“An at some level of versatile guitar. It’ll finest increase after I exercise a while with it”: Fender has quietly rolled out a hardtail Player Plus Strat – and Jim Root has already taken one for a test pressure

Fender has quietly released a restricted version hardtail Player Plus HSS Stratocaster, and Slipknot’s Jim Root has already taken one for a go. 

Posting on Instagram, the Fender signature artist gave his preliminary reaction to the trem-much less electrical guitar, announcing it was “rather powerful an all-spherical versatile guitar outta the box”. 

The mannequin, which has arrived in a quite stealthy style with none fanfare from Fender, is most important for its hardware. No topic the entire lot, hardtail Strats don’t near spherical too regularly, and essentially the most in style 70th Anniversary Antigua mannequin is neatly an exception. 

It furthermore comes packing with a Fireball neck humbucker. Fender says this delivers a “essential steadiness of put and definition”. For Root, it helps issues catch “Iron Maiden-y”. 

Root furthermore singled out the Player Plus Noiseless single-coils, announcing they offer “that saucy bluesy stuff” and adding, “It’ll finest increase after I exercise a while with it.”  

In varied locations, the Web Distinctive Fender mannequin – which joins the Player Plus line that first debuted in 2021 – aspects an alder physique and maple C-profile neck, with a 12″ radius pau ferro fretboard. It affords a 25.5″ scale length, 22 medium jumbo frets, and classic white pearloid dot inlays. 

A push/pull merit an eye fixed on activates the Fireball humbucker’s coil splitting to maximise the guitar’s versatility – however, again, it’s the appointment of a hardtail bridge that in particular catches the gaze. 

It’s a six-saddle, string-via-physique bridge with block saddles that sees the guitar step a ways from the Stratocaster’s whammy-encumbered lineage. The up to the moment spec is furthermore powerful more in step with the tastes of Root, whose maintain signature Fender models all have hardtail bridges.

The Slipknot-current hardtail Player Plus Strat is priced at $1,229 and on hand completely from Fender.

In other files, Root now not too long within the past revealed he ancient a Neural DSP Quad Cortex for some Slipknot reveals, even after announcing he’d by no methodology consume modeling amps