Customer Reviews

Fender Starcaster Strat Pack Electric Guitar with Amp and Accessories (Black)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My parents gave me this guitar for christmas, and I've had this guitar for about 5 months now,and I have loved and hated some things about the guitar. let's start with the short list, the hated.

Hated: The strap is garbage, The wammy bar causes the guitar to go insanely out of tune, for about 2 weeks the frets cut your hands to shreds, When using one pickup, the amp makes a really annoying buzzing sound, so use the second to bottom or top setting on the pickup selector switch. The guitar does also go out of tune fairly easy by itself.

Now onto the loved: EXTREMELY STURDY AND STRONG. My guitar was dropped by one of my friends onto a concrete floor and the only damage done was a small chip in the finish by the neck. Amp is fantastic for it's size. Loud enough to fill a gymnasium full of screaming students. The tuner is fantastic, and the picks are incredibly strong. Strings sound good and are strong. Extra strings are a good bonus, just make sure you put them on right.

Overall a great guitar package for about $200, I'd recommend to any beginning guitarist. With a name like Fender, you can't go wrong!

I got this kit for my birthday because I want to learn guitar. It is totally ridiculous to invest much more than about $200 at the start of a new hobby. At the beginner level, you have no idea what you need, what you want, whether your even going to stick with it, etc. Luckily, Fender is selling this little gem.

I'm not going to lie--in this $200 package, you will not get a $700 guitar with a $150 amp and a Monster cable. What you do get is a guitar that sounds good and that you can learn on, an amp that makes your practice audible, and a DVD that... well, sucks. The DVD is really bad.

I highly recommend this package for the beginner.

(As for the DVD sucking--it says it's for beginners, but it moves much too fast. Get a book and teach yourself or, better yet, get lessons. Don't count on the DVD.)

Ok, first off, even if you are a beginner, I do not recommend this guitar.
Why?
One, this guitar has highly incremental buzz. Most people will tell you when you ask, that this is because of the amp, but this is because this is essentially quite cheaply constructed, and the parts aren't as good as a lot of others. The strings are too close to the fret, and this is one of the reasons.
Two, cheap materials, as I stated, are troublesome. After owning the guitar for one week, and having to take out and screw in the whammy bar, the screw part of it got stuck in the hole. Not shortly after that, we returned the guitar.
Three, the frets. Many people stated this, and this is a very big problem for anyone. The frets are NOT smooth at ALL and after just one week of use I had scars and a ripped up palm on my hand.
But if you want a good guitar in this price range, for beginners, here's what I recommend. Get a Fender Squier. At most sites, the base Fender Squier costs $119. About $90 less than this does here, and it has much smoother fret board, but it still has some of the buzz found in this guitar. I also recommend a beginner Epiphone Les Paul or SG.

I got this for my fifteen yo son (aka "Even After Dinner, Giant Boys Eat"). (Okay, not because I was clever enough to think of it ahead of time, but because I stumbled onto one of Amazon's "lightning deals" at holiday time.) Perfect.

As you suspect from reading the description, this package has everything you need, which was really a blessing from my perspective. As others have suggested, we'll gradually replace things as he wants... strings, of course, the strap, maybe some new picks. I didn't realize there was even a tuner in the set, which is great.

One thing extra I feel we immediately need is a stand for the guitar. This is partly because things can get a little rambunctious in our house (e.g., the dog and the boy chasing each other around) and I want the guitar to be safe. I also don't really want him to put it away; I'd like to leave it out in the living room so that he's more inclined to pick it up and play.

I like the DVD, though I'm writing this just as soon as the gift has been opened, so we've only just started. To me, the lessons seem good, though my son is a trumpet player and played piano when young (so he knows musical things) and I've also played instruments (including acoustic guitar) before. We are far from being musicians, but it's not totally new to us, either. You're going to have to replay them a few times to get it; that's part of the learning.

