r/FenderStratocaster

I am, I think, a rare thing - a guitarist who isn’t really much of a gear head. I’ve played regularly for 30 years and I’m still using my 1996 Epi les Paul and Zoom model 1010 fx!

Anyway, at long last I’ve decided it’s time for an addition and have decided it’s time for a strat. I’ll probably buy used (but not opposed to new at all), anything up to around £1500 max maybe for the right guitar. There seems to have been a lot of ‘renaming’ of strats in the period since around 2000, so what would be a basic ‘ladder’ of models?

For example I have no real way of knowing how the Highway series compares to say a more recent American Player. Hendrix, Frusciante etc is the kind of thing I would be playing.

Putting aside special models, the les Paul studio/standard/special is a simple range to follow!

When I think of a "50s" sounding Stratocaster, I think of the rock and roll artists like Buddy Holly. But when Leo Fender introduced the Stratocaster in 1954 he was more familar with western swing musicians. I've got some Fender Pure Vintage 1954 pickups and they sound ideal for country music: clean and sweet.