Cheap vs. Expensive Stratocaster | Player Series vs. Custom Shop 

Lol @ 2:19 the way you say "right before the point when they rubbed it in dirt" cracked me up. I'm with you on the whole relic thing. If I'm spending that kind of money on a guitar, it had better look flawless. I'M the one who's going to do the relic-ing by playing the heck out of it. Don't get me wrong, I like the esthetic of a worn in, well-played instrument, but what makes it cool is the stories the battle scars tell. When a musician can tell you "oh, that scratch is from stage diving in x venue" or "that gouge is from getting bumped off the top of a marshall stack in y city by so-and-so", to me it gives the instrument a far more interesting story than "oh, I bought it like that from the custom shop." Kinda like buying ripped jeans. Mine have battle scars from years of hard work. Some people actually spend way more money to buy them like that, and it makes no sense to me.

Damn man, that playing of yours is just off the hook! Both sounded fantastic but of course that custom had a nicer sound for sure. 👍

Honestly I found the Player Strat pickups to sound quite good vs the high end Custom shop at least in this RU-vid compressed video. Yes I can hear a more fuller tone with the hand wound TS pickups most noticeable in the neck, middle/bridge and bridge positions. Fenders quality in their low price options are really very good. But yes I know what this video is really all about… which is how you can easily modify a low price Strat to be a much better player grade instrument. Great comparison Cooper. Always love the videos on Alamo Music. Keep up the great work!

Great video as usual. About Squier CVs, I've been blown away by the latest Indonesian CV Telecaster I purchased last month. The fretboard has rounded edges exactly like my Am Pro Ii, and everything on this guitar is absolutely perfect. It's the first one that beats my pre-2019 chinese CVs! I don't know if I was lucky or if it's the new specs, however. But it's now the only Tele I use, she's magnetic

The Mexican made Strat’s were some of the best value of guitars for such a long time. They skyrocketed prices through the pandemic. In 2019 you could buy one brand new for $499. They are not the value they used to be. I’d spend my money on a Sire S7 if I were looking to purchase new today.

The Player on Candy Apple Red came with Pau Ferro but with the HSS configuration, so if you are planning to mod the guitar anyways, and want the brown wood, is better to get the HSS one and replace the pickups and pickguard with whatever you want.

I sold my players strat and am still kicking myself. I had the Capri orange HSS with pau ferro fretboard. The orange was a little light for my taste but it was a excellent guitar, playability and sound was awesome. I'll probably go for the HSS players in candy apple red at some point this year. Right now I have a Chinese knock off (Firefly) being delivered this Friday for $169 plus $27 delivery. They had several finishes to pick from including a few relics that actually changed my mind about relics. They come with locking tuners, roasted flamed maple necks, maple or rosewood fretboards depending on the finish, bone nut, abalone fret inlays, stainless rounded end frets, compound radius fretboard (9.5 to 14 inches) customized alnico 5 pickups and a Korean bridge. They were sold out of several models and finishes but still had some nice looking guitars left. If you're looking for an inexpensive guitar to play around with or a mod platform these Fireflys are pretty good. They've definitely gotten a lot better over the last year or two. Best place to order them from or to check them out is Guitars Garden.

Great assessment

I personally don't think the difference in sound alone is worth the difference in price, they both sound nice. Love candy apple red, in fact my last build was an Esquire in candy apple red with white guard and white stripes from the bridge to butt. I'm not a big fan of artificial relic but occasionally I do seen one I like. This specific custom relic I don't like. Nice playing.

Totally agree on the colour front. Why has it taken Fender so long to offer Candy Apple Red on a Player Strat (and Fiesta Red on a Vintage II Strat for that matter). Make Candy Apple Red an option on an Ultra Strat and I'll buy one straight away.

Agree with you on the colours...though tide pool.. looks nice 😅

As someone that’s built a few parts casters in my time, I find it’s actually a lot easier to do the dinged up relic’d stuff than a perfect factory gloss. Now of course a guy in his garage is very different to an assembly line production but I think relicd custom shop guitars are way overpriced. Especially since there’s no sonic difference outside of the electronics.

