1998 Burgundy Mist Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster with Joe Barden pickups
Welcome to the most confusing stratocaster I’ve every owned or even played. I recently acquired this beauty in a trade for my Two-Rock Studio Pro Plus 22 and have been confused about it ever since.
Let’s start with the guitar itself, a 1997-98 burgundy mist strat with a rosewood fingerboard. The neck is wide and thick with a flatter, chunky ’51 U-shaped feeling to it and a 12″ radius on the finger board. This is very different from any other strat I’ve had as it is thick and wide, but not the comfortable V-shaped carve I had on my SVL. The closest neck I’ve had that I can compare it to is maybe the John Mayer signature stratocaster I had a long time ago. At first this felt strange and uncomfortable, but the edges are rolled so smoothly and the frets are done so nice (had a very recent refret with some really beefy frets) that it started to feel pretty nice after my hand adjusted.
The fingerboard as well feels very strange being such a flat radius on a stratocaster. I’m used to it on my PRS, but when I pick up a strat I don’t expect it to feel like this. However if I close my eyes, forget what I’m playing and just play, things start to make sense again. The frets are smooth and slick and leveled beautifully so the action is low and the neck set flat. The flatter radius means no choking on big bends and it doesn’t want you to grip and go, but let your finger dance over the frets with a light touch.
Now we must talk about the pickups, those Joe Barden mini humbuckers that give this guitar a different look and sound that I’m not sure what to make of. They’re sort like a humbucker version of the PRS Silver Sky pickups, where they sound undeniably stratty, but also somewhat more hi-fi, but unlike the PRS pickups they do have the compression of a humbucker. They don’t have the magic of the ’59 pickups, but they also don’t have the quirks and drawbacks since they are true 4 wire humbuckers.
And just like that it’s gone. The guitar was received with a gentleman’s agreement that if either of us were not happy with the trade after the weekend we would trade back. Unfortunately the Studio Pro Plus was too clean of an amp for the other person and as such the trade has been reverted and the Two-Rock is back home. It was fun for a while, but perhaps for the best as it was not my favorite strat and didn’t really speak to me as such. Sorry, no real pics since it was here for too short of time.