I like how the reviewers who received the Player II for free got flawless instruments, and everyone who actually bought one with their own money found very real flaws. Don't trust reviewers who receive stuff for free. Not because they are dishonest, but because they're getting the best review samples, and you can't trust those.
This is true. I worked in the music industry for over a decade and the service dept had 3 levels of set up: Regular, Artist and finally that "elite" Review level and even £120 ($156 US) guitars were pampered to perfection. A £700 guitar like this would have been tried by the Managing Director personally if going to a reviewer with clout.
@@jp7963great insight, I’ve always assumed this has to be true with all the major brands, they know what they are doing. From a company perspective, influencer reviews can be the absolute best marketing for such a nominal price to the company you’d have to assume they are all over that.
It looks to me like the skunk stripe is exhibiting differential shrinkage, possibly because of moisture in the wood. Or, pressure from the truss rod has caused it to move, cracking the lacquer. With that problem, plus the neck joint cracks and the sitar noise, I'd send the guitar back. It's a reject.
@@lyricbread Must be a recent issue, I have a mim 2009 fender standard strat that's never had problems. It puts so many US made strats I've played to absolute shame it's the sole reason I don't care for US made instruments
Tired of hearing or seeing that comment. American made strats may be much more expensive that MIM strats. Whether or not it worth the price difference is a worthy question. But when we start to delude ourselves into thinking they are virtually the same? No. Please. Out of 6 MIM's 5 of them I owned had issues that there was no business for them to have required more work. Buzzing like a GD hornets nest that took several trips to techs. Frets, tuning, truss rod and craftsmanship issues usually. I had one- with no major issues. ONE. One of the remainders I just gave up and sent back. For about 1200 you get a japanese made strat. Zero issues. Craftsmanship is amazing on those guitars. At the price point MIM's are at now, you may as well spring for a Japanese model if you don;t want to go USA. I've had minor issues if any at all with my American made strats once they were set up properly. I get that the American model are expensive, but I value my time and my money, and I got sick and tired of techs getting to know me on a first name basis for having to get MIM strats worked on . BTW - the one with no major issues? An FSR seafoam pearl strat that was on sale at GC in 2018 or 19 for 499. Incredible! I put 59 pure vintage pups in that thing, a bone nut later- and it sounds great, is very well built. I was shocked, but it came highly recommended. I'd be interested though to know how the Player 2's are. But please, please spare me these comments that minimize the differences between MIMs, Japanese and American made Fenders. Enough with that BS already.
Pau Ferro is cringey! I'm not hating, I've had cheap guitars for years. But buying a "Fender" and it's Pau Ferro?! It's depressing. They should scrap that whole line. It makes the brand look bad.
@@santigardipee9303 I prefer rosewood but I've got a jazzmaster with pau ferro fretboard and it looks amazing and is so smooth to play. I absolutely love it.
Skunk stripe and neck wood dry out at different rates. Kinda like what causes fret sprout. Usually super easy fix, though it goes to show fenders qc is still a little lacking
Correct. The neck (Maple) wood is a different wood species than used for the stripe (walnut). While both are classified as hardwoods, they have different densities and react to moisture levels at different rates.
The size and shape of the neck are what I'm most interested in these days as an older guy. I'm not much of a green person, but that color looks really good with the rosewood style neck, in my opinion.
Honestly, the quality on both my gibsons is pretty darn good. They’re probably still not as consistent as they should be, but I feel like they’ve gotten it together in the past couple years.
I think l Fender are worse. They have a habit of sending out guitars with really fundamental issues like the nut and the bridge being out of line so the strings go at an angle across the neck. Gibson are a bit sloppy with their finishing, but they have the basic fundamentals correct.
I bought a brand new PRS Silver Sky SE that came with a chip in the pickguard (very obvious) and the fretwork was TERRIBLE. It’s total luck of the draw with new guitars at a low price point really. Fender and Gibson get a lot of haters but a lot of the time with a cheap Fender if you put in abit of work on a sub £1000 guitar you can have a really great guitar. Just buy second hand haha!
@@McBoggler Generally my most reliable trusty guitars are second hand. I look at it like, if something bad was going to happen to the guitar, it would have happened already. And maybe it did and it’s been fixed.
A rosewood board guitar should never have a skunk stripe on it anyway. Because the truss rod is put in before the fingerboard is glued on, it has the 2 way rod at the headstock allen key adjustment to. So it should not have the filler strip. nice sounding and Color is unique, pea, lima, avocado, foliage Green.
For the constant price increase for cheap Mexican strats, I think the value proposition is far too skewed now. It's why I picked up a Silver Sky SE for £599 recently (having had to return a Sire S7 due to a bad fret level). The PRS us basically faultless and plays super nicely -- as good as an American Deluxe I used to own.
I just got a Fender Player Mustang PJ bass and it arrived in perfect condition. The intonation on the E and A string was a little off but that was an easy fix. Setup out of the box was great and neck relief was good. No tweaks needed there. The intonation is understandable but took about 15 minutes to dial in.
I saw all the "influencers" on YT showing the Fender Squire Debut series Stratocaster. SURE, the guitar sounds good when put through a expensive modeling amp which goes through more electronics after it hits the microphone. It really helps when the "influencer" is a very good guitarist that can make any set of strings sound good. I bought into all the hype and purchased a debut strat. I set it up according to the Fender site. My bottom of the barrel epiphone les paul special1 that I got less that two years ago sounds 10 times better than the debut. It seems like the corporations are paying these "influencers" to sell people "stuff" and make it sound better than what it really is.
Typical Fender MIM issues. My Player showed up with sharp fret shoulders (not sprout; the edges left from filing the fret back hadn't been rounded); the saddle height screws stuck way out and were sharp (felt like it was scratching or cut my hand when muting; and the bolt on the end of the tension rod was completely off the rod... just rattling around in there. OTOH my MIJ Strat was bang on perfect! In fit and finish it was the equal to or better than any American-made strat I've played. HTH.
MIJ guitars period are very high quality with tighter QC than American instruments I would say. Shame we don't have full access to the MIJ stuff as they have great taste in colours and combinations.
I went in to my local music store yesterday to see if they had a few I could play. I played the burst with rosewood fingerboard. A bit of a let down. I wandered around a bit. Saw an Ibanez AZES40 in Mint Green. Fit and finish looked excellent. Placed my hand around the neck first. Felt good. Took it off the wall and played it unplugged. Compared to the Player II, it was more resonant and easier to play. Last stop was to plug it into the same amp I played the Player II through. I was pleasantly surprised. It just reinforced the fact that you have to look beyond the hype and trust your ears and hands. Yeah, the Fender Strat's visual aesthetics are iconic - I have three Strats, but man, the sound, playability, and PRICE difference of the Ibanez will make me think twice before buying a Player II. I'm waiting for Fender to release a Coral Red non-chambered Tele with rosewood fingerboard; now that might make me pull the trigger!
I have a player series special run with custom shop fat 50s pickups and a roasted maple neck. A great guitar with absolutely zero faults. Set up was spot on. Compares favourably with my American deluxe tele that cost more than 3x as much.
Those are QC issues. Nothing out of the norm for a Fender/Squire product - especially a new. . . ish model. BUT comparing that guitar's finishings to any PRS SE model I've ever picked up is a stretch in my opinion. If I spent the money to buy that Fender and it showed up with problems like those, I'd call a spade a spade and send it back. Hope you decide to do the same. Great intro playing as always Sir!
Absolutely agree, and it really is the same with absolutely every new Fender product - the first batches always have issues, and compared to the really expensive AV II strat I received when they hit the streets (which actually needed shimming to get the neck straight and a completely new nut, since the included one was cut too low), this Player II was still pretty decent with the skunk stripe being the only real deal breaker. That e string might fix itself when changing strings - I had that more than once and putting proper NYXLs on the guitar fixed it every time, Fender strings are just garbage.
@@0091stefan They need to do something to keep flogging the same old thing every year. I've noticed that over the last twenty years or so, they just cycle specs around, rename stuff with fancy marketing names, and get retailers to pretend they're new and 'better' than last year's stuff. Instead of doing all that, they could invest the money to improve their QC, but then that doesn't give shareholders their precious growth, I suppose.
