Customer Reviews

Fender Starcaster Electric Guitar Pack with Amp and Accessories, Candy Apple Red

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I am a bass guitar player, and own/have owned several bass guitars, including a Fender Mustang and currently a Fender Precision (Sting signature series). I have also owned a Fender Squier (6-string) guitar before. We ordered the Starcaster guitar package for my middleschool daughter.

It's a great guitar with great sound; honestly, the sound is fantastic. And there are a lot of peripheral items included at a fabulous price. We've had no problems at all with the cord or amp, and the sound that little amp makes it really clear. Hit the overdrive, and you get a nice distortion sound. You can't control the amount of overdrive (it's either on or off), but for a beginner or for household use, it's perfect. The compact guitar stand is very stable for its size.

A few other reviewers have criticized the guitar for string buzz. Well, you can adjust the bridge very easily. The package even includes the little hex-wrench needed to make the adjustment yourself. (Anyone that pays $100 for someone else to do such minor tweaking got ripped off ... you may as well pay someone to tune it for you.)

If there is one drawback to the guitar, the edges of the frets are a little rough, something I've never encountered with a Fender product before. I find it noticible, but I wouldn't even call it uncomfortable. And certainly not so rough as to cut up your hands, as one reviewer exaggerated.

One final note, the guitar not only sounds great, it looks beautiful as well. The candy-apple red color is rich and deep (slightly darker than the picture), and the finish has no flaws at all.

I have no hesitation recommending this to any beginning or intermediate player.

I read all of the product reviews before buying this guitar and finally decided it would be worth the risk. And I was right, it was worth it. The shipping box came with a few dings in it, but the product is packed very well. There was absolutely no damage to anything inside the box. As a beginning guitarist, I think the product is excellent. The little amp seems to have a lot of volume and good tone, and the guitar is very well made from what I can tell. It sounds good, feels good, and plays very well. And contrary to everything I read, the frets are not sharp on the ends. In fact mine are beveled and smooth.

I do however have two small complaints. It seems like everyone has either the red or starburst colors, so I opted for the midnight blue. Well, it's midnight alright. It's so dark, that you need a really bright light or sunlight just to be able to tell it's not black. And then it looks more of a dark purple than blue. My second complaint was a buzz from the 5th (A) string at the 6th and 7th frets. All the other strings played well, except this one at this location. I adjusted the neck three times and retuned the strings three times and now it seems to be fine.

I'm sure if you're a master guitarist that has owned some really nice guitars you could find a lot of fault with the Starcaster. But for my money and level of experience, this was a great buy and a fantastic start on learning to play the guitar. I'm sure I'll out grow this one and move up some day in both quality and price, but I'm also certain I won't ever regret having started out with this guitar.

Would I buy it again. Absolutely. Would I recommend it as a good "starter" guitar for the price. Absolutely.

FOLLOW-UP APPROXIMATELY ONE MONTH LATER.......

Okay, It's August and I've had this guitar for almost a month now. I practice/play every night at home and I am EXTREMELY pleased with my purchase. I've read all the reviews about bad electrical components, cheap strings, sharp frets, piece of crap amp, etc., etc. but I have to disagree. I either got the ONLY perfect Starcaster that was made, or some of these other folks are just a whiny overcomplaining bunch that no one could satisfy.

- "Bad strings and strings breaking".....I haven't had a single problem and I play EVERY night.
- "Tone knobs don't work".....Both of mine work just fine.
- "Will not stay in tune".....The ONLY time mine has been out of tune is when I adjusted the neck. I check it EVERY night before I play/practice, and it's ALWAYS in tune.
- "Tuner breaks after a couple of uses".....Have used mine about 25 times and it's working fine, plus I've never replaced the batteries.
- "Bad pickups".....I have played along with several online tracks and the sound out of my Starcaster has matched the sound from the professional tracts almost perfectly.

I could go on but I think you get the point. For under [...] this is a REALLY good deal! Don't you dare think EC or BBK would find it their guitar of choice, but for a beginner model or home practice guitar, the one I purchased and received is awesome! And again, I was only slightly unhappy with the color blue, but it's beginning to grow on me, lol.

I hope this follow up helps, and I hope as I said earlier that I didn't get the ONLY good production model made. (I seriously doubt that's the case.)

I'm really enjoying mine, and hope you enjoy yours too. ~ Black Sheep

I ordered this product as it was a featured product during the month of February 2009. I feel that the product that I got for the sale price was very much worth the money.

Please understand that I am a novice electric guitar player. I have played acoustic guitar for several years and wanted to get a 2nd guitar...an electric guitar...to play around with.

All in all, the guitar is perfect for what I need. I am not out playing gigs or anything, but I love to sit down and play this instrument.

The pack came with the guitar, amp, guitar strap, picks, a tuner, a gig bag, an extra set of strings, and a "how to" DVD.

A great value for the quality of the product!

This is a beginner's electric. I knew that when I bought it, so I wasn't surprised that it wasn't something amazing. However, it is surprisingly well-crafted for such an inexpensive guitar. I don't have much experience with electrics, so I can't go into detail on any of the mechanics, but I know that, with a little tuning and a little adjusting of the parts, it sounds great. Plus, because it's not perfect, it's perfect for beginners; it forces beginners to learn the different parts of an electric guitar and how to tune on their own.

