The Fender American Professional Series 2017 – What’s new and what’s next?

At the end of 2016 Fender launched the new American Professional series which is due to take over from the popular American Standard series, but why? ...and what will come next for the new line of workhorses?

Surely we don’t need to go too much into the back-story of Fender guitars and what they are all about, but suffice to say that they are built with the regularly-performing professional musician in mind. With that mindset comes a desire to build an instrument that lives upto its historic reputation, using components that sound great gig after gig. The American Professional Series features no less than 92 different guitars and basses and offers a number of unique enhancements, in a variety of already familiar body styles, including newly designed Stratocasters, Telecasters, Jazzmasters, Jaguar, Precision Basses and Jazz Basses.

Before picking up the one of the new American Professional guitars, the most obvious new feature is the addition of three new colorways: Sonic Gray, Mystic Seafoam and Antique Olive. Other colors included in the series are Olympic White, Black, 3-Color Sunburst, Sienna Sunburst and the one that Telecaster players have been screaming out for… the return of classic Butterscotch Blonde available only on Telecaster models.

So there are some new colours, but what else?? Take a look at the neck. Fender has replaced the Modern C neck shape with a new “Deep C” shape, which promises more comfortable playing over extended periods of time. The newness doesn’t stop there...The frets have also been remodelled and are now a new Narrow-Tall design, a departure from the Medium jumbo frets of the American Standard.

Also removed from the American Standard series are the pickups, the Custom Shop PUPs have been replaced with all new ‘V-Mod’ single coils and ‘Shawbucker’ humbuckers, both of which have been designed by legendary pickup guru Tim Shaw, so you don’t need to play one to know that it’s going to sound good. From the pickups we can move onto the electrics under the hood. A new treble-bleed circuit has been included, which keeps the tone consistent no matter where the volume knob is set.

A few other nice little touches have also been added, such as a genuine bone nut, rather than a synthetic one and a pop-in trem arm (as opposed to a screw-in one). All of this with an upgraded Elite molded hard case that will survive many, many tours.
So, what’s next for the Fender American Professional Series? Despite the number of upgrades already made to the series, we are guessing that Fender will be looking to go an extra step further in their NAMM show announcement and pull one final trick out of the bag. Although we can’t say for sure what that announcement will be, at the time of writing we are preparing ourselves for the annual pilgrimage to Namm and we will keep you all updated as we see/hear more. One thing we can say for certain though is that being a Fender dealer, we do have a selection of the American Professional series guitars in stock and on our wall ready for you to try, and as more get released they will also be on the website and in stock.

Have a look at out StoreRoom Demo Video below: