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Fender Debuts the Limited-Edition Saleen Stratocaster 1 Guitar

Chelsea Batten
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Let’s say you’ve got an extra several thousand dollars lying around. Bills are taken care of, contributions to savings and 401(k) have been made, perhaps a charitable donation has given you the good feels … now what? How do you reward yourself for being a hard-working, responsible, male-identifying human being?

It’s okay if you’re stuck. We’ve got an idea for you.

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Fender Saleen Stratocaster 1
Fender

Fender guitars just announced its latest collaboration. If you’ve been following the brand, you’ve seen a veritable pageant of innovative, creatively imagined, handcrafted guitars coming down the line, from Game of Thrones-inspired shredders to vintage instruments built to recreate the sounds that defined rock and roll. This one, though, is something different altogether. The inaugural release from Fender’s annual Prestige Collection reimagines the Fender Stratocaster as a turbocharged sports car. The look is fearsome, the specs are top-of-line, and the sound is somewhere between a feral snarl and a shimmering glissando.

Each year, Fender issues a challenge to its Master Builders to build the guitar of their dreams. No rules, no specifications, no boundaries — just the instrument maker and whatever is inspiring him at that time. For Master Builder Ron Thorn, one of the world’s most respected guitar builders, that inspiration came from the new Saleen 1 (S1), a mid-engine 4-cylinder turbocharged sports car that parallels the Fender Stratocaster in sleek design, high performance, and sexy handling.

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Fender Saleen Stratocaster 1
Fender
Fender Saleen Stratocaster 1
Fender
Fender Saleen Stratocaster 1
Fender
Fender Saleen Stratocaster 1
Fender

A devotee of fast, good-looking cars, Thorn says the beautiful lines, carbon fiber construction and unique details of the Saleen 1 guided him in producing the one-of-a-kind Fender Saleen Stratocaster 1 for the Prestige Collection. The handlaid carbon fiber body ensures a feather-light weight, while the tinted “rear window” over the bridge and sculpted “ribs” on either side nod to the instrument’s origin in high-end automotive design. Unique tech features like the high-output TV Jones Power’Tron Plus bridge pickup, custom “6-Stack” bridge, and custom pedalboard enhance the musician experience with custom volume, tone, and controls.

Building the SALEEN STRATOCASTER 1 | Dream Factory | Fender

Featuring a quartersawn roasted maple neck and carbon fiber headstock overlay, and finished in Saleen’s own candy apple red, the Fender Strat 1 is a guitar built to shred at the speed of sound. In Thorn’s words, “It was an extremely challenging yet fulfilling build, utilizing methods, materials, and concepts new to both the Fender Custom Shop and myself, resulting in an exciting homage worthy of representing both brands’ products.” Collectors, musicians and design lovers of every stripe will be dreaming of this dream machine that blends the beauty and expertise of two iconic American makers.

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The 30 Best Albums of 2021 and 2022 (So Far)
Tyler the Creator performs during 2021 Lollapalooza at Grant Park on July 30, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.

Tyler the Creator performs during the 2021 Lollapalooza at Grant Park. (Photo by Erika Goldring/WireImage)

It's September, the end of summer, and while there is still more than a quarter of the year to go before the new year, we here at The Manual feel it's time to count our audio blessings. In fact, we're counting 30 -- 30 of the best albums released so far in 2021 and 2022. Granted, with as fast as time has seemed to move, it's hard to remember when some of these dropped in the gaussian past. But any record, of any genre, was eligible, provided it was released on January 1 or later. This is a subjective list. Lists, by their nature, are subjective. But from what we've seen (and what we've heard), these are the top albums of the year, and we're certain most will remain by New Year's Eve.
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Inside Magnolia Record Club, a Bespoke Subscription Service Curated by Artists
A man reading a vinyl album inside Magnolia store

 

