When it comes to fanfares, it doesn’t get much bigger than this. I’m in Tokyo for Fender Experience 2025, a three-day celebration of all things Fender.
Members of the media from Japan, China, the UK and Australia are here, and over 40,000 locals are attending a series of events after successfully getting tickets via an online ballot. All the events are free, including talks by master builders and Japanese musicians, live performances (including effervescent female power trio Chilli Beans and the Prince-meets-Frusciante wizardry and showmanship of Miyavi) and the unveiling of a series of special Godzilla Stratocasters, celebrating last year’s 70th birthday of both the Strat and the monster.
Barry Divola/New Atlas
But the big banner item on the Fender agenda is the launch of the American Professional Classic series.
Fender is a company with an enviable problem – if you can call it a problem. When Leo Fender founded his company almost 80 years ago, he came out of the gate with a succession of instruments that almost immediately defined the electric guitar for the ages, becoming iconic and much imitated. Even when a non-musician is asked to imagine an electric guitar, or draw one on a piece of paper, chances are it will look something like a Stratocaster.
Fender
But the company regularly tweaks and refines the formula, introducing new lines, being careful not to stray far from the defining characteristics of the instruments that are beloved of generations of musicians, but offering new angles on a classic product. So, what’s the story with the American Professional Classic series? I got up close and personal with the new range at the Fender Flagship Store in Tokyo’s bustling Harajuku, and then sat down with Patrick Harberd, Fender’s Senior Product Development Manager. He’s more than aware of the balancing act the company has to undertake between innovation and tradition.
“Whenever we bring out a new series, we always have to decide how vintage and how modern we want to make it,” he says. “We know there’s an appetite out there for vintage aesthetics in instruments, whether that’s the logo, or hardware styles, or fingerboard inlay choices, but we wanted to marry that with the functionality of a more modern instrument.”
Harberd, an LA resident who plays a Telecaster in his own country band, The Western States, sees the new series as sitting somewhere between the American Ultra Luxe series and the Road Worn Vintera series, “a classic look, with a contemporary functionality.”
Fender
Just run your hand up and down the neck of any of these new instruments and you immediately sense the difference from a vintage guitar – it’s a modern C-shaped neck with a smooth satin finish on the back, making the new guitars very easy to play, whether you’re just doing “cowboy” chords or soloing higher up the neck.
“We’ve also made the neck slightly flatter,” says Harberd. “Along with the medium jumbo frets, that makes it easier to bend notes, with no choking or dead notes.” Up the top end, there have been some subtle changes at the headstock too. “The tuners are staggered, so the E and A posts are slightly taller off the headstock. It lowers the termination of the string past the nut and gives you a more consistent break angle across all the strings. That helps with tuning stability and there’s less of a sharp angle, so it reduces the drag point.”
Meanwhile, down at the business end, the range features Fender’s new Coastline pickups, which use a vintage style “recipe” that maintains the characteristic sparkle of the Strat and twang and bite of the Tele, but the formula has been tweaked a little when it comes to the pick-up wiring.
“We’ve overwound them by a few hundred extra winds,” says Harberd. “That increases the signal and gives you more output, it softens the high end a bit and it also gives you a more balanced tone with distortion.”
Fender
Being an offset kind of guy, I spent some quality time with the Jazzmaster, the Jaguar and the Mustang bass and was definitely impressed by the playability factor. The Mustang bass had plenty of punch and that characteristic “thunk,” the Jazzmaster sounded sweet, and leaned more treble-y than my own 2012 MIM Jazz, and the Jaguar had a lot of bite, whether going for a Johnny Marr-ish jangle or cranking out some power chords.
The Jazz and Jag are probably the most altered of the series, as the Am Pro Classics do away with some of the switching, most notably the Jazzmaster’s opinion-dividing rhythm circuit. Offset purists have made their thoughts known on this development via online guitar forums, but both guitars are routed underneath the pickguard if you decide to mod them later in your musical journey.
Fender
One area where Fender has really gone the extra mile is in the color department. Shades include Faded Firemist Gold, Faded Sherwood Green Metallic, Faded Dakota Red and Faded Placid Lake Blue. “Color is tied to Fender’s history,” Harberd tells me. “When the product development team talk about colors there’s always a lot of deep discussion and we have to come to a good consensus that will appeal to a whole range of players.
“We experimented with the idea of how classic Fender colors change and fade over the years, whether that’s because of storage conditions or climate or exposure to sunlight or bar-room cigarette smoke. This series is a homage to the journey vintage guitars make across decades and the evolution the finishes make. So these faded colors have never been seen on new Fender instruments before.”
Fender
As for who the new series is aimed towards, Harberd feels there are two main markets in mind. “First there’s the working musician that’s gigging regularly and hustling to make ends meet, whether that’s live gigs or studio sessions or both. They need a high-quality, reliable instrument that is attainable, and something that’s classic, straightforward and easy to use. And the second group are players who may be buying their first guitar but want to go up a few steps, with a quality Made In USA Fender.”
At US$1,499.99 for the Strat and Tele, and $1,599.99 for the Jazzmaster, Jaguar, and Precision, Jazz and Mustang basses, the price point is targeting those players who want an affordable American-made guitar that offers the latest modern developments and a vintage look, with enhanced playability.
Barry Divola/New Atlas
At the series launch in Tokyo’s Omotesando Hills, the guitars were demonstrated on stage by Kazuki, a young Japanese guitar-slinger who is a YouTube sensation – Kazuki’s Guitar Channel has almost half a million subscribers. He managed to effortlessly channel Hendrix, then James Burton, then J. Mascis as he switched from Strat to Tele to Jazzmaster, displaying the versatility of the new series.
The room was packed with hundreds of people, and I got the sense that more than a few of them were already reaching into their pockets for their credit cards before Kazuki even hit the final note.
Product page: American Professional Classic
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