Tips for beginners:
1. Tune your guitar to the DVD initially and don't mess with the electronic tuner. Everything will sound wrong if you're not tuned the same as the DVD guy, but trying to play along with him. Also, you should learn to tune your guitar to the low E string anyway (as he teaches on the DVD).
2. Make sure your low E and high E are actually the same note after you think you're done tuning (but yeah, in different octaves). My son thought he was tuned, but this test didn't pass so we adjusted.
3. Like everything else, you're learning to tune. But if you don't get this reasonably right, when you go on to chords, they'll sound like cr*p.
4. The first chord you're shown is a minor chord. (I question this choice, but there you have it.) This chord might not sound right to you anyway.
5. I think one strategy is to plow ahead till you get to an easier chord to listen to, maybe the regular E or the A. And then you might want to fiddle around a little bit between adjusting the tuning and trying the chord till the chord sounds right.
6. Note that you can find chord charts online for the "open chords", such as the one at Guitar for Beginners that I just found. Those first five chords should sound right if you're properly tuned (remember not to play all the strings for some of the chords).
7. You should maybe do just a little bit each day at the start (15 minutes or so) till your fingers build up calluses. This can also help pace the frustration factor of getting to the point of those first few chords.
8. Once you get those first few chords, you're on your way! Then it's just practice, practice, practice.

p.s. Some musical friends have confirmed that this is an excellent guitar for a beginner. One points out that what you lose in this line (as compared to other Fenders) is the quality control. This was an interesting observation for me -- it's true of so many products, but I didn't apply it here. I think this might explain some of the variation in the reviews. Remember that you're buying from Amazon, and if you notice anything wrong, just Send It Back.

Got this guitar package for Christmas (in midnight blue, but oh well), and I am liking this a lot. As other reviewers have stated, you are not getting a $300 guitar and a $100 amp - you are getting a cheapo beginner's guitar with a wimpy amp.

THAT BEING SAID, it is worth much more than the measly $200 you spend! This is a GREAT package to get for a beginner to the electric guitar. The guitar is sturdy enough to handle some rough playing, and it seems to stay in tune somewhat well. The amp, while not loud or sturdy enough to use in a concert, is fun to mess around with and start experimenting with distortion, etc. I'm sure the picks are fine - I prefer hard picks, so I didn't even look at the ones in the package. I also didn't look at the DVD included, having known how to play acoustic for a few years prior.

The bad news: The strings died very quickly for me (both the already string ones and the replacements included). The tuner is finicky at best. The amp will die if you crank the volume and blast away for very long. The strap comes off if you glance at it.

However, for a beginner, this package is perfect. Once you get some practice and feel like moving on, you can get a new tuner, a new amp, and even a new guitar one at a time at your leisure.

TL;DR: This is a great deal for a beginner, well worth the $200.

I have viewed several of these instruments. They are of general good quality. A particular flaw is that often the ends of the frets extend outward form the neck wood and create very sharp irritating surface. Some posters here mention the identical problem. It's a quality control issue, that manufacturer should address. Fender Stratocaster necks are typically very smooth and well finished. If your frets are not smooth to the neck, send it back. Otherwise this is a great quality basic intro instrument.

I picked this pack up about 6 months ago. For the price, this is a great pick.

Out of the box, it sounds pretty bad. You may have to raise the string action (the height of the strings) if you get buzzing against the frets. Let the strings break in first though. Speaking of strings, the ones that come with it are pretty bad. Get some slightly heavier ones, GHS strings are cheap.

Use the digital tuner that comes with the guitar to set the intonation. Out of the box, mine got sharper and sharper as you work your way up the neck, making every chord out of tune, even if the open strings were in tune. If you run out of room and the intonation is still sharp, you may have to shim the saddle on the neck to make the string an even height. I did that on my large E string by cutting off a 1/4 inch section of an old G string and sliding it under the E in the saddle.

With a little setup, this guitar plays like a champ on the cheap!

This is a amazing guitar. I just got it and have been playing it for like 4 hours already. stopped to write this thing up. My fingers hurt! ahaha that's a sign of becoming a guitarist. well this stuff is great the only thing is i suggest you tune it to the mic and not the outlet. I sold my ps3 to afford this and that was a good move because this is better than any guitar hero I've played. I haven't watched the DVD and don't intend to, I can teach myself with books & Youtube.I've learned 1/2 a intro to Be yourself from audioslave. BUY THIS ITEM!!!! plus it comes with three picks of fender that they sell here for like 7 dollars and there white brown and green but they look shiny marble, i cant explain but they look really cool.