From the outside, monthly vinyl subscription service Magnolia Record Club (MRC) doesn’t look like much. In an old industrial neighborhood that Nashville forgot, the window of its street-level door tells you no, go around, down, to where the back corner of the building and parking lot meet. It’s here, in a low-ceilinged room of whitewashed cinderblock, that I meet Paul Roper.
Roper, 42, is the president of Dualtone Records, which purchased MRC from its founder, musician Drew Holcomb, in 2018. Clean-shaven, with horn-rim glasses under a ball cap and a short-sleeve button-up over jeans, Roper leads us through a room honeycombed with large rolling postal bins empty and waiting for the next release to ship. The second, inner room is homier: Two seating areas with couches, throw pillows, coffee tables, and, of course, turntables. It’s here where MRC invites artists who, in addition to partnering with the company to produce special-edition pressings in a kaleidoscope of colors, may even sign a few. Dolly Parton (pink with red swirls), Wilco (ivory white), Willie Nelson (cerulean blue), Joseph (aqua wave), Brandi Carlile (ruby red), the War on Drugs (purple), Manchester Orchestra (aqua smoke); there’s seemingly not a band or artist played on AAA radio that hasn’t negotiated an MRC rainbow release.
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Everything You Need to Know About High-Resolution Music
listening music isolation headphones

A few years back, to little fanfare, Neil Young started talking up high resolution music. The folk-rock legend was tired of people listening to low-quality sounds on their laptops, phones, and streaming devices. In his mind and the minds of a lot of other sound buffs, the status quote wasn’t doing the music justice.
Young went so far as to introduce a product, Pono Music, to encapsulate the need for richer sound. The strange contraption, touting a shape not unlike a Toblerone bar, certainly didn’t jump off of the shelves and music fans mostly moved on to other things. The underlying concept, however, remains important and is being revisited by music nerds and product designers alike. And Young is back with a new line of gear, via the folks at Bluesound.

The idea is pretty straightforward. Just as the heavy, 180-gram vinyl record is known to produce richer acoustics, the high-res sound file is believed to offer thicker, more resonant sound. Proponents say it’s exponentially better than what we’ve been accustomed to — the tinny and petite sound waves that pop out of our built-in laptop or mobile phone speakers.
Even when we’re playing larger digital files through iTunes, Spotify, and any number of services, we might not be fully doing the music justice. We may have a fantastic amp and pair of expensive speakers but if the file itself is shrunk down or condensed for quick streaming, you might be listening to what’s essentially a dumbed-down version of your favorite track, sonically speaking.
Enter high-res music. Think of it as having the same effect on The Beatles as a high-def widescreen television does on the movie Avatar. It’s meant to make music feel like it’s being played live in your living room, more robust and enveloping. Now that concerts seem like a thing of the past, at least for the near future, this brand of sound quality is all the more attractive.
A major and relatively new file type high-res music is built around is called the MQA, or Master Quality Authenticated. The most popular streaming service to use such files is likely Tidal, although Amazon and others offer something similar. The technology is still being experimented on but we’ll likely hear more about it in the coming years.
A good way to imagine it is visually, in terms of pixels. High-res music operates at a higher sampling frequency, meaning more signal samples are taken of the music per second than, say, a standard compact disc recording. For comparison, a CD file usually clocks in at 16-bit or 44.1kHz (kilohertz). High-res audio files hover around 24-bit or 192kHz, if not greater.
One of the hangups with high-res music is precisely that — heavy files. We’re talking megabytes here, which can gobble up space on your computer or storage device rather quickly. We are used to having tons of digital clutter as it’s convenient and comforting. But one of the nice things about high-res audio files is they require us to be a bit more selective.
Instead of toting around thousands of compressed albums, we might have to choose a few dozen, depending on file capacity. Audiophiles should liken it to a DJ mentality, digging through record crates for a few of the best to set up that day or week’s mix.
Major streaming services like Apple and Spotify have yet to take the high-res plunge. They may be engaging in research and development or waiting for what they think is a trend to subside. But with more equipment and websites devoted to high-res music, it’s likely that it will only grow in popularity.
Test it out at home by comparing recordings. Go with a sonically rich band like Pink Floyd or a bumping track like Orange Wedge by the Chemical Brothers and see if it’s time to upgrade your home system to high-fidelity standards.

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