“..so this is right before the point when they rubbed it in dirt” 😂

Thanks good video

Love that candy apple but I also love my TidePool HSS 😐🤷🏻‍♂️……I was born in ‘63 so would love that Custom Shop but in NOS. Not a fan of the relic’d stuff although the one you demo’d is amazing.

A rosewood fretboard and replacement pickups would improve the sound for me. Not sure if Fender sells a 57/62 set with a reverse wound middle pickup.

I'm 58 and looking for a new Fender Guitar. I brought a Mexican made Stratocaster but it was purple and love it. It cost me $275.00 in a pawn shop. Unfortunately I have to sell it because of money issue. Now I'm looking to find another Fender Guitar kind of similar.

Nice TShirt! :)

I like the sound of the CS better, but would like a tad bit more bottom out of the neck pickup.

Always love red guitars and the sexy devilish look of it ❤

The player series Strat sounds good to me!

What is a guitar?

I was going to say the one on the right is all beat up. I want them to make a Lake Placid Blue new old stock with a slab board.

I’m very fortunate to really like/ prefer a player’s Strat. I’ve gone higher, much higher in cost and I like what I like, good for me.

Slightly older Mexican strats do come with rosewood fretboards if not a fan of the maple

Funny you should mention al the upgrades you could do on the Player strat. I just bought a Squier CV strat in candy apple red with the intention to mod it to the hilt. I already have a really nice Mexican roasted maple neck on another partscaster that didn't work out for me, I'm going to slap that on there along with a nice set of pickups and maybe a better quality bridge. The only thing I really needed was the body, and for me it was a question of do I go with the more expensive Player or the cheaper Squier, both offered in the same color with the only difference being the body wood. I ended up going with the cheaper Squier.

Change pickups is easy, but in my case a two point bridge is a modern touch I don't like. Has probably not much to do with the sound, but a 6 screw is more authentic. The scratches come with age.

For as much as I play a strat, the less expensive one would work. Besides, other than NOS, I don't like aged guitars. Thanks, Cooper.

I've never got the attraction of a relic guitar. For me the whole cool point of a real battered guitar is that it's been played to get it to that state.

Can you put in the SSS Player a humbucker by changing only the pickguard without changing the body?

Fender guitars are simple to assemble, so they have comparatively little money in actual build time. So where does the cost enter? The answer is parts and finish. At $900 for the Player strat, a buyer is already paying for the Fender label. The custom shop cost is primarily in the labor necessary to screw up the finish.

2019 is when the vintera 50s with s1l swich came out thats why

Nobody really NEEDS anything else than a Player. When it comes to relic I believe you’ll have to earn it by playing. My dad’s Mex Strat is heavily relicked (?) due to decades of playing. If I made my living playing guitar I might invest in a higher-end guitar but it really wouldn’t be necessary.

It changes al lot for me, but not necessarily an american standard or a Mexico model sounds bad.. wood, lacquer and colors used for the paint and of course pickups, all these things are important to achieve that sound. And first of all: touch of the guitarist, the fingers. I have a 2002 CUSTOM SHOP STRATOCASTER 65 NOS - DAKOTA RED with custom 69 pickup, and it sounds very closer to that candy apple red custom shop!

Buy a Player or Classic Vibe, get it setup right, play it, make a some mods over the years, throw on a branded Fender neck (if it is missing one) and make musical love to it, after 20 years it will be more special to you than an that expensive custom shop created by some builder. It will be forged by years of your heart, sweat and soul poured into and all over it. Some of the greatest guitars of all time are off the production line guitars mashed together with others, tweaks, pickup swaps and a whole lot of love to make them into the instrument they are today. A great guitarist can make a regular guitar sound amazing e.g. Frankenstrat. That should be where players focus their attention not on spending big bucks to sound great on some custom shop.

This is the first time I have heard such a clear difference between pickups. I begin to understand why there is such difference between guitars of the same model.

The biggest misconception of relic'd guitars is that it's all about aesthetics...it isn't. Of course having a worn vintage looking guitar is part of it but they wouldn't be as popular as they are if not for the FEEL of relics. It's not just as simple as taking sandpaper to a neck; the Custom Shop has developed proprietary methods that make a guitar neck feel indistinguishable from real vintage necks. The edges are rolled, the wood feels amazing and the fretwork makes it feel completely broken in. I respect those who don't dig the relicing or think it's cheesy but I have worked in music retail for years and the cats who take the biggest dumps on relics have never played one, let alone A-B one with a brand new guitar.

