I would like to illustrate how I would go about selecting a great sounding guitar locally... Take note that I can select but NOT assure that it would be the best ever produced by that Specific manufacturer. I have done this twice -- one for myself and one for my brother in law.
"Selecting a Fender American Standard Strat -- Manila Limitations"
1. EXPOSURE & EARS -- Yup. A year after I met Arie Hippolito in 1995 I think. He taught me what guitars with character sounded like. In fact, that same guitar which he used to demonstrate character to me is now considered retired in comparison to my SPECIFIC Suhr Strat. It was nightmare for me because I ended up getting rid of all my signature ESP Custom Shops, Ibanez Signature MIJ Guitars and sprinklings of Gibson USA and Hamer USA. I had to force rank 14 guitars based on character all at the same time. And when I finished my force ranking, I also asked Arie Hippolito and Lito Bote to force rank my guitars not knowing that I already had forced rank them. And surprise surprise, they also had the same force rank!!! I ended up just keeping one ESP which the three of us agreed had the best character of the fourteen -- this was the most depressing day of my life because I had to let go of a bunch of great looking guitars.
As with lots of people in this forum, Tom Lee remains to be the most convenient destination to be exposed with the high end USA guitars and some shops in Singapore. But it was in NEW YORK two years ago that I really got taught and whipped by Dan Chelsea and G.E. Smith. Out of their vintage 50s Gibsons, they selected one outstanding beat up Gold Top 54 to demonstrate to me 'TONE' and they clearly could define it. On top of that, the New York Salesmen from other stores ( I think I spent about 4 full days in New York to check out the guitar shops and test and another full day in Charleys Houston -- SRV anyone?) just allowed me to select, get and play their high end Fender Custom Shops, Gibson Custom Shops, PRS and anything else priced US$3,000 and above.
2. WIDE SELECTION -- It was wide enough at the barest minimum but I wished that Yupangco hard ordered 50 USA made Fenders with some Custom Shops sprinkled in. So, the first time around, I could choose from around a dozen American Standards plus another dozen American made signatures plus one ugly sounding Stagemaster Custom Shop which has been there since time in memorial. By the way, I did my selection on the second or third day that the new batch had arrived at Buendia. So, I had the first draw on the whole deck. I had selected an excellent sounding black Amercian Standard which I had reviewed already and is now gone because the Suhr is just miles away from it. So too with the new batch that arrived two months ago. I was first in line before the guitars were distributed to other branches.
3. THE ONES WHO REALLY KNOW CAN DISTINGUISH TONE FROM THOSE THAT JUST LOOK GREAT - This is the most difficult part because I did not want a black American Standard Strat. I wanted the colors on the Signature Claptons and Eric Johnsons available at that time and hell I wanted it to be special and not just an American Standard but wala talaga. Talo po ang mga signature ng plain old American Standard sa character for that specific batch of arrivals. I also preferred the other american standards in color. In my 2nd batch recently, the first one I picked was a candy apple red pero patay ang tunog. I was so disappointed because ang pinakagusto ko ay candy apple red. In the end, I picked a sienna red burst or something colored American Standard which I hated in color because I was embarassed to recommend something to my brother in law that would sound like crap. Believe me, it was the last color I would choose but the sound was just amazing for a Fender. It even had a sister guitar of the same color that sounded dead.
4. THEY HAVE BETTER AMPS AND EFFECTS - At the minimum, Yupangco had the Fender Twin Reverb and a Fender Prosonic to test the guitars on. I really test on the clean channel because I spend 90% of my time on the overdrive channels of amps and that really can make guitars sound good. But character really comes out clearly on clean channels and a Fender Twin Reverb is one stiff clean channel that has to be pushed to make things come out and if a guitar can make it sound beautiful specially on low volume then we have toenful guitar.
5) MORE HONEST (GENERALLY) - The salesman was good enough to keep handing me the guitars and he was not trying to push any particular guitar. He immediately knew that I knew what I was looking for.
If anyone wants to challenge my Strat Selection under these circumstances, the Strat I picked for my brother in law is still with him. And I will guarantee that it will flat out beat 90-95% of all Fender Strats including custom shops and vintage fender strats. AND this is the painful part, its all stock with 2009 specifications. Nothing has been changed. But I just wanted to point out the hassle and the effort of going thru such a process is just not that worth it because I still have an amazing Suhr Strat which I did not select that still beats my brother in law's American Standard. Also, the most difficult part is selecting a guitar without a benchmark to compare character to. I purposely did not bring the Suhr to compare because I knew that I would not be able to select versus such a high standard. I did not want to disappoint my brother in law because we had gone thru the same exercise in Tom Lee with the available Strats there around 8 months past. He really wanted to buy an American Standard Strat that moment. Lucky for me that there was one great sounding Fender or I would have been forced to choose something mediocre from the current batch.
