Fender Mustang Special

This past year, Fender put out a new series of guitars called the "Pawn Shop Series". The idea was to put out instruments that never were, but should have been. The series takes its cue from the often terrible period of the late 60's and early 70's, where bizarre combinations of bodies and necks came together for what seemed like the hell of it. (just google fender "Swinger", "marauder" or "electric 12" to see some glorious examples) This seems like an odd place to birth new guitars, and I think there's little argument in that. Sure, there's plenty of cool things that happened in the period (despite what the purists may say about the CBS buy-out) but overall it's not looked at as the best time for the company. But there's also something to say for innovation and not being stuck in the same rut, so at least Fender is trying...which is more than I can say about many other bigger brands. For the most part, in my opinion, the pawn shop series is a bit of a miss. Many of the models look like bastard children of other famed instruments, and a few just look like your drunk dad's recollection of guitars from the past. There are a couple hits though, and today I'll talk about one that's well worth the money: The Mustang Special.

The Mustang may have started as a student guitar, but it has now officially become the well loved axe of working musicians, and indie bands the world over. With the pawn shop series version of the mustang, fender has made some cool adjustments that make it even more desirable and a lot of fun to play. Firstly, they've done away with what I would consider a pretty awful tremolo. I've never been one to use a trem too much but even an occasional user like myself will find the system on mustangs (and jazzmasters/jaguars) to be touchy at best. Instead, you get a hardtail! So no tuning issues to stress about. Obviously if you want the trem, this is a disadvantage. However it does open up the possibility of other after market tremolo's that you can install, which in most cases will be much better!

The second nice change is the swapping out of the two single coil pickups for fender's "wide range" humbuckers. These are the same pickups you find on the 70's Telecaster deluxe, which have a really unique sound over standard humbuckers. I find them to be a lot more "punchy" and less warm. These pickups have a nice attack and clarity to them, and can be on the brighter side as well. This comes in handy when coil tapping, which the mustang special is also equipped with. Two sliders on the side of each pickup allow you to select either front or back coil, or the full humbucker. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm not often impressed by coil tapping, but thanks to the brightness and volume of these pickups, the single coil sound is pretty damn good. 

The rest of the electronics are very straight forward...a 3 way toggle for pickup selection and a single volume and tone. These simple options combined with the coil tapping allow for a lot of different tones in one convenient package. The guitar is a shorter scale (24") and has only 22 frets, so this may not be a shredder's delight or if you're too used to a longer scale found on a strat or tele. Also, the smaller body size may not be your cup of tea, particularly if you're over 6 feet tall and don't want to feel like a giant playing a kids guitar. But if those little things don't bother you, this is a super flexible and fun guitar to have in your arsenal. It's also made in Japan, where guitar building is certainly up to par with american 

standards. 

The Mustang special comes in 3 classic colors (sunburst, lake placid blue and candy apple red) and comes with a gig bag. At $849, it's also pretty damn well priced! 

As always, feel free to leave your thoughts! 

K.