New Strat Day - Squier Deluxe Hotrail Stratocaster

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Ceylon
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New Strat Day - Squier Deluxe Hotrail Stratocaster

Post by Ceylon » Sun Dec 03, 2017 4:26 am

So in 2010 I sold my MIJ Contemporary Stratocaster, my first decent guitar, in order to buy a Jazzmaster, and I never looked back. Well, almost never. It did dawn on me later just how cool a guitar that one strat was, and I've made a half-hearted attempt or two to track it down since, unsuccessfully. And somehow, I never thought that much about getting another strat.

Then, two days ago, I'm laying in bed after waking up, absent-mindedly checking my phone, when I see one pop up in a classifieds group in my area. You know how in that half-wake state you're kind of susceptible and you don't think all that critically and... Well yeah. Long story short, I now own one of those Hotrail strats that Squier made for a while. And I'm very, very happy with it. The pics will be at the end of this.

So obviously this is meant to be a Stratocaster made in Indonesia by Cort with some more modern appointments, the first one being the pickups, that are Duncan Designed single coil-sized humbuckers measuring (according to the Internet) between 11k and 22k (neck to bridge). As someone used to Jazzmaster pickups and WRHBs this sounds awful hot, but the guitar just sounds nice. Not that overbearing or screechy on the bridge pickup, but with the pinch harmonics that I think are the one reason people go for really hot pickups. For what it is, it comes off as very much balanced, and even sounds good clean or with a modicum of dirt to it. There's still that unmistakeable strat tone to it, but with some more muscle. I played one of these in a music store in Stockholm years ago and remember really liking it. In my head I always kind of equated these with the Billy Corgan signature strats that I really wanted when they came around.

The real perk of this guitar has to be the overall quality, because (apart from the neck, which I'll return to) it feels impeccable. They've done a great work with the fit and finish of everything, and the body has that perfect weight to it when it's light enough to be unobtrusive and heavy enough to feel like quality (specs say basswood but with this weight I honestly wonder). It's in a kind of Arctic white with a mint pickguard that makes for a nice contrast with the other black plastics, like it looks very clean somehow. I think the 2-point vibrato with solid saddles adds to this, since it looks a bit more sleek, more utilitarian, less busy than the traditional strat bridge. It came to me set up to float, but I've tightened it to rest against the body since. They're surprisingly versatile, these 2-point strat vibratos. You can't quite nail the slow dive of a Jazzmaster trem, but with a nice set-up I don't think this would have to be worlds off.

The neck bothers me a bit simply because it feels and kind of looks... cheap? It has the same matte finish you might find on the lower-end Squier strats and looking at the headstock/nut area I just get the feeling that something in the attention to detail is missing. I think this might all be paranoia based on the fact that there's a tiny sticker on the headstock that says "Standard Series" whereas these were meant to be a cut above Standard (as indicated by the 'Deluxe' in the model designation). Still, I guess the necks might in the end be the exact same and that one first marked to go on a Squier Standard ended up on here from the factory. The body also appears to have been black originally, and has a big "B" felt-tipped in the neck cavity, so I guess this guitar might at some point have been sent back and refurbished. The serial number and everything else seems to check out. It's a C-profile with a 9,5" radius fretboard in nice, dark rosewood and what I assume to be medium jumbo frets. Not too thick, not too thin. Very comfortable.

I've decided not to care about the origin of the neck on the basis that it's one damn great guitar. Yes. After I'd done my regular set-up on it, it plays and sounds SO NICE that I sort of wonder how I went without a Stratocaster for 7 years. It chimes when you strum it, snaps when you attack single strings, sustains and sings and it's so soft to play in comparison to pretty much anything else I play. I tuned it to CGDGCD with the fairly light strings that came on it and was surprised that the C-string intonated pretty well off the bat and didn't rattle around half as much as I would have thought. After buying it yesterday I played for two hours non-stop, and then another hour before going to bed. You know how certain instruments just urge you to play on and start drawing songs out of you that you haven't played for ages? This is one of those.

I don't think these guitars are in production anymore and I wasn't able to find a whole lot of them for sale second hand when I had a brief look around eBay etc. I can highly recommend these to anyone who wants a Strat-and-then-some. For the money you pay, you get some serious quality here, and on top of that a fun instrument that will do THE GAINZ perfectly, but clean up and play silently when you need it to.

And now, pictures, which Tinypic has taken the liberty to rotate any which way:

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Science Friction burns my fingers
Electricity still lingers

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Embenny
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Re: New Strat Day - Squier Deluxe Hotrail Stratocaster

Post by Embenny » Sun Dec 03, 2017 8:14 am

Nice score! Glad you're enjoying it. It looks great.

With pickups that hot, you should be able to get a totally useful tone with parallel switching. An S-1 volume knob would let you switch all 3 pickups simultaneously from series to parallel if you so desire, which would get you a noiseless but more "traditional strat" mode as well. Just something to think about...I like those kinds of "high impact" mods. Like a full second guitar's worth of tones for $15.
The artist formerly known as mbene085.

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