Fender Eric Johnson Strat RW

80 Guitarist April 2009
FENDER ERIC JOHNSON STRATOCASTER RW £1,909.99
ELECTRICS
Fender Eric Johnson
Stratocaster RW
PRICE: £1,909.99 (inc case and white
coily lead!)
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Solidbody, twin-cutaway
electric with bolt-on neck
BODY: Deep-contoured lightweight
alder, two-piece, finished in thin-skin
nitro-cellulose lacquer
NECK: Mild ‘V’-profile, quarter-sawn
maple with white-bound rosewood
fingerboard (round laminate style)
and pearl dot position markers
SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5
inches)
FRETS: 21, medium jumbo
NUT/WIDTH: Synthetic/42mm
HARDWARE: Chrome-plated
staggered height Fender tuners
(Kluson-style), Fender American
Vintage vibrato bridge with five
springs and no backplate
ELECTRICS: Three Eric Johnson-
voiced and Fender-designed,
staggered-pole single-coil pickups;
tone control on neck and bridge, none
on middle; five-way lever pickup
selector switch
WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.5/7.5
OPTIONS: None
RANGE OPTIONS: Eric Johnson
Stratocaster with maple neck
(£1,859.99 solid colours; £1,909.99
two-tone sunburst)
LEFT-HANDERS: No
FINISHES: Dakota red, tropical
turquoise (as reviewed), Palomino
metallic, Lucerne aqua firemist
Fender GBI
01342 331700
www.fender.com
Test results
Build quality
Playability
Sound
Value for money
GUITARIST RATING
The Bottom Line
We like: Anderson/Suhr
quality; tonal spectrum;
vintage vibe with modern
features; playability on
flatter ’board; white binding
We dislike: Odd colours –
no Lake Placid, Candy Apple
or three-colour burst?
Guitarist says: When a
musician of EJ’s calibre puts
his stamp on the best
electric guitar design of all
time, every serious player
needs to check it out!
fingerboard has a flatter,
12-inch (305mm) radius. That’s
the same as a Gibson Les Paul
and, therefore, markedly
different to Fender’s vintage-
style 7.25-inch (185mm)
camber, which can make string
bends choke out and enforce an
unwieldy action. Frets are
medium jumbo and have been
seated, profiled and polished to
perfection. Their ends overlap
the binding but there’s no hint
of sharpness: this is an
exceptional fret-job. Position
marker dots are real pearl and
add that final touch to what is
already a very classily put-
together guitar.
In playability and set-up
terms, a guitarist with
Johnson’s extraordinary
facility requires perfection.
Nothing less could handle his
speed and articulation. And so
it is that our EJ is flawlessly set
up. With all five vibrato springs
installed the bridge lies flat on
the body and the action is set
low for speed, but with enough
purchase to allow for positive
string bends and vibrato. It
would certainly go lower
should that be your personal
preference, but we’d happily
leave it as it came.
With its slight ‘V’ profile the
quarter-sawn maple neck feels
modern – it’s the fingerboard’s
flatness that does it. Ibanez
comparisons are odious
though; this is a Fender through
and through, and yet it feels like
no other Strat we’ve played –
not even the previous Johnson
model. It’s super-slick,
extremely fast and, above all,
totally capable at playing
anything and everything.
Sounds
When we reviewed his first
signature guitar Eric told us
that he had voiced the pickups –
especially the bridge unit –
even brighter than usual. Now
that’s surprising at first; but
when you consider Johnson’s
non-lead work – which often
consists of super-bright,
chorused, delayed and often
harmonically complex chords –
it starts to make sense. Then
bring in the tone control on that
bridge pickup – back it down to
halfway or even further and
pile on the overdrive – and
Eric’s ‘violin’ tones emerge
already fully formed.
It makes for a completely
different Strat experience.
Clean, all of the settings seem to
provide exaggerated versions of
the expected sounds, but get
used to using the neck and
bridge pickup tone controls and
you’ll never go back. Even
though you’ll need to re-learn
how to use a Strat to some
extent, we can heartily
recommend it.
The Johnson’s broader
extremes of tone make it an
extremely versatile guitar, and
with the middle pickup’s lack
of tone control there’s an extra
funky edge to be had with it on
its own, or in tandem with
either of the other two. It’s
really hard to argue with
Johnson’s logic.
Verdict
Reviewers ponder over the
verdict of their musings for
days before a piece is finished.
Who is the guitar for? Who
will like it? Does it fulfil its
stated remit? Is it what it says
on the tin – or less, or even
more?
It might have been easy to
conclude that the rosewood
’board version of Eric
Johnson’s signature guitar is
for players who like the idea of
Strats but prefer playing
Gibsons. But the EJ doesn’t
play like a Gibson; it plays like
a Fender, but a Fender with an
even flatter fretboard than the
9.5-inch radius of many guitars
in its current range.
Without resorting to active
electronics or humbuckers,
Fender and Johnson have
managed to broaden the Strat’s
tone at both ends of its sonic
spectrum, giving dark, tight
distorted sounds and huge
clean or chorused chords. It’s
flawlessly made, albeit
knocking very serious money
thanks to the current poor (for
us) US Dollar exchange rate.
Eric Johnson is a charming
and intelligent man, and a
sophisticated guitarist capable
of playing almost anything
extraordinarily well. The fact
that his new signature Fender
is designed on exactly these
premises and succeeds on
every intended level, probably
says as much as we need to.
The custom vibrato block and quintet of springs marry tone with stability
GIT314.rev_fender 80 25/2/09 4:39:43 pm