I got more than I had hoped for when I got this guitar! The feel, playability, and sound are awesome. The neck feels great. The pickups sound good, and I love the look. I've always wanted a Gilmour black strat (close enough). The only reason I give it 4 stars is the push pull knob. It's difficult to pull up on this style of knob. Overall, I love it.

Before I comment on the guitar I would like to compliment Sweetwater for their excellent service and super fast shipping. I ordered the guitar late Wednesday night and I had it in my hand, in Alaska, Friday morning. As with all my purchases from Sweetwater they are always well packaged and arrive on time if not early. Hands-down, the best online shopping experience.

Thank you Joe Holsclaw and all the staff at Sweetwater


I really did not need another guitar. I bought it to be my new travel guitar. My travel guitar rides around in a gig bag behind the pilot seat of a small airplane, year-around, in Alaska. It gets exposed to rapidly changing atmospheric pressure, humidity and temperature extremes. My current travel guitar is a cheap Fender Squire. Considering the conditions it is exposed to I didn't expect it to survive so well this long. I'm hopeful the new guitar will hold up to the conditions. I will probably still take the Squire when I expect to be sitting in cold conditions (below 40ºF). But I don't plan on babying the new guitar much. I have an American Ultra Strat at home and I would never consider taking it to work, even on the best days.

I never enjoyed playing the Squire. The fret work is terrible, it doesn't play well, it doesn't sound good and it just feels poorly built. Almost from the first day I got it I wanted to upgrade. But I also didn't want to have a guitar so nice I would be afraid to take it to work. So I continued to suffer with the Squire. That was until I got an email from Fender and also from Sweetwater announcing the Player II Modified.

As soon as I saw it I was hooked. For three days I keep going back to the website to look at it. I tried to convince myself I didn't need it. It's too expensive to take to work, I can manage with the Squire. Eventually I put it out of my mind until one afternoon sitting in the airplane and being frustrated with Squire while chatting with my wife, she said, "You should get that purple one." I always do what my wife says, especially when she tells me I should buy a guitar.

Now for the guitar review.

When I bought this guitar I was expecting it to be a real step up from Squire but I never expected it to be almost as good as the Ultra Strat. It's very well crafted. The neck is nearly perfect, possibly even better than the Ultra Strat. I was able to set the action exactly as I like it. No fret buzz, no flat spots. It intonated perfectly. It feels solid. It plays fantastic and sounds fantastic! And it looks amazing.

The color is called "Dusk". In most lighting conditions it appears to be black, and on closer inspection, you might see purple metallic on the edges. However, with the light coming at it from an extreme angle, the guitar appears to be metallic purple. I have had it for several weeks now and still I can't stop staring at it. The pictures on Sweetwater and Fender's website do not do it justice. It's even more amazing than it appears!

The hardware is very similar to the Ultra Strat. It has locking tuners, noiseless pickups, 2-point synchronized tremolo with block saddles. The satin finished maple neck with rolled fingerboard edges is excellent, as good if not better than the Ultra Strat (I might have to get the Ultra Strat Plek'd to match the setup on Player II).

After playing it for several days without picking up the Ultra Strat, I would have sworn it was every bit as good a guitar. However, after picking up the Ultra Strat, it was immediately apparent that was not entirely true.

They are very similar in the quality of construction and playability. The differences are in the hardware and electronics and the differences are minor. It is very good quality but not quite as good as the Ultra Strat. The pick guard is not as rigid (I believe the Ultra has a metal plate behind it), the pickups sound great but are not as noiseless as the Ultra, the tremolo and block saddles are made of a lesser metal, the knobs and switch don't feel as well made as the Ultra. That said the Player II Modified is less than half the price of an Ultra Strat and I wasn't expecting them to be equal.

To sum it up - I got a much better guitar than what I was expecting, it's an absolute joy to play, it feels great, it sounds great, it looks great and I am extremely satisfied. I just hope it's not too nice to take to work. I want to be able to enjoy it, not worrying about it. Time will tell.

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