FENDER AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL II STRATOCASTER HSS

81
DECEMBER 2020 GUITARIST
reviewFENDER AMERICAN PRO II TELECASTER & STRATOCASTER HSS
MODS FOR ROCKERS
T
he patented Fender DoubleTap humbucker is a little
different to a regular humbucker, for example, with a
standard coil-split, which effectively just dumps one coil,
or most of it, to ground. Firstly, the DoubleTap has mismatched
coils: the screw coil is wound to a measured DCR of 5.17kohms
and that’s the coil that’s voiced in the split mode. The slug
coil measures 3.88k. However, that screw coil is tapped at a
measured DCR of 3.92k (very close to the slug coil), and in
humbucker mode it’s that portion of the screw coil that is linked
in series to the slug coil. Why? Well, there’s less difference in
output between the two modes reflected in the DCRs of the full
humbucker (7.75k) and its single coil (5.17k), which is pretty
close to the DCRs on the middle single coil (6.10k) and the neck
which measures 5.83kohms [pic right, top].
“We really like the V-Mod pickups,” says Justin Norvell, “so the
V-Mod IIs are just a varying of the recipe – winds, wire, bobbins,
stagger – just to the point that we felt we’d enhanced them a
little bit. There’s a pickup engineer we have, Steven Casado, who’s
been in the pickup business for a long time, and he took Tim
Shaw’s original designs and created a slightly different take.”
The original V-Mod pickups used a mixed magnet concept
that’s retained on these MkII versions [pic right, bottom]. So, the
Strat’s neck pickup uses Alnico II on the bass side and III on the
treble; the middle pickup uses the same bass-side magnets with
Alnico V on the treble and the bridge single coil of the standard
Strat uses Alnico V for all six magnets. The Tele swaps it around
so the bass-side magnets are Alnico V and treble side are II.
The Tele is hum-cancelling, too, in both mixed positions
(parallel and series). The Strat’s single-coil mixes are hum-
cancelling and of course so too is the bridge DoubleTap when
it’s in humbucking mode.
The series sound is certainly thicker – the
biggest sound here – and humbucker-like,
with the well-voiced treble bleed on the
volume. Pulling it back retains clarity but
cleans things up, a sort of ‘home’ sound we’d
suspect for many who need a deeper, wider
voice than you’ll usually find on a Tele.
Again, using both volume and tone really
pull out the guitar’s potential, even though,
oddly, it took a while to settle, despite some
pretty heavy string stretching.
The well tried-and-tested Strat vibrato
has a light, responsive feel with a pretty
standard range of around a semitone
up-bend on the high E and just over a tone
on the G. Stability for light use is excellent,
although as with any brand-new guitar
there’s a sense that it all needs to settle in
a little. The push-fit arm is a very snug fit,
making subtle shimmers very responsive.
The more we played this Strat, the more
we liked it – and the Tele, too.
Complaints? For all the effort that’s
gone into the new Tele bridge, at setup or
even post-purchase, notching the saddles
wouldn’t go amiss as the strings can drift
making the string spacing slightly uneven.
Mind you, we’ve put up with that for years.
There’s very little not to like here.
Pretty much the only things
unchanged are the staggered
height tuners we see here. As ever,
truss rod adjustment is made
from behind the bone nut. These
are very easy guitars to adjust
Note the grey fi bre
bases of the V-Mod
II single coils here
The fi ve terminals
on the base of the
DoubleTap humbucker
allow its unique wiring
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GIT466.rev_fender.indd 81 29/10/2020 12:21