@@0091stefan It's not like a consistent group of luthiers building an instrument. It is mass production and automation. Absolutely every change is a reset, requiring re-calibration, adjustment of tools, and re-training of 'luthiers' whose qualification is a 3-hour introduction to neck sanding after they failed the 'sandwich artist' qualification at Subways...
@@somerandomguy180 Totally correct, given that the two biggest 'improvements' are rosewood and vintage tuners, both something like 70 years young. QC would cost more money than paying a few influencers (not talking about Jonathan) to train buyers to accept that every new guitar needs part changes, a professional setup, neck adjustments, fret polishing, other pickups etc ad lib... Obviously the electric guitar is the only product in existence that does not need to be flawless out of the box. We return a 20 USD alarm clock for minor cosmetical issues, but a basically unusable Murphy Lab guitar for 10k is just dandy.
Well, the skunk strip can be smoothed out with 0000 steel wool. The neck can often have pocket cracks during shipping. All one has to do is reset the neck by either loosening the screws or take it off completely and then reattach on the pocket.
I'm always blown away by new Fenders. So shiny! I punched in the serial number for my old Baja tele in to the Fender website the other day for fun and it has a photo of the guitar when it was new and I was shocked how "road worn" mine is by comparison after 17 years of playing. I didn't even think it was that bad .. but wow yeah, the new ones are SHINY aren't they?
I had that banjo or sitar thing on G strings normally on MIM strats. Bridge to nut height adjustment is needed that techs usually have a hack thing to fix, Fixing the symptom rather than the cause is a common thing with Techs- especially if they know or think you are a beginner. That happened to me until I just got peaved and returned the guitar and explained that the tech was being a creep about the matter. Appreciate your honesty.
Interested about your comments regarding peach guitars. I bought a player plus from them 12 months ago they may have opened the box but they certainly didn't set it up the trem was jacked up badly cut nut causing buzzing on 1 and 2 string and cut way too high on the bass strings and some small paint flaws. I agree with your comments regarding QC it's not good enough for a guitar that was over £800. Peach should have addressed the issues before it went out the door and packed it properly for dispatch rather than throw it with no packaging support inside a cardboard box Don't believe their BS. If I ever buy again from the I would go to store and check what your getting. You can't beat viewing before you buy.
I bought a Player II at the beginning of the week. It is perfect, none of the cosmetic issues you found. But I did try about 4 in the shop. Yours does stay in tune better after using the tremolo though, but I'm not a tremolo user, so I don't care about that. I've given up buying blind over the internet. Trying out in the shop is the only way to control what you're getting.
The fretwork is pretty decent, no sharp edges or anything, neck feels comfortably rolled, and pretty decently polished, so it's not got that scrapey feeling that you get on some guitars out of the factory when bending/vibrato. The top E has a bit of a sitar thing going on, not sure if that's a bridge or nut thing causing that though
The fret finish on mine was quite nice, the level of the frets, however wasn’t great. Had 3 frets that were a little high. I can do the work myself so no big deal, but if I hadn’t the ability to do it, I would’ve returned it.
I cant speak for the strat but I got the birch green tele and it has no flaws to find. Its my favorite tele that I have owned thus far. Has all the perfect appointments in my honest opinion.
I've actually had tremendous good luck, I guess, because every Mexican Fender Precision bass I've bought has been fantastic. I own a Fender Custom Shop precision, and I still am quite impressed with the quality for the price.
@@thathomiefox Yeah, I seen all the Fender logos on the box and stickers but I just didn't realize it was an actual Fender model, I thought it was some renamed Squier Affinity or something.
Just picked up the new Player II Telecaster, blue, also directly from Fender to take advantage of their 10% new buyer deal. Normally buy from Sweetwater who, yes, would have screened your Strat issues and not shipped it. They were out of stock with the Telecaster, tight inventory that they run. I normally have strong customer loyalty with them. No such issues with my Tele though I have had QC problems with several of the higher end made in the U.S. models in the past. Returned those. I got seduced by the Player II Tele commercial with Julian Lange for Guitar Center and love the tone and neck of this instrument. Hopefully the input jack will stay put but if not, I’ll get it replaced and keep this, assuming I don’t have any wiring issues crop up. Didn’t weigh it but it’s under 8 pounds.
