Reviews for Squier by Fender® USB Stratocaster Guitar

Ordered the Squier USB Strat from the Apple Store on Wednesday November 13, got it on Friday November 15, and it's a dream come true. Finally, I don't need an external sound interface; just plug the Squier Strat using one of its two included cables and it just works on GarageBand.

Fit and finish are incredible; it must be some kind of loss leader. It's an HSS (2 single coil pickups and 1 humbucker) so it gets a big variety of tones, all of which sound excellent. Action was nice & Fender low but not buzzy.

For me the only problem is the plug & play aspect of it. Half the time I fire up GarageBand the guitar has a buzzy sound, sort of like when your headphones aren't plugged in properly, but it's clearly a digital artifact. I've had to restart GarageBand or even the Mac itself to get rid of this problem. Don't care--it's such a gorgeous instrument and such a freeing thing to be able to just plug straight into my Air. Highly recommended.

First, I really love this guitar but there are several things I did and had to figure out before it made me this happy ...

All new guitars come from the factory playable but not yet adjusted to make them play or sound their best. This process is called the setup and you will want to do this or have it done to every new guitar.

There are many videos on YouTube showing how to properly setup guitars but the most practical ones I found were by Frudua TV. These showed me how to make the fine tuning adjustments (and why!) myself with a minimum of tools and fuss and also a minimum of time.

Not only did this show me how to adjust the truss rod, set the string action and intonation and to properly adjust the pickups but also how to setup the bridge as a truly floating bridge which still keeps the guitar in tune.

Because I had literally no prior experience setting up guitars, it took me a full day to watch all of the videos, take notes and get it right but the results are much better than I'd hoped for. You could take this to a local music store and pay them $60 for a similar setup but why not do it yourself? The process is very straight forward. Check out the free YouTube videos and see for yourself.

The guitar now plays like a dream and sounds amazing! It's a great electric guitar to learn on. It is also a lot of fun for more experienced players to jam with. And is one of the best ways that I've ever seen for recording your musical ideas (on your iPhone!) anywhere you go!

Beyond setting up the guitar to make it play and sound great, you should know that the bottom knob on the front of the guitar which is marked, "Volume", controls the volume of the headphone jack and has no effect on the pickups, at all! Only the top know controls the volume from ALL of the pickups as is the tone controlled for all of them with a single tone control knob. The 5-way selector switch lets you select the combination of pickups you wish to use.

Using the guitar with a Mac, iPhone or iPad is as easy as connecting the included cable (and possibly an Apple 30-pin to 5-pin adapter if you have one of the new Lightning connectors on your iOS device) AND connecting a set of headphones to the guitar.

The other step is in GarageBand where you must change the default setting and turn ON monitoring!

And don't forget to regulate the headphone volume with the bottom volume know on the front of the guitar!

When used like this, you can select any of the GarageBand amp simulations and you will hear (and record), with no detectable lag or delay. It's perfect! No other method that I've used to record live guitar over simulated amps has worked this well!

Laying down multiple guitar track along with various loops, couldn't be easier! What you hear over the headphones and what you play on the guitar blend together, perfectly.

Finally, the guitar is really pretty, too. The paint finish looks great and the sound of the guitar, even without any amp is crisp and clean ... which is still critical to the sound that will be amplified.

For $200, this was an amazing deal!

I can't get over how far this technology has come! I started playing guitar back in the sixties. Back then, to do what I can now do with this guitar and my iPhone, would have required a multi-track recording studio costing more than the average home! What a bargain this is!

And as Steve used to say, there is one more thing! I liked this Fender so much that when I went to buy an Amp, I first researched the Fender amps. What I found was the $99 Fender Mustang I which also uses USB to connect to my Mac! Check it out on the Fender website for more details. I only wish the AppleStore sold it, too!

The guitar arrived last week in perfect condition. The sound quality is great and I love the way it plays. I have an iRig that I have been using previously, but this is a nice improvement. Fender has done a quality job putting together the Squier at a price that's hard to beat. The connections make it easy to use with an iPad, iPhone or laptop. I love the variety of amps in GarageBand. Apple and Fender have really put together a winning product that will provide any guitar player, beginner or expert, hours of enjoyment.

Nice simple sounding concept and cool when it works but.......Sporadic connectivity w/iPad 2 and no joy as yet connecting with included cable to 27" iMac?.

...Been playing with this guitar for almost 2 months now and I am very pleased with it. No issues connecting with Garage Band in our Macbook Pro and iPhone 4 (sometimes running the Amplitube app with no problem). I also use this playing Rocksmith on PS3 without any hassle.

It may not be the best guitar out there, but the fact that it simplifies everything is the reason I decided to have one!

To William, to clarify, I think you have the finishes confused.
Nitrocellulose Lacquer is the high end finish...it's also not as strong. That's why it yellows and cracks. Most custom Fender consumers pay extra for the Nitro.
Nitro was the standard in the 50's and 60's.

Modern Fenders, especially Squires, are all Polyurethane, or bare.

Nothing wrong with this guitar but the USB jack placement.

I figured the other comments were just over stating the problem, I mean how big of a problem could it be? Well, it's a very big deal. I had to modify the brand new guitar by screwing a couple of screws around the USB jack just so it would not smash the end of the USB cable into the body of the guitar.

The USB port is placed right on the round of the body meaning anytime you set it down or actually USE the guitar it will smash the jack into the port. The only way this could have been designed is if the engineers NEVER actually used the product ... not even once! Astoundingly poorly engineered!

Plays well considering it is a Squier and not a high end Strat. The sunburst finish is beautiful, in my opinion. I am going to take it to a pro guitar tech and see if we can make some adjustments to the action, maybe upgrade the electronics and morph this into something just a little better. Worth $200? You bet it is.

In reference to the comment regarding the use Urethane vs Lacquer, that's not actually true. Majority of products coming out of both the Corona and Mexico factory's whether Fender or Squier are A Nitro Lacquer finish, More so than Urethane finish.

Just thought I would interject.

In general it's been great fun. It's my first electric and I'm really enjoying playing it.
The USB connection really is terrible. My usage has been in my bedroom, no gigs, no waving it around, but mainly sitting and playing Sunshine of Your Love and practicing blues scales. The USB port is at the bottom of the body, right next to the strap button. I rarely use the strap, but it pushes against the connector. That combined with putting the guitar down in its stand (a good inch off the floor) without unplugging it means every time I look at it it's bent. I must have put it in its stand without unplugging it maybe twice, and today, 5 months into ownership, the USB cable bent and snapped while I was playing. I was sitting on a chair, NOT rocking out.
I did find that I had to have all the volume controls up pretty much at their peak in order to register on the GarageBand amp, though this might have been to do with the connection being dodgy.
It's also a bit of a pain having to change the audio driver and turn on monitoring in Garageband every time I plug in, rather than having some kind of default.
Overall, great fun, but it's now broken until I get a new cable, thanks to a design flaw.