Fender: Blacktop series

Managed to try the Fender Blacktops @ Swee Lee- got my hands on 3 models only, a brief appraisal here.

The traditionalist Stratocaster sports the HH treatment. While I usually enjoy this non-conventional offering, the pickups in this one didn't really spark any appeal. The split coil tones (from the 5-way switching) sounds lacking in the clunky, twangy expectations, you'd say it's not a real single coil anyway but it shouldn't be too exclusive an excuse. The default action was also high- 3mm at the 12th fret of the bass E string.

There's this appeal from P-90s that some of us just couldn't resist & you can hear it in this Jazzmaster. It's that great alder-P-90 chemistry at work in both clean & heavily driven modes. The bridge humbucker is unattractive clean, but it has its ferocious moments under intense distortion, especially with a liberal dose of bass. If you are the typical Jazzmaster fan, you're aware of the whammy access which lies in between the E & B strings. In this particular model that I've tried, the B-string was actually in contact with the access ferrules so there was this persistent buzzing but not audible through the amp, of course. It was disturbing enough for me to quickly put it away.

Between this Telecaster & the Strat above, there're actually very little differences in terms of neck feel & overall tone. There's no signature Tele twang here so the fans of this model are rabid players who became quite repulsive of the dual cutaway design so this Tele is it instead. I see this as Fender's obligatory inclusion; they own the registered outline anyway, so why not include it in this series. But intense distortion fans would be interested to know that the bridge pickup performance here is the preferred voicing among the other counterparts mentioned here. The neck humbucker could use some clinical injections in terms of signature roundness.

The Blacktops are $980(NETT) each. No bags are included so a typical Blacktop purchase would exceed $1K in this consideration. Do note that the maple necks of all models are finished units; if you are a fan of that lacquer feel, you wouldn't mind at all.