Done with Fender QC. Got so many lemons. Went to a store, and got a Godin stadium ht. So much quality and craftmanship (made in Canada) for Mexican price Fender but feels equal as to any high end usa Fender. You should really give this brand a go Jonathan.
I've noticed a bit of Ghost Ringing lately. My first target was Trem Springs, which I damped with rolled up single sheets of bog roll. Nope, though it Has been a problem before now. One one guitar it was a slack Saddle Spring. My Silver Sky SE has the Ghost Ringing on the B and the G. I think I've found it. Back of the nut Sitar'ing on the back stretch to the tuner. Just damping the headstock doesn't kill it but touching the string IN the slot stops it.
I have just returned a Player ii Stratocaster with a coral red finish. The coral red was not as I had seen in internet pictures, it was like fiesta red with a hideous orange tint. The fretboard was bone dry with a discolouration all over the board, there was a neck pocket lacquer crack, and the rolled edges were non existent. I have always been a Fender player but I was amazed (not in a good way) at the terrible quality control on this. I bought a PRS SE Silver Sky instead and was delighted with the quality control. C'mon Fender, get you act together !!
Mine overall was pretty good. I did have to do some fret leveling and nut filing to get it to be able to setup the way I wanted it. I got mine for $720 and with me doing the work, it was well worth it.
i got one too. mine is bad ass! i love it. but i didn't zoom in on it with hd cam and stare at it from one end to the other. i grabbed it and started playing it.
To be honest there were bound to be issues with this model, I don't know what the 60 cycle hum is like but I would have to put some vintage ultra noiseless pickups in which defeats the reason for purchasing this model, better still, purchase the ultra strat and be done with it, you need a quality guitar to gig with forever not something that you have to keep faffing around with, the cheap price should make you very aware, I have been gigging Gibson Les Paul deluxes with their mini humbuckers for decades and have never even had to undo the truss rod covers, QUALITY counts.
I'm thinking that the sitar sound on a fretted note would have to be coming from the saddle. Yes/No? The guck around the skunk stripe is a "send it back". Otherwise, some lovely tones. My 2021 Player Strat reminds me how much I love it every time I pick it up.
No I think it's the nut height. I did the super glue backing soda trick in nut slot and that fixed it. If you want to do an AB comparison. Put a piece of paper in that nut slot to raise the string height at nut, see if you still have "sitar" sounding string.
Don't get me wrong, I love Fender guitars. That being said I have run into a few problems with their newer MIM offerings. For example, I got a new Player Tele that straight out of the box had a defective output jack and three high frets. It is a fantastic guitar now that I have replaced the jack and took care of the high frets but I'm still a little miffed that a brand new Fender guitar came to me in need of work. In contrast my 2012 MIM strat was perfect from day one. It's still perfect and my favorite guitar. Even more surprising I just recently got a new Squier CV strat that completely blows the doors off of the MIM Tele and rivals the quality of my MIM strat. Out of the box the CV fit and finish was perfect with zero defects anywhere to be found. The setup was EXACTLY to Fender's factory recommendations, the frets were polished and there were no high frets or no sharp fret ends. This Squier is a 10 out 10. It completely blows my mind that a Squier coming out of Indonesia like mine can be as good or better than a Fender coming out of Mexico.
Played 2 of these yesterday. One was incredible, and the other had a really dry neck. I feel like a lot of it is luck. Ended up picking up a partscaster for 499 great instrument.
Sometimes the skunk strip will shrink due to temperature change, i have a Stratocaster that has been like this for forty years and there’s no issue with it
I had the same sunk strip issue on my Mark Hoppus bass last year right out of the box too. Thought I could play through it, but you could feel it on every song. Thankfully Fender replaced it pretty quickly with no issue.
