REVIEW

FENDER VG STRATOCASTER Fender and Roland have joined forces again, this time to produce a Stratocaster with a difference.

Text: Brad Watts

It’s not all that often we review a guitar in you’ve got a spare $2.5k to drop on a guitar. And while the AudioTechnology – that’s a job best left to the guitar VG Strat comes with either a rosewood or maple fretboard, magazines. But every now and then an instrument hits the colour options are limited to black or three-tone the streets that truly embraces some of the technological sunburst (the sunburst is a tad pricier, as per usual). Fender advances we’ve all witnessed during the last 10 years or so. also supplies American series guitars with a solid moulded DSP modelling is one such field, and an area that ‘serious’ case rather than the padded gig bags that arrive with the guitarists do their best to steer clear of. But in the last lower-priced models. They’re a very nice guitar and well couple of years systems such as Line 6’s Variax range, along worth the extra lolly if you can stretch your budget. with various incarnations of the Roland ‘GK’ standard The VG model up for review possessed an extremely nice and the digital Les Paul from Gibson, have infiltrated the maple neck, which for me is the ultimate neck – standard ‘wood & steel’ domain. headstock design of course! The body, however, (black in The big drawcard of these guitars is versatility. I’m not this case) looked as though it hadn’t been sanded correctly. talking about cheesy versatility – like early MIDI guitars My guess is this is why it was dobbed in as the sacrificial being rigged to play marimba or bagpipes – but the lamb ‘demo model’. ability to emulate real-world guitar tones. That means, the character of a humbucker as opposed to a single-coil VIRTUALITY pickup; or the twang of a Tele or the quack of a Strat. The ‘VG’ elements of the VG Strat aren’t immediately obvious. The Roland pickup is discreetly built in between Roland has been playing this game since the early ’80s the bridge pickup and the bridge, and sports an equally (remember the GR-300 and GR-707?), so it’s hardly discreet Roland insignia. Slightly more obvious are the two surprising to see Roland – now a world leader in guitar mini Strat-style knobs that replace the guitar’s usual second synthesis – team up with a world leader in guitar tone control knob. The only other distinguishing feature manufacturing, Fender USA. And the obvious choice as to you’ll notice (and you will notice it) is the alarmingly bright which guitar to get the ‘virtual’ treatment is the ubiquitous blue LED situated between the remaining tone control Strat(ocaster). The ‘Strat’ is probably the most widely and the volume knob. The system activates (switches on) as used and copied guitar on the planet, so it’s the immediate soon as you plug a lead into the guitar – that’s right, there choice for retrofitting ancillary electronics (as with the are no proprietary cables or hookup procedures. Just plug ‘Roland ready’ Strat of a few years back, pre-installed with in with a normal guitar lead and go. Power is supplied via a Roland GK hexaphonic pickup). four AA batteries that live in a recess on the rear in the Roland has for a number of years been modelling alternate body, behind the upper horn. guitar formats with its VG line of guitar products. Besides There’s no provision for powering the guitar via AC power, offering simulations of amplifiers and speaker cabinets, which keeps the concept simple to operate and negates the VG guitar systems can mimic particular body designs the need for extra cables. Some may wish for an external and pickup configurations. These are the style emulations power source but for ease of use I believe Fender has done that allow you to get away with using a single guitar, and the right thing here – the priority being simplicity and save you dragging your Strat, Tele, Les Paul, an acoustic usability. A set of Ni-Mh rechargeables should give you and a 12-string to every gig (assuming you own any or all about 10 hours of use, but keeping an extra set on hand of them). would obviously be a sensible move. (The blue LED will These are the emulations that have found their way into begin to flash when the batteries are nearing the end of the VG Strat. But before you jump to conclusions about their charge.) The batteries fit into a caddy before being Roland cramming the guitar with an unwieldy number inserted into the rear cavity – it’d actually be a smart move of sounds and emulations, think again. The VG Strat is for Fender to supply a couple of these battery caddies so extremely simple to operate and offers only a modest 37 you could have a set on standby for immediate replacement sound permutations – all revolving around the guitarist’s in a gig situation. mainstay requirements. DATING A MODEL AXE EXAM Modelling different guitar sounds is what the VG Strat But first, let’s look at the actual guitar. It’s a standard lives for, so what sounds are actually available? Here the American series Stratocaster that really is the pick of partnership has kept the choices to a minimum, which Fender’s less esoteric models. As opposed to the budget keeps the instrument inherently simple to drive. All Highway One and Standard series, the American line of sounds are selected via the two mini-Strat knobs; one is Strats feature nice Schaller machine heads, American series marked ‘M’, for model, the other marked ‘T’ for tuning. staggered pole pickups, two-point tremolo systems and The Model knob offers five choices: ‘N’ provides normal polyurethane body finishes. It’s the one you really want if operation via the guitar’s normal magnetic pickups. In this

