Squier Affinity Strat Versus Fender Custom Shop: Strat Battle!

The Squier Affinity Strat. Price: £219 or under £100 on a used website.
Fender Custom Shop Strat. Price: Whatever Fender think you will gulp down. Sook that Corporate Cream™

So this video has a purpose. A friend at work has this guitar and I offered to fix it up and do some maintenance on it for him. I like doing that stuff.
So when I got it, I saw that it some work to be done: the neck was bowed, the fretboard had a nice coating of sweet sweet finger cheese, the frets were tarnished and the strings were the original strings! All nice and rusty with a gritty squeak as you ran your finger up the unwound strings.
The jack socket was rattling around inside the cavity and the nuts were loose on the tuners.

All good stuff and I was happy I wasn't going to waste my time so I got stuck in; razor blade in hand and lemon oil at the ready.

It all tuned out really well and all issues were solved and the guitar played very nicely and well well well, it sounded fantastic.
So much so, I was inspired to do a comparison video with the intention to show that this modest guitar, a budget 'entry level' guitar was the equal of the Fender full fat custom shop Strat I own.

I paid a handsome price for this guitar and it was slightly chastening to realise that this Squier wasn't far off the sound at all.

The playability is excellent and those ceramic pickups really scream. The are not cheap sounding at all: fat and sparkling with some real beefy girth.

I recorded some chord phrases and single note stuff into my Two Rock Classic reverb straight in with no effects and did a faithful record of what the guitars actually sounded like. For the last part, I also introduced a PRS Silver Sky with a rosewood fretboard as my Fender has a maple fingerboard.

You will be amazed at how good this Squier is. Honestly. I was.

Check out my website:

www.gringopig.com

for more guitar stuff.