Sunday, January 1, 2012

Fender Elite Strat (1983-1984)

Looks alien…

This guitar model featured an alder body, a maple neck featuring a rosewood or maple fingerboard with 21 jumbo frets, Schaller die-cast tuners with pearloid buttons, BiFlex truss-rod system with MicroTilt neck adjuster, Schaller Straplock Ready locking strap buttons, two hardened steel EasyGlider string trees, side-mount jack socket and a Freeflyte vibrato system, as well as three serrated "rubber insert"-style control knobs.

The Freeflyte tremolo system differs significantly from previous Stratocaster tremolo designs. All routing is done from the front of the guitar. A cavity was created where the spring system would reside, and this connected to the bottom of the tremolo unit; the result was an unwieldy, unworkable piece of hardware. The company saved money this way by performing a single, front-sided rout on the guitar to accommodate the pickups, the tremolo, the preamp and the controls.

Other features included three special-design Alnico 5 single-coil pickups with solid covers and an internal dummy coil for hum cancellation, as well as three push-push buttons for pickup selection. Controls include a master volume, a TBX treble/bass expander and an active MDX midrange booster with 12 dB of gain. The sound of the Elite Stratocaster can be described as a thicker, heavier sound than a traditional single-coil-equipped guitar, especially with the TBX and MDX circuits at their maximum.

SOURCE: WIKI

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