New Fender ‘Player’ series released

Every four or so years, Fender will make a few refinements to one of their main ranges (or series’) of products. Last year’s change raised many eyebrows when Fender were bold enough to even change the name: we witnessed the rebirth of the legendary ‘American Standard’, and it’s new guise – the ‘American Professional’ saw some rather noticeable tweaks.

This year, the turn has come for the the ‘Standard’ (often known as the ‘Mexican Standard’) and once again they have taken the opportunity to change the name: introducing the ‘Fender Player’ series of guitars and basses.

What I initially thought was a simple refresh of the range with some great colour options (the opinion of some forums) has actually turned out to be something quite a lot more interesting:

The obvious changes that are tinkered with at each refresh such as re-voicing pickups are as to be expected. However, taking the strat, the three biggies for me are the feel of the neck which seems to be significantly more premium (just ask our guitar tutor and resident Strat afficionado who professes to have never ‘got on’ with Mexi necks and yet was blown away with this guitar!), the two-point tremolo system, and the little touch of the spaghetti logo on the headstock.

The result is a guitar that looks and feels significantly more premium, with a slightly refined tone, sitting as a direct replacement to the ‘Standard’. The new colour options – particularly the Polar White (sitting somewhere between the gleaming ‘Arctic White’ and creamier ‘Olympic White’), and the vintage ‘Buttercream’ -are nice touches. The addition into the range of the offset shapes is also welcome.

We have already received some of the new models prior to release day – see here – and we will post some instagram shots shortly

And the remaining models of Mexican standard are on great deals on our website and in store- given the prices of both the Player and the Standard, there is not a better time to buy a new guitar.

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