Relic. Baby it's old School.

To my eyes, the candy apple red finish on the CS is more dynamic than the one on player. I wonder if it's because the nitro vs poly they use or if it's the relic

One of these days I may pull the trigger on a custom shop. The older I get the more unobtainable a birth year guitar is.

Relic all the way

I bought a fender player, Stratocaster last fall and it is quickly becoming my least favorite guitar ever. I am a fairly new player, just started about four or five years ago and I’ve had seven different guitars in that time but last year I decided I wanted to get some better guitars. I did buy the fender player Stratocaster, and when I first received it, it had terrible frett buzz going on and here. I am five months later and it’s having the same problem again. And all of the guitars I’ve owned in the past, including a couple of cheap Ibanez, guitars, and an old used Squier guitar, a Yamaha Pacifica, 012 I have never had a guitar that became absolutely useless every five months because it had such bad frett buzz going on. I have to take it back to the luthier to get set up and I know that needs to be done occasionally but in all the guitars I’ve had I’ve never had a single one of them become completely useless that I need to leave it on the stand until I get it in to get it set up again. Does anybody have this problem with their player Stratocaster, do you feel like the American pro Strat would be better with this problem because as I said, this player is becoming my least favorite guitar ever. It sounds good when it’s working right, but it becomes completely useless when it needs a set up.

Vintera vintera vintera

Had a placid blue taco strat in the 90s. Great guitar for the price.

Great video! The custom shop looks like shit, but I love the clarity and tone from the pickups. I think I’m going to sell my 1982 Dean soon. I’ll call the dents and chips on it a custom relic, and sell it for a premium! 😂

Clicking back and forth through the sound demos, I'd say the CS tone is much fuller than that of the Player. Probably down to the pickups, but the bridges are very different, and in my experience, Strats with six-screw tremolo bridges always sound better than those with two-post bridges. So maybe the difference is down to the bridge, as well as the pickups.

To me; any wear on a guitar should happen naturally by playing your self...not some one elses wear.

Have you not herd of vintera 50s modified s1 switch they are equally if not better than player series just wonderd nice playing though funk

I want to play like Cooper!

You can IMMEDIATELY tell a big difference in the pickups. Plus, the custom shop candy apple is way deeper/darker red..

Relicing a beautiful guitar is like going to the Pretty Girlfriend Shop and saying; "I'll take HER, but can you first knock some of her teeth out and give her a couple black eyes and put 100 pounds of old age on her"

I don’t like guitars with the relic treatment. For a vintage vibe, I really like my Vintage II ‘61 Stratocaster. Great looking guitar with the feel of an era correct guitar. Between these two, I would take the Player Series Strat.

That custom guitar is night and day difference against the player. The player is not even 70%

It's not cheap for everyone, ffs! It's less expensive.

Interesting that someone selling guitars wants limited choice in colors.

The anti-relic comments are becoming really tiring now. People like different stuff and that's cool. Nobody has to buy one. Im going to continue pulling the wool over everybody's eyes and enjoy every second of it.

The price difference is not justified, whether or not the custom is better...

Both rosewood or it doesnt work.😢

Relicking an instrument , just DONT WOKFOR ME. All the instruments I ever had, I looked after them like a new born baby .it’s such a shame to do that to en instrument. Can you imagine a concert pianist playing on a piano in that condition?? IF I HAD AN INSTRUMENT LIKE THAT , I WILL NOT CALL MYSELF A MUSICIAN .

Smash them with serious drive. C'mon man.

Why tf would i spend 3k for a guitar that looks old and decrepid?. Literally makes no sense

I’m sorry but relicking destroys any guitar for me.

IMHO paint looks cheap, so all the crazy expensive guitars with the same damn shape for the last 50 years and painted finishes instead of showcased beautiful wood look, well, cheap.

I've had bad luck with the player. I wouldn't recommend it.

This has been done so many times, such a stale idea and video. Talk about unoriginal.