Squier Classic Vibe Starcaster - Natural Review

Squier Starcaster was a delicious surprise

I LOVE this guitar. It was a late night impulse purchase (I should not be allowed on Sweetwater after midnight). Woke up at some odd hour and thought oh why not. This guitar has warm, rich tones unamplified, plug it in and the wide-range pickups are excellent. I'm relatively new to guitar playing but I do own a couple of instruments and this one gave me great quality for the price.

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What a bad guitar

So, after playing guitar for many years I have had guitars ranging from very expensive to quite cheap. I have always had a love for the budget guitars that fight above their weight, and this is one of those guitars. The quality build is evident right off the bat. It took very little tweaks to the setup to yield a killer playing guitar. Is it perfect? Hell no, but neither are the… read more real expensive guitars. This is a instrument with a lot of killer features. If you're looking for perfection, maybe you should look elsewhere. I'll continue to play this stellar guitar.

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Beautiful but with some QC issues

I just got this guitar, and it has some of the most stunning Birdseye maple I've ever seen on a Squier, let alone any guitar that isn't a PRS. It came well set up, and it looked great on the outside. Then I plugged it in. The bridge pickup was barely connected to the pot and it barely had any output. Then I also discovered a piece of wood that was removed from the pickup cavity… read more that was bouncing around in the bass side chamber. I pulled out the electronics and the solder work was embarrassingly bad. There was barely any solder on the lugs that connected the pickups to the pots. There were wires with burned insulation as well. I understand this is a less expensive guitar, but at least make sure everything is connected properly before it leaves the factory. Probably the most bizarre thing was that Squier is using full sized 500k volume pots, but full sized 250k tone pots. This makes no sense to put 250k tone pots on a guitar with humbucking pickups. Anyways, after re-connecting the bridge pickup, it works fine! The electronics are a little dark but don't sound bad. The guitar plays pretty good, my only complaint is the neck radius does not match the bridge radius, so it's not possible for each string to be the same distance off the fretboard. Sweetwater graciously offered to replace the guitar, or have someone near me repair it; but I chose to take some strings from them and do it myself to see the wiring. In closing, if you get a good one, it should serve you well, but beware of some lemons

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Squier starcaster semi-hollowbody

This is the second new guitar I ever bought. I've been playing for 33 years, had many, many higher priced down to parts guitars. This starcaster really surprised me. The looks are awesome, the playability is smooth and cofortable sitting and standing. The sounds are clear and has many. The downsides are that the strings aren't centered perfectly along the neck, high E string is… read more very close to the end of the fretboard, which makes it easy to pull off the board on fast work, and the bass sounds a bit mushy on high volume, I'll play with the pickups on that. But a very good guitar for the price!

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Glad they re-issued this!

I always liked semi-hollows and the Fender Starcaster, to my eye, was always a bit different and eye catching with its offset shape. Saw my first one years ago at the BX in Lakenheath AFB UK when I was working on F-111s, but couldn't afford a real Fender. Time goes on, decades later, and Squier unveils their new line of Starcasters. My wife and I enjoy escaping the Ohio winter and… read more going on Smooth Jazz cruises in the Caribbean. I always take a budget guitar (Squier or Epi) and have all the jazz artists on the ship autograph it, makes a great souvenir. I figured this natural finish Starcaster would be a great autograph guitar. When it showed up at the house my wife lamented that is was "so pretty" that surely I wasn't going to have "people write all over it." Well, yea, I am, especially when it's people like Marcus Miller, Boney James, Candy Dulfer, Keiko Matsui and many more. So the guitar is going on a cruise in January 2020. About the guitar...I like it. Can't wait to get it back, all signed, and use it on a gig. Neck feels good, typical Fender. Lightweight, feels good on the body. Pickups are OK, adequate and usable. Certainly not the original Seth Lover FWRHB, but okay for my uses. No discernible fret sprout, guitar was very playable right out of the box. There was a bit of glue/adhesive on the lower F-hole binding that I scraped off, but other than that, fit and finish seemed good for a $400 guitar. Still, after the cruise I will take it in for a setup and new D'Addario Chrome 11 Flatwounds. I'm not crazy about the strings on the guitar but that's a very subjective personal choice. Yea, I think it's worth $400, easy. I like the natural finish, nicely done and will be a good backdrop for signatures. Although...I'm really a sunburst kinda guy and if it wasn't going to be an autograph guitar I would've gotten the sunburst. I did buy a Fender F1225 case and find the guitar "does" fit in that case. It's a little tight, but it does fit, I can zip it closed and I like the semi-rigid sides on the case and the rubber bumper protection on both ends. I added a pic of me playing with one of the bands at the 2018 Smooth Jazz Cruise. I bought an Epi LP1 in Aqua (good color for Caribbean cruise...huh?) from Sweetwater for my autograph cruise on that trip. We did a Country Music cruise and I took a Squier Tele for signatures for that cruise.

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