AT 94 mode you’ve got a straight-up Strat, which is incidentally ‘shifting’ can tend to make a guitar player squirm, but this NEED TO KNOW what the instrument reverts to should the batteries fail. modelling effect is particularly convincing. Bear in mind, The following ‘S’ position offers a modelled Strat sound the tune effects are being constructed via the six individual Price (modelled on an ash body). This may seem ludicrous pickups within the Roland pickup, so processing is applied $4299 considering that’s already what’s in your hands, but the to each string (monophonically) rather than the entire Contact Fender Australia modelled Strat option offers attributes such as hum and signal. The tuning settings will certainly strike a chord (02) 9666 5077 noise-free operation on all pickup settings, and the sound is (apologies) with the covers band fraternity and slide players. [email protected] slightly warmer and fuller than the ‘normal’ tone gleaned And while you do hear the occasional artefact, the sound www.fender.com.au from the magnetic pickups. The following ‘T’ setting is very convincing, even down to 12-string with a bit of Pros It’s a great Strat. is, of course, for Telecaster tones and here the five-way tremolo work – wild indeed. Extremely versatile. switch functions in only three positions to give you the Mostly every tone you’d need. VG OR NOT VG? bridge, neck and ‘both’ sounds of the Telecaster. It does a Cons darn good impression with the bridge pickup emulation One aspect of the Fender VG Strat that did annoy me was No option for power apart from being the better model of the three – surely that’s what the the absence of a 13-pin plug for connection to anything batteries. VG or GK from Roland and other manufacturers. I realise The big blue LED is just a bit Tele is all about anyway. The fourth setting (labelled ‘H’) over the top – Gaffa tape or a emulates two humbucker pickups, again with the blade this is meant to be a simple-to-use VG system, catering to replacement pick guard could switch flicking between bridge, neck and ‘both’ positions. players leaning more to the traditional side of things, but remedy the situation. the GK pickup is already in the guitar, so why is there no Why no 13-pin GK/VG connec- These definitely offer what you’d expect: full, round tone tion – one for the future? way to plug this into a Roland VG system? along with the higher output gleaned from the humbucker Summary designs. The final model setting is labelled ‘A’ and takes Curiosity getting the better of me at this point, I removed The lines really blur as to what’s the VG Strat into ‘acoustic’ mode, offering five acoustic the aluminium plate from the rear of the body – this fair-dinkum and what’s artificial with the VG Stratocaster, emulation settings, depending on the position of the Strat’s routed section contains the processing hardware behind but the fact is, the modelled blade switch. In ‘Acoustic’ mode the tone control becomes the modelling system. Lo and behold there was a spare approximations are damn close. reverb level and with this knob wound out to ‘10’ it’s a connector on the internals situated right beside the This really is the jack-of-all- trades guitar. tasteful amount of reverb, rather than 100% wet. Of the connection to the cabling for the Roland pickup. Now I’m five settings, one is definitely a resonator body, while the merely speculating, but could there be a future option to others appear to be variations on a typical dreadnought. possibly replace the rear backplate with one that could To be honest I couldn’t tell precisely – there’s certainly house a low-profile 13-pin plug? It’d be nice to think so. no mention in the manual – they’re simply referred to as After all, the VG Strat is a good $1700 more than the ‘Acoustic 1–5’. standard American Strat and for that kind of cash, adopters of the VG Strat may well wish to delve deeper into the SWEET TUNE possibilities of Roland’s modelling technology. The second mini-Strat knob alters the VG Strat’s tuning. Predictably labelled ‘T’, the knob switches through six Speculation aside, I’m largely impressed with the VG Strat. tuning variations. Normal – where there’s obviously no For the hard-working gigging musician it saves a load of pitch-shifting going on – through to open tunings like haulage, and opens up a huge number of possibilities for dropped D, open G (D G D G B D), D modal (D A D live performance. In the studio the benefits are several: G A D) and baritone (B E A D F# B). The final tune instantly flitting between the four or five most commonly setting delivers a 12-string effect that’s really very authentic. used guitar sounds being high on my list, while the lack of Not being so well versed in open-tunings, I found myself noise produced by the electronics is just awesome. However, scurrying around looking for my copy of Brendan the underlying attraction is just how much fun it is to play. Gallagher’s Open Tuning Chord Book – thoroughly worth It’s a classic piece of Fender, dragged screaming into the its weight. 21st century. It’s suitably convincing for all live work and a godsend for a whole host of recording duties. I know that with all of these settings, the words ‘pitch’ and

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