People may complain about the amp or the strings, but the amp is fine for a practice amp. Like others have said, this amp wasn't meant to played at rock concert, it's meant for the home or even a small coffeehouse. The strings suck, I'll admit, but good strings are cheap and easy to get, so it's not really a problem.

If you want to learn to play an electric, or know someone who does, I highly recommend this guitar. It won't be what you rock out on to a crowd of thousands, but it's a great guitar to learn on and it'll last you a long time.

Plus it's f*cking beautiful in candy red.

I've never felt compelled to submit a review for any of my Amazon purchases, but this expereince with Fender warranted some comments.

I ordered this guitar package from Amazon and received it in 3 days even with super-saver shipping. Great service from Amazon.

I opened the kit and was prepping to plug it in and try it out when I realized there was no guitar cable included - pretty useless without a cable. I contacted Fender and they mailed a cable at no charge, but it took them a week (7 days) to do it. Once I was able to actually test the guitar, there was no Volume control knob, only three Tone control knobs. Obviously the top control was for the volume and it had the wrong knob assembled to it. I also realized there were no "setup/adjustment sheet" included. I contacted fender about these additional errors and they said they'd send them. I received the paperwork with no Volume knob. At that point, I cut my loses (and headaches) and I returned the package for Fender to deal with as there were simply to many quality control issues with the package I received, and the Fender rep seemed rather "slack" about the whole deal, calling it a "simple error" and didn't consider it "poor" quality.

The guitar and amp themselves seemed okay (I guess), but I received the impression that Fender has some quality control/assurance issues that they're not real concerned about addressing, which lead me to wonder what else may be wrong.

Great price, shipping and return policy for Amazon, poor quality control and slacker attitude from Fender.

I purchased this for my son's 10th birthday. I was of course very leery about the fact that the name is a play on the well known Stratocaster. I am no expert in guitars, to say the least, but I can confidently say this guitar "pack" is very much worth the money! My son was absolutely ecstatic! I've had several people play it that do know guitars and they were all incredibly impressed with what we got for the money. Also, we were a little worried about the red color for a boy but we were put to ease when we received it. The pictures on amazon make it look more of a bright red than it really is. It is a great color for a boy or girl. If my daughter ever decides she wants an electric guitar for her birthday, this is what I will be getting her.

I have been playing guitar for about 5-6 years but mainly acoustic. I really wanted to get my hands on an electric guitar. I saw this guitar pack in a deal and got it. It is totally amazing - the accessories that come out of the pack. You get an amp, picks, stand, cover, headphones (so that you can play even in the middle of the night), tuner - all out of the box. The amp even has a distort switch to switch on the distortion mode. Of course there is no configuration of distortion effect. It is either on or off. That was a nice plus that I was not expecting. The guitar feel is awesome - doesn't feel that you are playing something cheap.

It took me a little time to get the strings to tune up because initially they kept on loosing their tuning. But once they got set in, it has been perfect. My only complaint is that the amp is a little low powered, specially when you increase the bass. But this fits in my budget and serves 19/20 of my needs. Given a choice, I would have bought this again and again.

I bought this guitar about a week ago. At first, I was very pleased. The price was great, given all that you get in this kit. The guitar sounded great, especially in overdrive mode on the amp. About two days ago, the guitar started sounding worse. Now it sounds terrible. I'm not sure why.

I took it to Guitar Center, and plugged it into some of their high-priced amps. It sounded better, but still off. It's a mystery at this point. I will try to salvage it somehow.

*Update*
I have tried adjusting the tremolo screws to get a better tone from the guitar. I was surprised at how easy they are to turn. It seems they will turn themselves over time just from the strings vibrating. I can't seem to fix it. I admit I'm a newbie to electric guitars. I'm sure there is some way to get the guitar to sound good, but I'm no expert, so I don't know how. I also don't want to pay others to fix it, especially given how fast it went bad. I don't recommend this guitar unless you are an expert at adjusting electric guitars and can fix these issues yourself easily.

My brother just got this guitar because he is just learning to play. Its good value (you get an amp) and a cheap guitar. You may think your getting a good guitar, and trust me i hate giving bad guitar reviews, your not. This guitar will last you about a year and then you will need to move up. RIght now my brothers is not learning power chords or solos where he was to slide his hand around the neck. I do and i used his starcaster. First the frets are pretty crappy. The edges of it stick up and form little blades that slice up the skin between your pointer and your thumb.

Another problem is the bridge on 90 percent of these guitars are not put on properly. The force from the strings actually pry the bridge off. My brother got his fixed, its cost about 10-15 bucks but it is an annoying problem.

Look my advice would be get a Squier strat. THey are little more expensive but they are built a little better. Or get an Ibanez strat copy (ibanez makes good cheap guitars)

If you can only afford this you will only use this for a year. Once you learn power chords or start moving your hands around the neck with speed you will slice it up.

I got this guitar last week, but its not the same guitar! The guitar that came was a dark red color and didnt have a matching headstock. The amp was a starcaster amp not a squire amp. I thought about just keeping the guitar at first.The second day i had the guitar something was rattling on the inside! So i contacted the seller (Go-Dps i think was the name) to try and get the correct package. The seller informed me that this guitar/package isnt even made anymore and that they didnt even know why it was on amazon! The box it came in had a lable that said "candy apple red guitar" but its false! So if you order this, dont get it from Go-Dps! Hope this helps!

Chris