This is the second part of our ongoing “Holy Crap What a Busy Month and Also I’m Lazy” series, in which we’ll detail some of the more fun and noteworthy undertakings of a very hectic, backed-up month. So backed-up, in fact, one might even say Father time himself suffered from a sort of chronological constipation.
Today, I’d like to tell you about this fancy and fantastic Fender Starcaster Reissue. Part of the latest in the line of Modern Player instruments, today’s Starcaster reflects the design elements of a line that echoes the classic shapes we love while nodding to modern tastes – guitars with a vintage look and a tweaked, updated feel.
While the Starcaster reissue is a fantastic guitar, I have a few personal, OCD-related gripes with the update: I dislike the slightly adjusted shape, the way the neck is inset on the body, the stoptail and the lack of a Master Volume control as found on the 1970s models. I’m also not a fan of Fender’s reissue Wide Range Humbuckers, but I’m so used to swapping out stock pickups for something a little more dependable and tuneful that I can hardly gripe about this.
All that said, this guitar is honestly a LOT of fun to play, and even more fun to behold; truly, as much as I love the old Starcasters, they are increasingly difficult to come by and nigh-unaffordable. Having the chance to play both, I can say that from the standpoint of playability, this reissue is a most enjoyable offering. And super cheap, thanks to Chinese manufacturing.
“Oh I Come from a Land, a Faraway Place”
Our good out-of-state buddy Blake 
contacted us shortly after he picked up his new Starcaster, wondering about the best way to ‘open up’ his lovely guitar. Blake had already taken it to his tech, who swapped out the reissue pickups for a set of Lollar Regals – his answer to the classic WRHB, highly prized for its darker personality and huge-yet-decidedly-Fender sound. Lollar’s pickups retain the darkness of the originals, but pepper that trait with stunning midrange clarity and a low-mid shift that absolutely kills me. All of this is seasoned to taste with present, yet round highs and a slight kick in the salts to give the pickup a slight hint of tasty PAF goodness. If you can’t tell, I adore those pickups.
Thing is, Blake’s guitar didn’t sound anything like what I just described to you. When he sent the guitar to me, output was about 60% of what it should have been (the pickups are wound to 10.7Kohms but I wasn’t getting any kick out of them at all!) and had a muffled, wildly underwhelming sound that spoke of something amiss in the wiring department. Blake asked what I thought, and in my mind the best solution was to do a complete overhaul on the wiring harness.
Jason Lollar – a man that knows his stuff and makes some of my favorite pickups – recommends 500K pots with the Regals, and I’ve used them with those pickups before to stellar results. However, my preference is for the tried-and-true vintage Tele Deluxe complement of 1 meg pots all around (CTS or Bourns are my choice) which really seems to broaden the tonal spectrum of the Regal pickup. This also seemed to be the logical choice for the muddiness we were experiencing.
Upon getting inside the guitar, I discovered that the guitar came equipped with 500K Alpha pots, which are usually good parts for an offshore guitar. Sadly, the wiring left much to be desired and given the minimal body routing, it became apparent that installing full-size pots might require some extra routing. Still, given the quality of sound coming from this guitar and the rather ramshackle wiring, taking a bit more wood out of the bridge pickup cavity was totally worth the extra work, in my opinion.
I began by building a new wiring harness using CTS 1Meg pots and a ’50s Les Paul wiring diagram – my favorite scheme for getting the most out of any humbucker-equipped guitar. The difference lies mainly in the way the tone cap interacts with the hot pickup signal. With modern wiring, the signal from the pickup hits the first lug of the volume pot and is routed through the tone cap before it gets to the pot, effecting the signal no matter the position of the pot. 1950’s wiring fixes this by feeding the tone pot via the switch instead, allowing more clarity, top end presence and a touch more volume overall.
After installing the new harness with 1M pots and 223 orange drops, this guitar came instantly alive. I hadn’t even really tuned the thing when I struck the first chord, and the guitar, amp and Crowther Hot Cake I was running all greeted me like an excitable puppy. There was that zing, that tightness, that clarity boost I’d been missing. And oh! The glorious, full-figured volume!
That little upgrade took the guitar from decent to stellar, and it really wasn’t much work at all. If you’re feeling like there’s something missing from your tone, try upgrading the wiring harness before you go crazy with all manner of pickup swaps and cable tryouts. Full-size pots, quality caps and the right scheme can very well make all the difference.
Again I say CHECK IT:
Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar 