Only just noticed this post - co-incidentally, I noticed the name "Starcaster" for the first time tonight in a catalogue. The Starcaster looks identical to a Squier Strat next to it on the page - very little difference looking at them. The Squier Bullet Strat is selling at £99; the Starcaster at £169, but with a practise amp included.
What I was actually wondering - if Squier make budget Strats for Fender, why are Fender bothering making budget Strats - at least that's what the Starcaster looks like. Seems a little strange to me.
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Does anybody have an opinion on whether the trem style bridge would be difficult for a beginner to get along with? (Somebody on another forum I'm a member of which isn't guitar related wants to get started playing. I recommended the Squier Strat, but could tell that they weren't thrilled with the $300 AUS price tag.)
Take care,
Casey
Trem style bridge is fine, just tighten the springs and leave the bar in the case and all will work well. :mrgreen:
Vic, I think Starcaster is the name Fender chose for those instruments that would be sold in stores like Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. I think they are essentially a very low end Squire. I tried one out at the Sam's Club where I shop and although the guitar wasn't half bad it had very sharp fret edges and was set up terribly.
*For those of you who do not live in the US, Sam's Club is a warehouse store where food and merchandise are sold in bulk or at bargain prices, you need a membership to shop there that requires a yearly fee.
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
What I was actually wondering - if Squier make budget Strats for Fender, why are Fender bothering making budget Strats - at least that's what the Starcaster looks like. Seems a little strange to me.
Vic
Every starcaster I've seen and examined (except for the original ones from the 80's) seemed to be built to the quality of the Esteban guitars you see on the Home shopping network. Pretty paint, but very little real quality.
Even the lowest level Squier is built far better. The Squire Classic Vibe series shames some guitars costing 10 times as much.
Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.
I think beginners won't be able to see a difference between the fakes and the real Squire classic vibe series. But you get what you pay for when you feel/play the real thing...here is a test of these guitars:
Only just noticed this post - co-incidentally, I noticed the name "Starcaster" for the first time tonight in a catalogue. The Starcaster looks identical to a Squier Strat next to it on the page - very little difference looking at them. The Squier Bullet Strat is selling at £99; the Starcaster at £169, but with a practise amp included.
What I was actually wondering - if Squier make budget Strats for Fender, why are Fender bothering making budget Strats - at least that's what the Starcaster looks like. Seems a little strange to me.
:D :D :D
Vic
I think I may have posted about this before but I'm bored at work today...:)
One reason, see "srick" posts in this thread - it's such an inexpensive (cheap) guitar that people aren't afraid to mod it.
The other reason, my reason - For many years I'd thought about trying to learn guitar. I'd even gone as far as making a couple of trips to my local Guitar Center. Each time I left after 5 or ten minutes. The choices are very overwhelming to someone who knows nothing about guitars. I don't remember noticing Squires in my short visits. It seemed like the cheapest guitars I noticed were at least $400, the cheapest amps about $200, ...Besides the prices and the overwhelming variety - there were too many 15 year olds pounding out metal licks for me to fell comfortable picking up a guitar and trying to pick out a few random notes.
So, one day I'm wandering through Best Buy with a $100 gift card in my pocket. I see this guitar that looks to my uneducated eye to be just like the one guitar name I knew - Stratocaster. I see Fender on the box...well, probably not complete junk if it says Fender, right? I can pick it up and play with it and there are no expert musicians around to make me feel stupid. After a few minutes I'm thinking - "hey, this feels GOOD". For $200 to get a complete package I can afford to buy what may turn out to be another in a long line of hobbies that I don't stick with. (I'm happy to say this one DID stick! - but there was no way to know that at the time.).
So what I'm saying, in my roundabout way, is that the key is to get something, with the Fender name on it, out to mass market stores where they can hook people who would probably never buy a guitar if they had to go to Guitar Center for it. I suppose the Squire Bullet could have worked too, if they packaged it with amp, DVD, strap, tuner, cable, ... and sold it at mass market stores. But I think Fender wanted to keep the Squire line perceived as a higher end guitar sold only in music stores. Anyway, the strategy seemed to work - it hooked me!
I want to play guitar very badly -
and I do!
I was in FYE (big mall chain store with CD's, DVD, video game stuff ect...) and I notice they have guitars. Cheap guitars. I notice a Les Paul copy with a head stock that is dead on Gibson. I'm all ... uuuuhhhh oooohhhh you are so sued! Then I notice it is a Maestro and on the plate where the neck connects to the body it says Gibson. The store that sells Guitar Hero, a video game that has replica Gibson guitars as controllers and a virtual music store full of fine Gibson axes is selling "Gibson" guitars for $100 - $200. Genius! Hook 'em, reel 'em in. It is marketing.
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
Hi everyone, I'm new on here and I have to say I'm impressed with the in-depth conversations. With that said I too own a Fender Starcaster that I've been; unsuccessfully, using to self-teach myself how to play guitar for the past 3 years. From what I've been reading my guitar fits the discription of a Starcaster:
The frets are sharp and both E and A strings buzz like crazy. My Tremelo snapped off a long time ago and the other piece is still inside the hole. My pickups seem lifeless and unless I play a Sex Pistols song I can't tune the guitar correctly to save my life. Oh yeah, the orginal strap broke within the first month of ownership and and the screwholes for the strap were stripped, so I had to use a hot glue gun and place the screws in permanently.
As much as I would love to get this guitar to run at the same level as a Strat I think this guitar is done for. I don't think it's worth investing any more money into. Oh and a part of the finish at the base got tore off so I have a sticker there now.
I'm not sure what the policy is on posting pictures here (file size, etc.), but here's my pride piece of crap... :roll:
Yeah, that's it on the left. I actualy sold the Dean Vendetta on the right for $50 to my friend.
I went and bought 2 Starcaster acoustics from my local Pawn shop for 49$ each(he bought 75 of them from a supplier-something is not right with them because they could not be sold as brand new but i can't tell) for my daughter and wife for Christmas-I took them out of the boxes and tuned them up to get them ready for them-they sound great for almost nothing price wise.After christmas i will post some pictures and sounds from them I am teaching my little Taylor Swift right now :D