UPDATE 5/19/2012 : This is so damn reliable it's not a joke. I've modded since my last review, but I think every guitarists does this later down the road. People have told me to just buy a strat. I said "No, I think I'll mod mine and see what happens." I put in 69' Fender custom pickups, New fender whammy (planning on getting new tremolo hardware someday), Rev. Willy Guitar strings, I still love celluloid picks :), and I maintain it. Plus, once I get the Rockerverb Orange Amp this baby is gonna sound beautiful. So, all in all, I jam with my friend who has a Strat and my Starcaster is Amazing. Oh and I put in a Toneshaper Circuit board pickup thingy. Warning : Get Toneshaper before pick-ups. It saves some effort if your gonna solder yourself like me. People always think I'm saying Stratocaster wrong when I tell them it's a Starcaster! XD They can't believe the sound. I love my Guitar & Rock'N'Roll

P.S - Planet Waves Tuner is very good Electric/Acoustic. Price too ;)
And SONGSTERR.COM is so FUN! So many guitar tabs there. Great for learning new songs. It's free too! :D

The Fender Starcaster is a great, no awesome, Guitar for a never held a Guitar and know nothing about music eleven year old. It's a Fender, so it already has a classy look to it. For a pre-teen, this instrument has the look and feel of a rock star unit at an easy price.

I bought a Starcaster guitar pack when I saw a free shipping deal on it coupled with a good price. My package included the stand (a very decent fold-up stand I might add), a gig bag (better than nuttin), shoulder strap (has poor attachment ends, I recommend buying a good strap), a tuner, a DVD on basic guitar techniques, extra strings and 2 allen wrenches. Some have said they got some picks with their stratpack, I did not, or maybe I somehow missed em in the packaging.

The guitar is visually perfect, paint job is beautiful and neck finish is grade A quality. Some complain about the frets having sharp edges, but I did not notice this to be a problem. The tuner works perfect for me, and when compared with audio produced by online tuner web sites, the tuner assists in tuning the guitar perfectly. I measured the neck for proper truss rod adjustment, and the factory setup was near perfect, so I did not mess with it.

The first thing you should do after purchasing this guitar is buy a better set of strings, I found some on ebay for $6, GHS Boomers 10 size, I recommend them, very good sound and they STAY IN TUNE as opposed to the strings that came with the guitar which required retuning every time I picked up the guitar. I broke the whammy bar off trying to unscrew it, it was a cheap bar, and I really don't use it (which is why I was trying to unscrew it). The threads on the whammy bar look very cheaply formed, however, after some checking, I found you can buy a new whammy bar for about $12. BTW, after installing the GHS strings, big whammy action did not affect string tuning.

The only negative: there was no manual included with my product, and the online sites do not provide one, what a seemingly large oversight. A DVD was included with the guitar, why not at least put a digital manual on the DVD or provide a link to one on the net? Come on Fender, what might have been a darn good product package is seriously lacking when no manual is included. There are some good web sites that provide tips on setup of a stratocaster guitars, and they are mostly accurate to setup this guitar. I found a Squier Stratocaster manual online which was quite useful for setup of the guitar and specs, tho one cannot be certain of the neck radius without some actual product specs, which should be in the manual that comes with the product. No included manual is my reason for loss of a star in the rating, not to mention the whammy bar shearing off.

I did some setup to the guitar to get the action height where I like it after installing the new strings (setup is a must when you change brands of strings), setup the intonation, and checked/setup the pickups for proper height adjustment as the factory was a bit off on them. All in all, am quite pleased with the guitar, it sounds darn good. I have played acoustic guitar for 27 years, and finally decided I wanted an electric, and bought this on a lark and am glad I did.

This guitar has the classic stratocaster single-coil pickup noise issues, which are not noticeable until you plug it into a GOOD amp. The included amp does not have enough gain to make the noise noticeable. I am considering doing some shielding and rewiring work to the innards of the guitar to reduce the noise, there is a good web site for instructions on how to do this easily found by searching for shielding and stratocaster.

The amp is suitable if all you want is a practice amp of lower volume capability which has limited/crude distortion capability. I bought a couple of used 12 inch combo amps (buy a 12 inch speaker model if you look for a used amp, many are out there for $100 or so) for about $100 and kept the one I liked, and sold the one I liked less. FWIW, I kept the Peavey and sold the Crate as the Peavey (Bandit 112) has more "features", tho the Crate with 2 12 inch speakers would certainly rattle the windows. I'll probably sell the included squire amp.

In the end, I believe this product to be a good value and am quite satisfied in most all respects with it.