Fender Stratocaster vs Chinese Strat Copy ("Rocktile") - Are Cheap Guitars Any Good?

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• published: 14 Aug 2013
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Sound comparison starts at 5:06 ***DON'T MISS ROUND TWO! http://youtu.be/qs2JeHkWmPw Fender USA vs. SX Strat - A WORLD of difference from the Rocktile copy! http://amzn.to/1MNTl6d This video takes a close look at a Fender Strat (Fender American Special Strat in Seafoam Green that I picked up used at a bargain price) vs. an inexpensive made-in-China copy (branded as "Rocktile ST3"). Many EXCELLENT quality guitars are produced in China, that is not the question here - the question is - "Does a cheap ($100 or less) copy have a similar neck, body, pickups and hardware?" and "Does it play as well as and sound like a "real" Strat?" You can jump to the sound tests at 3:55 A lot of comments are coming in regarding the pickups/tone of the inexpensive guitar. Even if you like a bright guitar tone (or would just swap 500k pots for 250k etc.), this guitar falls short everywhere else. Issues such as "neck whip", a misaligned bridge, and overall shoddy construction go deeper than just slapping in new volume and tone pots. The misaligned bridge was fixable with the saddles on this one, but I would NEVER recommend someone order one of these, since if it were any further off and it would fall outside the range of intonation adjustment, and be useful only as deco. Incidentally, I had also ordered a Music Man "copy" from Rocktile at the same time, and it was unplayable. Several frets were literally sanded down to nothing, and the overall build quality was so poor that I sent it back straight away. It was simply unusable, and what makes me angry is that if a beginner got that guitar, he/she might think the problem was on them and be discouraged from learning! In my opinion, the "bright" sound of the knockoff is not terrible, but the richer mids of the Fender has the kind of "body" that I am looking for in a guitar sound. If I want more treble, I'll just goose the amp treble knob and/or use EQ when recording. Treble and Bass were set at 12:00 on the amp - the "copy Strat" was unbearably bright in front of the amp, and the signal chain (described below) "warmed up" the tone significantly. This is a fairly in-depth review, and I made a point of recording both guitars properly - A Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue amp, mic'ed with a Shure 57, through a Neve Preamp, into Pro Tools, and processed with the Massey CT5 compressor. Both guitars were tracked through the same signal chain.