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Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster

After years of painstaking research and design, the Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster Electric Guitar has finally arrived. Designed with Eric by Custom Shop guru Michael Frank-Braun, this beauty is based on a '57, and combines the best of vintage design with modern electronics technology. - - The '57-style, 2-piece alder body has an ultrathin, Custom Shop-quality nitrocellulose lacquer finish that results in better resonance. Johnson opted for a one-piece, quartersawn maple neck with a 12" radius that's finished with a thin-skinned glossy lacquer and vintage tint. 19 prototype pickups were created before Johnson found the tone he was looking for. The Custom Shop-modified single coils use a new wire material and winding technique for the magnets giving them a unique, Slowhand-approved sound. Johnson and Braun also included one of Eric's most famous Strat modifications by wiring the tone controls to the neck and bridge pickups, instead of the standard neck/middle tone configuration of most Strats.

Price: $525 to $1899

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Searched Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster in Reviews

The best 'production' Strat hands down

Sound	My main amp setup is an Egnater Mod 50 with the Bassman and SL2 modules through either a Mesa or Marshall 4x12. I play metal and jazz styles. With this guitar I am using D'addario EXL 110 (.10's) strings. I have played a lot of guitars in my life, and this guitar is really special. Imagine having the basis for Eric Johnson's amazing tone at your fingertips. This guitar provides just that. Of course, you would have to invest in some vintage blackface Fender's, Marshalls, plus a slew of pedals and some amazing technique to get the rest of his magic, but the foundation is in this guitar. The big focal points of this guitar are really the pickups and the wiring scheme. The bridge pickup is really bright, the middle is nice and punchy, and the neck is nice and warm but with a decent amount of top end. The secret in the wiring scheme are the dual tone controls. One is the tone control for the bridge pickup and the other is the tone for the neck pickup. I was initially kinda turned off by the brightness of the pickups until I realized you were supposed to use the tone controls to set the brightness where you want. To me, this is ingenious! I usually have my tone controls set at max unless I am playing jazz in my other guitars. One good thing about having a bright bridge pickup is that it doesn't muddy up when you put it through a high gain distortion. If I want to use my bridge pickup when I switch back to a clean sound, I can just roll back on my tone, and get it to kinda mellow out. Where this guitar shines is in clean and mid gain tones. It is just an amazing sounding guitar. I use the tone controls to roll off a little top end on both pickups.
Action, Fit, & Finish	I got this guitar in a trade, but the owner had just purchased it from a dealer and it was literally new. I can't comment on the factory setup since it had been setup by the person I bought the guitar from, and I actually made further adjustments to my taste. But I was able to get it to play extremely well with a nice low action. Also, this guitar came to me with better intonation than any of my own guitars, and I have a lot of them. I will comment on the finish, since it was pretty much mint. This guitar is finished with a nitrocellulose lacquer. It was the original finish used by Fender from the 50's to the early 60's. This is one of the best aspects of the guitar. It is a really thin finish that lets the guitar 'breathe'. There was, however, a pretty blaring finish flaw. On the lower bout, something looks to have scraped off some of the black part of the ' burst'. This is actually under the finish, which means that even after this happened, the nitrocellulose lacquer was sprayed on anyway. That is totally unacceptable for a $2,500 guitar. Aside from that, it looks absolutely amazing. Totally stunning in its re-creation of an old 50's Strat.
Reliability & Durability	I haven't had this guitar for 6 months, but the finish is very thin, but that is how it is meant to be on this guitar.
Customer Support	Never had to deal with Fender

Liked about it	Plays like a dream Sounds amazing Beautiful 50's looks
Didn't like	Expensive! Finish flaw suggests slack quality control Nothing else, there is nothing else wrong with this guitar!