Bulletproofing a New Squier

THE SQUIER BULLET

Squier is owned by Fender. The Squier Bullet model is considered to be one of the lowest-end guitars on the market – which is why it was chosen for this video. Marketed as a beginner’s guitar, it is often subject to much criticism for being a guitar that is uncomfortable (impossible?) to play.

I disagree with that.

This video will take you through specific steps to get this model to play comfortably AND sound fantastic.

A few notes:
The guitar in this video has a (less conventional) humbucker pickup in the bridge. The recordings below however feature the stock (and more common) single coil pickup in the bridge.

UNPOLISHED FRETS:
Even with the string-bending on the bridge pickup example played here, it’s hard to hear the ‘scratchy-ness’ of unpolished frets (see video). To my ears, unpolished frets can make a guitar sound wonderfully ‘trebly’.

The live version of Hendrix’s “Johnny B. Goode” sounds like a Strat (of course) with unpolished frets. Many of the CBS-era Strats were shipped with non-polished frets. In this song he changes pickup positions often. It’s played mostly in the neck and bridge positions.

HIGH AND LOW STRING HEIGHT:
Stevie Ray Vaughan is purported to play mostly with high action (polished frets and heavy-gauge strings too). “Crossfire” is a good example, played in the neck position.

An example of a Strat played in the bridge position with very low-action (VERY low!!!) is “Long, Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)” by the Hollies, starting at 14 seconds. You can hear the strings ‘slap’ against the frets.

Eric Clapton’s opening guitar in “I Looked Away” by Derek and the Dominos is with seemingly comfortable (at least for me) low-action. How is this known? The A-sting buzzes slightly. His solo at 2.25 is played in the neck position, by the way.

Comments are welcome.

More videos are to come.

Follow up video is found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAXo_F2J1Y8

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Thanks! :-)

Видео Bulletproofing a New Squier канала Guitar How To's