When you’ve been evaluating guitars as long as I have, it’s tough to take a look at an instrument with a familiar style and not have a set of expectations before you even play a note. Therefore my expectations for the brand-new Fender Highway Series Parlor were infiltrated the “thin body acoustic made by a business understood for making electrical guitars” prism.
A great deal of those preliminary expectations weren’t that away. Much shorter scale aside, the guitar’s neck would feel comfortable on a Telecaster, its headstock and six-in-line tuners are signature Fender, and its smooth, comfy shapes are plainly in line with what the business has actually done considering that sculpting the back of its very first Stratocaster 70-odd years back.
What I didn’t anticipate was the fullness of noise originating from this really compact and light-weight instrument– good and round and even a bit on the fat side. It produces a lot more bottom end than its size would recommend, while likewise predicting all right to be played unplugged in a little space.
All that stated, the Highway, with its specifically developed Fishman Fluence pickup, is plainly created to be enhanced. I evaluated the guitar through a Phil Jones Nano Bass X4 ampdirect into my Universal Audio Apollo user interface, and unplugged, and was evenly impressed by its exceptional tone and versatility.
The Road to Tone
The Highway Parlor is the smaller sized of 2 comparable thin-bodied acoustic-electrics from Fender, and each is available in 2 variations: all-mahogany or spruce-topped mahogany(I checked the all-mahogany variation.) Unlike some previous efforts, the Highway does not attempt to appear like an acoustic variation of a popular Fender electric; it was plainly developed for gamers who desire a more standard acoustic shape without the bulk of an acoustic body. Appropriately, the Highway looks structured and nearly aerodynamic, with streamlined curves. It’s welcoming, to state the least.
A lot of what makes the guitar intriguing is undetectable. The body is chambered and boasts a tapered drifting X-bracing pattern. This style produces a complete noise with a round, instead of cutting, leading end and a complete, instead of scooped, midrange.
The remainder of the instrument draws from a mix of acoustic and Fender electrical touchpoints. The neck utilizes a three-bolt system with a tilt modification for neck angle– not all that various from that on the 1980 Strat I purchased in high school. With today’s structure approaches and tighter tolerances, the style is way much better than it was back in the days of bell-bottoms. The neck is extremely steady in its slot, and there are no dead areas.
The action was a bit high at. I was able to change both the truss rod and the neck angle with the consisted of Allen wrenches. While the test guitar didn’t included a handbook or modification guide, the modifications were instinctive; they took just 5 minutes and made the guitar really playable.
The svelte neck has Fender’s familiar C shape, and the fretboard radius is 12 inches. The nut is on the narrow side at 1.6875 inches, and the stresses are high and narrow like on a classic Fender. In general, the Highway is extremely enjoyable to play. Although the neck feels rather like an electrical, I naturally gravitated towards fingerstyle acoustic when checking the guitar, and there is sufficient space to hold chord shapes and let open strings ring in arpeggiated patterns. On the other side, I have a trainee who has a hard time to reach the open G chord shape on her own acoustic guitar. She attempted the Highway, and it was absolutely much easier for her.
Fender promotes the thin body style as more comfy. I personally do not discover a full-sized acoustic unpleasant, and sitting with a thin, curved guitar suggests changing my position. I understand a lot of gamers– consisting of that trainee– who get swallowed up by a deep guitar. As a bundle, the Highway is simple to cope with, even if you do not mind a huge guitar.
Unique Electronics
A huge part of the Highway’s style is the active Fluence pickup, which is both aesthetically and sonically various from the majority of systems. Installed at the top of the soundhole, the transducer has a crescent shape that follows the soundhole’s curves. It looks natural, with the black of the pickup providing a good balanced out to the mahogany’s café au lait surface. The back of the guitar consists of a battery compartment for the Fluence’s 9-volt battery and a panel for servicing the electronic devices.
There are 2 controls listed below the best side of the bridge: volume and shape. The latter is various from many tone controls because it moves in between a series of sonic profiles. In what would typically be full-on position, the tone is fatter and jazzier; in the rolled-off position, it’s lighter and more acoustic. There are a lot of tones in between those 2 settings.
Through the Nano Bass– a compact amp with a huge low end– the Highway sounds deep and abundant. With evaluations, I typically simply begin playing and let the guitar take me someplace before returning to touch all the bases, and this guitar led me to fingerstyle with the tune on the lower strings. It was simple to manage the attack and get a clear, effective tone. I included a little treble at the amp to get the leading strings to punch a little bit more, however magnified, the balance throughout all 6 strings was remarkable. While the Fluence does not cut like a piezo, neither does it squawk.
Plugging straight into the Apollo and listening with earphones, I was much better able to separate the electronic devices from the acoustic noise and get a sense of how the shape control works. The very best method I can explain it is that the leading end is mainly unblemished, while the mids and low mids shift with the control. Similar to the amp, the full-on position makes the low end punchy, and the rolled-off end uses a tighter bass noise. Having the ability to customize the midrange and get simply enough focus on the lower mids would be particularly convenient for feeding a home PA system.
Keys to the Highway
Fender plainly sees the Highway as an option to a standard acoustic instrument that keeps a few of a flattop’s shape and ambiance. The quick neck and thin body are plainly targeted at electrical gamers. Because sense, it’s a bullseye.
Will it attract conventional acoustic gamers? Let’s specify that if you can play lead lines on a standard dreadnought or fingerpick on a nylon-string, the thin neck isn’t going to alter your life. The variety of tones, and the interaction of a resonating body, do make the Highway as various from a typical electrical guitar as it is from a conventional acoustic. I can see this as a strong option for looping or effects-laden acoustic music, where you desire the tone of the acoustic however the control of an electrical.
This short article initially appeared in the March/April 2024 concern of Acoustic Guitar publication.