Fender American Professional II Stratocaster - Mystic Surf Green with Maple Fingerboard Review

Great Guitar!

I bought this Strat from Sweetwater, same color, same model. It does not need any upgrades as far as I'm concerned, some say the pickups are bright, yes they are when the tone is cranked! I play through an Engl and I get a great Strat tone and I have no issue getting the tone I want. The Strat is a very versatile guitar and it's going to take a while to master the controls, but… read more I will say the push-push tone control is a great feature, I love combining the bridge and neck pickups, which you can't do on a standard Strat. You can also use all three at once!

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Best Strat Ever

I have played for over 40 years. I have had vintage strats and reissues. My fave was my 1957 reissue from the 90's. I bought this as I loved the color and thought I'd hang it on the wall in my music room. WOW! This guitar is pretty much perfect. It kind of plays like a '57 but with a better feel, which I did not think was possible. Very smooth and sultry sound but distorts great… read more also. It's the clean sound that is best rings like a bell! The neck is great and the color outstanding. Sweetwater did a great job hit my target price and the guitar arrived in two days in perfect condition. If you want a great Strat this may be the one!

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Hesitant

I own a Les Paul, a couple SGs, a few Schecters, a Jackson, an Ibanez and a couple others. I play hard rock/metal, and I consider all these guitars on that end of things, humbuckers on all, rosewood or ebony fretboards. When thinking of a strat I compare it to being a GM guy and thinking about a Ford, not really sure I'm gonna like it. When I saw a Strat was available in the Mystic… read more Surf Green I went for it. It's great! I love this thing. It feels good, it plays great, and that "Strat sound" you've always heard about? It's true, coil tapping a humbucker in the neck position is not even close. That sound is everything you've heard about, it changes the way I play when I pick it up. Channel your inner Jimi Gilmour! If you've been hesitant, take the leap, you won't regret it

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Nicely updated Stratocaster with some nice additions

When you get yours, make sure to get a pro-caliber setup. Makes a huge difference. The edges of the satin maple fretboard are rolled, making a smooth and playable maple neck even better. Incredible feel with the right setup. Check your tremolo cavity, because your guitar will have copper foil in its cavities, helping to drastically reduce any possible single-coil hum. I doubt those… read more Shaw-designed pickups have any noise anyway, but this is a nice touch that I've never seen before. My 2021 example is dead quiet. I have mine paired with an '89 Stevie Ray Vaughan pre-production Strat with uniquely voiced Texas pickups and the AP2 stands up to it very well with a different character. Between these two I doubt I'll ever need another single-coil. Hard to pick a number 1 between those two. The neck on this is INCREDIBLE. Non-screwing trem bar which stays put where you want it after you pop it in. Love the sound, feel and look. The mystic green is special. An absolute keeper. Looking to get a matching bass in awhile.

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Good strat but we'll need some modifications.

I wanted to wait a couple of weeks after receiving this to leave my review. First I'm going to start with the appearance of the guitar. It's beautiful. The paint, color combination, the tinting on the neck, all perfect. As far as the feel goes, that's a personal preference, but I love the satin neck. My first complaint has to do with the pickups. They seemed unbalanced to me. This… read more is my fourth American Strat. I'm not a guy who likes extremely bright sounding guitars, and I have to turn the treble all the way up on my amp and the bass almost all the way down to get the higher strings to register and get the same sustain as the lower strings. Any song I play where the cord change is accentuated on the higher strings is almost inaudible. This is the first Strat that I've owned where I have not been happy with the pickups. My other complaint has to do with the tone switch knob. It seems like it's a low-friction pot. It rolls too easy, where the slightest bump will change the tone. As far as Sweetwater goes, they're perfect. Kept me up to date with everything going on, called and made a couple of recommendations before shipping the guitar, and even put Tootsie Rolls in the guitar case.

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