{"id":55,"date":"2010-03-13T16:09:39","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T21:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/?p=55"},"modified":"2011-04-12T08:02:29","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T13:02:29","slug":"fender-acoustasonic-guitar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/?p=55","title":{"rendered":"Fender Acoustasonic Guitar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evidently Fender has been hard at work since introducing the Stratacoustic and Telecoustic models from a few years ago, as the new Acoustasonic Stratocaster represents a quantum leap in playability and sound past those excellent (but admittedly budget oriented) instruments.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Acoustasonic is one of those products that you can tell has been in development for a while, as there is thoughtfulness to the design that you don\u2019t see everyday. A great example of this are the volume and tone controls which are recessed into the rosewood bridge in a way that makes them both accessible and out of harms way at the same time. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Although the Mexican-made Acoustasonic is a very \u201ctechie\u201d instrument with slick features such as a hollow alder body married to a graphite composite top, triple Fishman piezo pickups built into a three piece compensated bridge, and a graphite back cover plate shielding the 18V active electronics, the guitar doesn\u2019t feel like a test project or a piece of plastic, it just feels like a guitar. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The finish of the Acoustasonic that I received seemed to change color depending upon the viewing angle and available light, and is easily one of the best looking paint jobs I have ever seen on an affordable instrument. I had to look closely at the top for quite a while before I could see any evidence at all of a joint between the graphite composite top, and the alder wood body. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While I was using the Acoustasonic in the studio, I knocked the body of the guitar into the cast iron counterweight of the boom on a large rolling mic stand. I expected to see a huge dent right on the face of the guitar. Nothing, not a scratch! I wish all guitars had such a tough finish.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Although the Acoustasonic has just one volume and one tone control, I feel that more complex tone shaping circuitry isn\u2019t really necessary since the basic sound is right on the money. I didn\u2019t miss the inclusion of a notching filter either, as I was unable to get the Acoustasonic to feed back unless I put it right in front of my Dual Rectifier at very high levels. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Three internally mounted trimpots allow the user to balance the volume each pickup element to their liking. The review guitar benefited from a slight boost to the trimpot that controlled the B and E strings pickup. This kind of adjustability will make it much easier to dial in a sound that correctly fits your playing style and string choice. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The pickups and the associated electronics (which are manufactured by Fishman) have very low noise, and have a very nice \u201chi-fi\u201d type tonality that works well driving a variety of gear. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I had great results with the Acoustasonic going direct into my Neotek IIIc console via a Radial JDI direct box. The sound was very clean and detailed, and the individual notes in chords were easily discernable. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Plugged into a Silverface Fender Vibrolux Reverb, the Acoustasonic had great punch and depth. With the volume of the guitar set full up, I was able to coax a really nice light overdrive from the amp (which doesn\u2019t have a master volume control that enables \u201cpreamp only\u201d distortion) which would work perfectly in a classic rock, or roots music context.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Though I wouldn\u2019t recommend it as the perfect match, the Acoustasonic sounded pretty cool plugged into my Dual Rectifier. I was able to coax some pretty wild \u201cBeck-esq\u201d type acoustic distortion tones that wouldn\u2019t be possible without massive (unwanted) feedback with any other acoustic electric I have used.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While you won\u2019t mistake the Acoustasonic for a high quality dreadnaught when played acoustically, it has plenty of volume for casual playing and can fill the room with surprisingly decent tone. You might miss a bit of low bass, and a little high sparkle, but the overall sound is better than you would expect from such a thin body.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Acoustasonic is a great guitar for unplugged practice duty; those acoustic strings will help you build your hand strength relative to a conventional electric while still retaining the familiar \u201cC\u201d shaped Strat neck, correct scale length and string spacing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

All in all, the Acoustasonic is a great twist on the Stratocaster and a very usable, excellent sounding guitar in its own right!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The bottom line:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Great sound and appearance makes the Acoustasonic a terrific choice!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evidently Fender has been hard at work since introducing the Stratacoustic and Telecoustic models from a few years ago, as the new Acoustasonic Stratocaster represents a quantum leap in playability and sound past those excellent (but admittedly budget oriented) instruments. The Acoustasonic is one of those products that you can tell has been in development for a while, as there… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guitar-reviews","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theaudiomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}