tweaked control circuit in that the volume uses a treble bleed capacitor and resistor (an RC network) on the volume control to retain the high-end as you turn your volume down.
Trust Fender to nail their own creation.
“Highly functional and pretty affordable, there’s nothing exceptional or unexpected in this dish but for so many of us that is precisely the appeal”