I mentioned in another thread that the bottom two strings on my new Strat sounded kind of "raspy." Someone used the term "overdriven," and that's a pretty good description.
So this evening, I called up the local music store and asked them about service. Sure, I was told. The guy would be there until eight. I live five minutes away, so I was there in a heartbeat. I put the case on the counter and opened it up. "Oh, I remember those," said the guy. Another guy asked where they put the 50th anniversary logo, and I showed him the back of the guitar. The first guy strummed one string and said, "look at that: The neck pickup is too high." He took a screwdriver and made a couple of adjustments, then said, "go plug it in and see."
That did it! I plugged into a Deluxe Reverb '65 Re-issue and knew within 30 seconds that the guitar had been transformed from an also-ran to a winner! The second guy came over and we chatted while I played. He said that Fender's Mexican guitars were usually trouble-free; that it was the high-end Custom Shop jobs that required work (this, from the same place where I played the mouth-watering 2005 NAMM Custom Shop '56 Relic!). With 45 guitars, he humbles me in the collector category!
And dang it all, I just love those freakin' Deluxe Reverb amps! One of those, combined with a sweet-playing Stratocaster such as this one, make even ME sound pretty good. I can tell already, that one of those is going to wind up in my home. Well, it's only money...