SPECIAL EDITION Fender Roasted Player II Guitars
Published on 06 November 2024
Now then, Strat fans: are you looking for an affordable Fender that’s a little bit special? If you’ve been around these parts before, you’ll know that we are occasionally able to collaborate with Fender to spec up and order certain models that nobody else has access to. Fender calls them ‘FSR’ (Fender Special Run) and the guitars I want to show you today are all guitarguitar exclusives: nobody else has access to these!
So what are they?
Fender Player II
We’ve selected three guitars from the Player II range - two Stratocasters and a Telecaster - for this run. What we’ve done is taken these already excellent models as our base and added some features that really make them special.
Upgrading the Player II range is an effective way for us to offer an excellent guitar at a decent price, but it’s hardly as if the range was in need of sprucing: Player II guitars are already pretty amazing. It’s no sales talk either. The newly released Player II’s are a legitimate great choice for any player looking for a dependable, giggable Fender guitar, and that’s regardless of their very agreeable price point. Slim C-shaped necks, 22 frets and all of the little important details (2-point tremolo on the Strats, rolled fingerboard edges, slightly more vintage-styling to the logo, dot markers and so on) add up to a guitar that really sets the standard. In short, anybody would enjoy a Player II Series.
Roasted Player II
With these special guitarguitar Exclusive Roasted Player II guitars, we’ve added some features that push these up into the stratosphere. Here’s what we’ve done:
Roasted maple neck: adding some spice to the usual maple necks, these have undergone the process of ‘torrefaction’, which dries out the wood in a humid environment. The caramel colour the wood turns is a byproduct of the process: the real benefit is the extra strength, stability and resonance given to the wood from this technique.
Custom Shop pickups: yup, genuine Fender Custom Shop pickups! Since the Player II series pickups are already good, we knew that we’d have to choose some quite exceptional replacements, and these really fit the bill! The Fat 50s single coils we chose for the Strats are gorgeous sounding, with lots of the ‘glassy’ tones you’d expect from a vintage 50s-sounding guitar, whilst adding just a little extra low end warmth to bring them into a more versatile sonic place.
The Tele has Custom Shop ‘51 Nocaster pickups, which have bite and snarl to go along with the chime. We feel that these pickups are the perfect upgrade to these guitars, both on the Strat and the Tele.
So, those are the main upgrades. What of the guitars themselves? We have three on offer:
Roasted Player II Stratocaster Sonic Blue
Roasted Player II Stratocaster 3 Colour Sunburst
Roasted Player II Telecaster Butterscotch Blonde
Exclusive, Limited Run
These guitars are exclusive to us, and available only in limited numbers. They cost a little more than a regular-issue Player II guitar, but we’ve built in as much value as we possibly could! We think these are amongst the best guitars in their class, and the Sonic Blue finish is also not available normally, so there’s an extra level of special!
These guitars are in stock now, they are a guitarguitar exclusive, and you need to check them out as quickly as you can!
Click to View our BRAND NEW Fender Roasted Player II Guitars!
