Partscasters
Fender Highway One Stratocaster
If you love electric guitar as much as I do, you’ll likely agree that Leo Fender was a genius. He was a brilliant inventor who designed many of the important aspects and components of the electric guitar and guitar amplification. Most of his designs are still driving the industry standard today. Leo created the Fender Bassman amplifier in the 50’s from a circuit that was featured in the vacuum tube salesman’s handbook. The Bassman circuit design became the archetype for amplifiers made by Marshall, MesaBoogie and so many others. He along with George Fullerton created the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar. The Telecaster and also the Stratocaster. Leo invented the Fender Precision Bass which set the standard for electric basses. All that and he wasn’t even a guitarist.
Leo played piano and saxophone as a kid, but his true passion was working with electronics. He loved to work on radios, repairing and eventually making them out of spare parts. He went to college for accounting and afterwards opened a radio repair shop in 1938 in Fullerton California. Musicians would bring him amplifiers and PA’s to repair in addition to radios. It was there that he developed his ideas for amplifiers. His guitar designs came later.
The Telecaster was his first solid body electric (originally named the Broadcaster). Then came the Stratocaster. One of the many design aspects of the Stratocaster that has made it so successful is the modular nature of the guitar. They have bolt-on necks that make them easy to remove and replace. They have a fairly open pickup cavity with electronics that are screwed into a plastic pickguard. That makes it easy to remove the electronics, replace and upgrade them.
Guitarists have been modifying Fender guitars since the 70’s. Replacing the necks with ones that have a different shape or different fingerboard material or different fret sizes. Swapping the original single coil pickups with higher output versions or even humbuckers. In the late 70’s and 80’s, companies like Charvel, Jackson and Kramer built successful businesses by modifying Strat designs to create what are known as Superstrats.
Today we call these modified designs “Partscasters”. Altered Stratocasters with all sorts of different parts that you won’t typically see on production models. Guitarists often become obsessed with trying to build and play a guitar that is unique.. one that you won’t see anyone else playing. Guitarist might really like the shape and feel of a Stratocaster, but want the higher output and warmth that you get out of Gibson guitar equipped with humbuckers so they will swap out the pickups in the Strat.
Some people just want to build their own guitar and the modular nature of the Stratocaster design is a great place to start. You can go to Warmoth for custom bodies, necks and parts or places like eBay where you can find endless parts, new and old. Some guitarists start their project with a lower priced Squier guitar body, upgrade the electronics and hardware to make it play and sound better. These projects are a lot of fun and not that hard if you’re a little handy. If you’d prefer to leave it to the pros, your local guitar tech will be happy to build your vision for you using a Stratocaster template.
The guitar featured here is a great example of a Partscaster. It is a 2012 Fender Highway One Strat. Made in the U.S.A. It’s original for the most part with the exception of the electronics. It came from the factory with a Fender single coil in the neck and middle position and a humbucker pickup in the bridge position.
I loved the black glossy body with black pickguard and controls. I wanted a rosewood fretboard and I really like the large 70’s style Fender headstock. The stock pickups were just so/so. I decided to try a Lace Sensor blue pickup in the neck position for a noiseless humbucker sound. A Lace Sensor Silver in the middle position with reverse wound/reverse polarity and a Dimarzio Super Distortion in the bridge position. I was a teenager in the 90’s and was going for a Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Weezer grungy sound. These mods definitely deliver that. I didn’t have to alter the guitar much.. no routing needed since I stayed with the original pickup configuration and didn’t change the neck. I had no experience with any of the pickups that I chose, but they surprisingly ended up working well together. I used 500k CTS pots across the board. It was important for the middle single coil pickup to be Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity so that positions 2 and 4 on the 5 way switch weren’t out of phase.
Now there are traditionalists out there that hate the idea of a Partscaster. The thought is, “a Stratocaster should sound like a Strat.” If you want a Les Paul sound, buy a Les Paul. I generally agree with that. If you are really trying to nail Clapton’s “woman tone” from Cream or Jimmy Page’s live sound, a Les Paul through a Marshall is what they used.
A Partscaster might put you somewhere in between a couple of classic guitar designs which isn’t necessarily bad if you want versatility in one axe. It’s your guitar, you paid for it, you’re the artist… Do whatever you want with it. Try something new. It will either give you the changed sound you were going for or you may need to make adjustments. Learn from the experience. Play the guitar and have fun with it.