FENDER AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL II STRATOCASTER HSS

review
FENDER AMERICAN PRO II TELECASTER & STRATOCASTER HSS
78
GUITARIST DECEMBER 2020
1. The rib-cage contouring
seen here on the
Stratocaster HSS leaves
quite a thick edge to
the bass side, but the
roasted pine body is an
excellent weight
2. The Tele’s bridge plate
looks pretty classic, but
the lower side walls and
domed ends of the outer
brass saddles make it
a lot more comfortable
under the hand
2
1
a distance. Each Am Pro II also has a new-
to-Fender push-push switch on the tone
control. Again, far from new, it switches
the full humbucker to its single-coil mode,
although it’s actually a little trickier than
that (see Under The Hood, opposite).
American Pro II Telecaster
One of the new colours, Mercury, is shown
off here on this muted-down Silver Burst
Tele over its alder body – which pulls
back the usual black edge to a dark grey
pewter hue. It certainly looks very stage-
aimed and showy. Again, this refresh also
includes a smattering of new hardware
and electronics. Most notably we have an
updated bridge that uses a bridge plate with
cut-down side walls. It can be top-loaded
as well as through-strung, while the outer
two saddles are slightly longer and have
domed ‘bullet’ ends. The height adjustment
screws are nicely buried – a great advantage
of the Micro-Tilt – and the saddles are
compensated as before.
So, again, we have V-Mod II pickups.
The bridge has flush mount poles, while
the push-push switch on the tone control
voices both pickups in series when it is
pushed up and when the three-way selector
is in middle position. Like the Strat we
get the string tree from the Ultra (a pretty
minor point) and we have dome-topped
knurled knobs, not the flat-tops of the
previous series.
Feels & Sounds
Both guitars come in pretty similar weight
wise, neither feather-light nor far from
heavy. The necks’ ‘deep C’ profile is retained
from the previous series, spec’d at 0.820
inches (20.8mm) at the 1st fret and 0.920
inches (23.4mm) by the 12th – pretty much
the exact depths we measured. For the
record, the Tele’s neck is slab-sawn; the
Strat’s one-piece maple neck/fingerboard
is rift-sawn. It’s a very everyman shape, not
too thin, not to thick, and along with that
There’s no shortage of
midrange bite, which
really pushes the
Tele-ness to the fore
on the bridge pickup
THE RIVALS
As the most popular and therefore most
imitated electric guitars out there, finding
your Strat or Tele fit is far from easy.
Working your way through the four Fender
USA Production ranges is hard enough,
and don’t discount the Mexican-made
Vinteras or Player Series.
Some highlights if you’re looking for a
viable HSS is the Ultra Strat HSS (£1,749)
with its subtly more modern feature set, or
the more affordable American Performer
Strat HSS (£999), which uses the original
version of the patented DoubleTap
humbucker paired with two Yosemite
single coils and a six-screw vibrato.
Apply that to the Telecaster and we have
the Ultra (£1,899) and Performer (£1,049),
and dropping down to the Vintera series
there’s the ’60s Modified at £879.
Of course, if the name on the headstock
(or the fact that it’s the ‘wrong’ shape)
doesn’t bother you, then the sky’s the
limit. And then there’s the used market…
GIT466.rev_fender.indd 78 29/10/2020 12:19