First, let me say that I really enjoyed your playing. It made me a little envious; I wish I'D played some of that stuff!😎 YOU might wind up a little envious of ME, since I have a Donner Stratoid very like your Player II, but with a deep green translucent finish that's truly lovely -- for less money!😎 I would like to share some wisdom that might save some folks some money and take the fear out of guitar ownership. Dylan of Dylan Talks Tone makes the very cogent point that when a guitar is stored or shipped, no one can touch it, and so nothing that needs to be touched in order to move can move. Therefore, the only thing that can move on an untouched guitar is the neck, which will tend to respond to current weather conditions to some degree or another. This is particularly true of inexpensive guitars made of recently-cut lumber, as their water content is very high relative to older woods. This high water content makes the newer wood more sensitive to current humidity, while dryer woods will tend to ignore such changes. The big takeaway, though, is that with a guitar that hasn't been played or touched for a while for whatever reason, if it doesn't play well, your first move should be to straighten the guitar's neck. To those who don't know how, LEARN! There are RU-vid videos by the dozens that take you through the entire process. It's easy and safe for your guitar -- AND with one of these things that's been sitting around doing nothing, it may very well be the only thing you need to do to make that guitar play great. The last setup may have been done very well, and all you have to do to put it back that way is make the neck straight again. Try it; you can't wind up worse off, and you may end up saving LOADS of time!
This is gripe with Fender. For $700-900, there are now smoking S-style guitars on the market without these issues. Schecter Nick Johnston import is a ripping guitar. Eart gets you well-dressed stainless frets for almost half the price. And many more in between. It is becoming a highly competitive market in this space. I'd want a reason more than the name on the headstock to buy this guitar.
something people need to keep in mind is no QC is 100% perfect, ultimately QC is a human process and humans will make mistakes or miss things. never buy a guitar you haven't seen first, whether that be in the shop or through detailed pictures. and always buy from reputable shops that don't accept lemons and send them back to the manufacturer. plenty of online retailers don't even check the instruments before selling them off.
The skunk stripe is a structural part of the neck, supporting the trussrod. If it moved, then its likely to be broken and it will only get worse. That sitar sound isn't great either - It suggests to me the neck is not straight, or at the least needs a proper setup. I love the colour though.
Always the same thing with Fenders. First thing you do is to check if they made an actual quality check. If you got a fairly manageable guitar, you negotiate a 10% discount. Then you send it to a luthier to cut a new nut properly. Then you got a good guitar.
They are pretty, and I do think they're an overall upgrade from the first Player series. But there's definitely a noticeable difference between the Mexican "standard" models and American ones. I'm lucky enough to own a Jimmie Vaughan Strat with American hardware and a 1995 Tex Mex (bodies and necks were crafted in the US, finished in Mexico) and the difference between those and the standard I've got are night and day. I don't think anything will replace my 95 Tex Mex. It's the best Strat I've ever played.
I bought one, that exact color. No issues ... it's a beautiful instrument ... I've owned enough Fenders though to not be surprised by QC issues ... they exist and are frustrating ... Cheers!
That thing is BEAUTIFUL! Not shocked to see the basic issues. Fender REALLY need to get it together. The unLevel frets are BS and that truss rod cover on the back of the neck is BS as well 👎🏻. I’ve started just buying the Cassic Vibes. Probably order a Warmoth neck with Jumbo frets. That color rocks and your audio and playing are fabulous! 6.5 out of 10 though Fender. Get it together 😮
I am a massive MIM fan. But I am not seeing a need to rush out and upgrade. Those pocket cracks to me show poor handling during production, which is a shame. Crack like that are normally cause by side ways movement of the neck in the pocket, normally when the guitar is carried by the neck. Skunk stripe is also upsetting. Fender only has one chance of making a first impression with this line up. A few shop reviews fall all over themselves to sing the praise of this model. Indie reviews are finding small issues. I always buy from a shop. And preferably one off the wall. It has been played a few times and all the small setup stuff fixed. We must support shops before they all disappear. Fender is talking of the rolled edges, but no one seems to be making much noise about it. That is the only thing that would have me pull the trigger. So perhaps they are not as rolled or impressive as Fender says. Thanks for the review. Very enlightening.
Well Jonny lad, the issue on the back of the neck at the skunk stripe is the same issue that I have on my new Vintera II 50s. So Ensenada does have a problem.
