Elite Stratocaster - Features

Features

This guitar model featured an alder body, a maple neck featuring a rosewood or maple fingerboard with 21 jumbo frets, 12" radius, Schaller die-cast tuners with pearloid buttons, BiFlex truss-rod system with MicroTilt neck adjuster, Schaller Straplock Ready locking strap buttons, two hardened steel EasyGlider string trees, side-mount jack socket and a Freeflyte vibrato system, as well as three serrated "rubber insert"-style control knobs.

The Freeflyte tremolo system differs significantly from previous Stratocaster tremolo designs. All routing is done from the front of the guitar. A cavity was created where the spring system would reside, and this connected to the bottom of the tremolo unit; the result was an unwieldy, unworkable piece of hardware. The company saved money this way by performing a single, front-sided rout on the guitar to accommodate the pickups, the tremolo, the preamp and the controls.

Other features included three special-design Alnico 5 single-coil pickups with solid covers and an internal dummy coil for hum cancellation, as well as three push-push buttons for pickup selection. Controls include a master volume, a TBX treble/bass expander and an active MDX midrange booster with 12 dB of gain. The sound of the Elite Stratocaster can be described as more humbucker-like compared to a traditional single coil-equipped guitar, especially with the TBX and MDX circuits at their maximum.

A few Elite Stratocasters were manufactured with a standard 5-way switch and standard Strat knobs. Two such guitars which were custom built for Eric Clapton came with a traditional '50s era-style maple neck and a hardtail non-tremolo bridge.

Two other variants of the guitar were introduced in late 1983, the Gold Elite Stratocaster with gold plated hardware and the Walnut Elite Stratocaster featuring a solid walnut body and a stained ebony fingerboard.

Fender Stratocaster
Submodels
  • Standard
  • Plus
  • Elite
  • Contemporary
  • The STRAT
  • VG
  • HM
  • Fat Strat
  • Stratocaster XII
Artist models
  • Jeff Beck
  • Eric Clapton
  • Robert Cray
  • Tom DeLonge
  • Yngwie Malmsteen
  • Jimmie Vaughan
  • Stevie Ray Vaughan
Notable instruments
  • Blackie
  • Brownie
  • Frankenstrat
  • Duck
See also
  • Fender
  • List of Fender Products
  • List of Stratocaster players
  • Squier Stratocaster

Read more about this topic:  Elite Stratocaster

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