Fender Starcaster

I bought one of these Starcasters just to tinker around with. I have played for some years, had gotten away from it for various reasons, and had misplaced my guitars. I wanted to play a little bit again, so I bought the Starcaster for home use.

I do know quality, as I have owned and played it. No doubt, this is a beginner's guitar for the price. But, the moment I began to examine it in the shop where I found it, I realized that the physical plant itself (guitar body, neck, etc.) is of quite high quality. The electronics are not all that bad, either, but the tuners leave a bit to be desired. At very least it needs better tuner keys, but these will do. When I initially tried it at home, the sound was not the greatest. Checking the intonation, I found it lacking. I then put my electronic tuner on it and adjusted the intonation juuuuust right.

This thing sounds good enough now and is sufficiently high quality to play in any gig. I'm amazed how far Fender has been able to raise cheap guitar technology. I've read a lot of reviews claiming this guitar sounds awful. Let me advise only this: any guitar, regardless of price and quality, will sound awful if intonation is out even the slightest bit. Get your intonation perfect on this Fender and you will be surprised at the high quality of sound coming out of it right off the shelf. No, I am not a Fender employee, just a dude that doesn't like to see a good guitar get a bad name by reason of widespread ignorance.

Because the guitar is so low-priced, the factory obviously does not pay all that much attention to finest intonation adjustments. Nobody in the immediate employ at the facory may even know that intonation is of #1 importance in the sound of any guitar, cheap or expensive. And so, virtually all of the quality control probably goes into making it look like ordinarily great Fender quality.

I will probably own this fine instrument until I wear it out as I have worn out several others in my time.