There's nothing quite like a Fender Custom Shop. In the world of electric guitars, Fender Custom Shop electric guitars and basses rank among the most coveted and celebrated custom pieces you can find. Since we love Fender Custom Shop guitars so much, we've assembled a guide spanning many different topics to get you up to speed for when you’re shopping for (or looking to build) a Fender Custom Shop guitar of your own!
Tonewoods and Aging Styles
As one of the main attractions of any Fender Custom Shop guitar, tonewoods play an enormous role in the overall playability and personality of your unique Custom Shop experience. Your tonewood, the cut of wood that makes up the body, can come in several shapes and forms. Fender Custom Shop has no shortage of interesting woods, both familiar and exotic, off which to build your own Custom Shop piece.
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Bridges and Frets
So, maybe it's not the most glamorous element of Fender Custom Shop guitars, but it's important nonetheless – hardware. As we consider the smaller elements of a Custom Shop guitar, or any guitar for that matter, we have to talk about bridges and frets, the metals that cross the T's and dot the I's, keep the lights on, you know what we mean. It'd be a pretty sorry guitar with nothing to anchor the strings, after all.
Neck Shapes and Woods
Fender Custom Shop necks offer a world of personality for your own Custom Shop guitar. It’s no real secret that a special helping of playability of a guitar comes from the shape of its neck. When going about designing or shopping for a Custom Shop guitar of your own, you’ll encounter a number of neck types with a variety of things that differentiate them. All in the pursuit of delivering a feel that fits a variety of players, Fender Custom Shop necks are definitely worth studying up on.
Stratocaster Wiring and Pickups
After a couple generations of working and re-working, plenty of camps of favorites forming, and years of refinement for better and better instruments, Stratocaster pickup configurations have become something of an institution unto themselves in not only mainline Fender instruments, but in the Fender Custom Shop. Fender's iconic doublecut has had its fair share of pickup combos over the years, and today that kind of craft lands us with the cream of the crop in the Fender Custom Shop.
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Telecaster Wiring and Pickups
One of the oldest traditions in electric guitar, Fender Telecaster wiring and pickups, has become a big talking point among Fender Custom Shop guitars. There's been generations of writing and rewriting of the Telecaster tale. However you tell it, it's always there.
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All About Basses
You didn't think we'd forget about basses, did you? I mean, how could we? When it comes to the Fender Custom Shop, basses are no joke. The Fender Custom Shop luthiers are absolutely no slouches when it comes to longer scales and four strings. Fender Custom Shop basses are among the finest bass guitars you can find floating around today. Because of this, we think it's absolutely crucial to dedicate a whole article to Fender Custom Shop basses.
