Played Fender Elite Strat!
Mertay
May 15 2016, 03:08 PM
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Friend bought a Fender elite sss guitar and I visited to try it out, its more of an experience than a gear test so I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

The guitars setup was flawless, the only adjustment I did was to rise the PU's but thats an optional thing as it has the series/parallel button on the volume knob (will get to that later).

The neck caught my attention first, whatever finish they used its the most gliding neck I've even played-super slippery and smooth! I don't know if it will stay like that after years of use but its really nice. The elite is ment to be a modern take on the strat in details, fretboard is a bit flatter than the vintage strats and the neck heel has a slight curve for easier access but the rest of the body isn't so different. The hardware are modern like the tremolo (very responsive, tap slightly with index finger and it vibrates!) and the locking tuner and they work very nice/comfortable.

The PU system is what sets it apart the most, they come with new noiseless PU's and a series/parallel button. The PU's aren't bitey, mid focused but flat sounding with a sweet high-end when played clean. Still not there to me as how it compares to traditional PU's but I don't think the audience would notice that easily anyway smile.gif when you press the button on the volume it goes series and you get a thick sound very humbucker-like but without a very noticable output increase. Not a big fan of that mode to be honest but did get some nice tones out of switch 2 and 4 position with good drive or distortion so its nice to have it anyway... It can pulloff strong distortion (without the noise) but no one should buy such guitar for metal anyway and yeah it can't replace a malmseen strat smile.gif

Then came the fun part as we plugged it into the rig to get some tones...As the PU's were so low it sounded very weak without being so bright (and the series mode was something completely different to an average strat tone) since my friend doesn't use a booster thats always on we decided to raise them. When too high it looses its sweetness without having a vintage guitar vibe but rising them slightly made a cool difference. When just about starting to feel the PU's natural compression that seems to be the perfect hight.

It was the first time I actually enjoyed a strat smile.gif reason is I guess the needed headroom can't be provided with digital approaches (think for a blues/classic rock sort of vibe), a nice tube amp makes a world of difference where humbuckers are more forgiving for expected tones.Of all the nice pedals he has, even ds1 to me was the max distortion unit which was needed. Again first time a ts9 setuped like a clean booster actually ment something to me smile.gif One can get so many tones out of the amp (set slightly dirty) and the knobs+switch its a totally different experience and I used many different guitars with the same rig (including tele's and LP's). Its not about the Elite being a great guitar (even if it is smile.gif ) but the proper approach to use a strat I guess...

It felt best to approach gain backwards; set amp overdrive but the drive knob set low, set the switch to 2 or 4 position on guitar...even this can get you from clean to SRV type drive when the switch is at 1 or 5 and hitting the strings hard. But for more you have the overdrive thats set as a clean boost and for even more there is the distortion pedal like the ds1...anything more than that will sound too metal. We did listen to SRV tones and tried to match them and it went pretty good.

I can write more but thats I guess enough smile.gif let me know if you guys have any questions for the elite strat, I don't consider myself much of a strat guy but will try and help as much as possible.

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Kristofer Dahl
May 15 2016, 03:12 PM
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Great review - thanks!

If they shipped these with more traditional pickups this could be my next guitar, however with these pickups it will sound too close to the deluxe strat I have got (with SCN pickups).

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Mertay
May 15 2016, 03:29 PM
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QUOTE (Kristofer Dahl @ May 15 2016, 02:12 PM) *
Great review - thanks!

If they shipped these with more traditional pickups this could be my next guitar, however with these pickups it will sound too close to the deluxe strat I have got (with SCN pickups).


smile.gif

Yeah you're probably right, we had a another guitar with vintage noiseless but all the electronics on it was modified and it sounded completely different so can't comment much about them.

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klasaine
May 15 2016, 03:53 PM
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Is it a 'new' Elite?

I had an original 1983 Elite Strat (bought it new). It was a great guitar. The pickups then were early Lace Sensors - active/noiseless. It did have essentially the same electronics as you're describing. 3 push buttons for the pkup selection and mid-boost. I liked so much the fact that you could get the two outside pkups as well as all three that I've re-wired every Strat I've had since then to get that configuration. *Never loved the mid boost thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_Stratocaster

This was mine probably in 1992(?)
Attached Image

That's a Boogie .22 caliber amp. Still have it.

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This post has been edited by klasaine: May 15 2016, 04:12 PM
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Mertay
May 15 2016, 04:03 PM
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QUOTE (klasaine @ May 15 2016, 02:53 PM) *
Is it a 'new' Elite?
I had a 1987 Elite Strat. It was a great guitar.

Attached Image


Yeah I don't know much about the guitars history, cool photo by the way! smile.gif this is what my friend got; http://intl.fender.com/en-TR/series/americ...-olympic-pearl/

The color is more like metallic pearl/white with this one as the photo on the website doesn't seem to reflect it well enough.

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This post has been edited by Mertay: May 15 2016, 04:04 PM


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klasaine
May 15 2016, 04:10 PM
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Looks cool. I dig the pearl finishes.

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