American Standard Strat

Fender USA Standard Stratocaster

Introduced in the late 1980′s, this particular Strat
signified the resurgence of the Fender brand through a management buyout and an injection of some much needed passion for the instruments they were making, which seemed to have become scarce at Fender at that point.. Throughout the eighties, the Strat was getting really long in the tooth and had become decidedly un cool for many guitarists! The Fender company was languishing and it’s reputation for quality guitars was becoming tainted due to some of the models being put out by the Fender factory.

Here is a great article about this chapter in Fender’s history

I wasn’t playing guitar back then, so I can’t comment from actual experience as to the quality of Fender guitars from that period however. In 1988 though I bought my first Fender, in fact my first guitar and it was an American Standard Strat.

The Standard Strat was a return to the traditional features of the Strat without all the interesting, but irrelevant "innovations" that it had become bloated with during the eighties. The difference with the American Standard Strat from an original or a reissue model was some subtle changes in the hardware design and the electronics, but nothing that really changed the look of the guitar all that much.

The most notable difference was the TBX tone control, which worked on the bridge pickup. The original spec tone control on a traditional Strat does not affect the bridge pickup. The TBX control also worked as a cut and boost with a neutral, detent in the middle, which was equivalent to having the tone on a traditional Strat full up. What it enabled was a wider range of tones from the bridge and middle pickups, which was fairly subtle, but noticeable.

Also the bridge saddles were re-engineered and were more easily adjustable than the original vintage type. The vibrato bridge (I know it’s referred to as tremolo, but technically it isn’t) differed form the vintage style in that it was based on a fulcrum design: Two pivot posts screwed deep into the body and the fulcrum of the bridge section was anchored to the posts by the tension of the strings, countered by the tension of the springs inside the body, resulting in a floating bridge assembly that was supposed to offer more tuning stability than the original vintage style design.

What I liked about the guitar at the time was the playability. The neck was very slim, which was a trend at that time with all the "Super Strat" guitars that were about at that time. Although not into the style of music that all the Ibanez, Jackson and Charvel players were playing – who I referred to as the "Pointy head stock movement" I liked the ease of playing of the American Standard. These days I prefer a chunkier ‘C’ shaped neck that is more in keeping with the earlier, vintage Strats.

The standard Strat is still being made today, although it has evolved since the late 80′s model. Guitars from that period are nicely worn in now and have a kind of vintage vibe of their own now. Well they are over 20 years old after all. In general I would say that buying one of these early models on Ebay would be a wise choice. You may want to change the pickups for something a little less edgy, but I personally liked the pickups that came with the American Standard Strat.

I taught myself how to play with 1988 sunburst Fender American Standard Strat