Fender Eric Johnson Rosewood Stratocaster Review

For years, I considered myself a rosewood fingerboard guy.  More than an actual preference, it was familiar.  All of the guitar I owned had rosewood fingerboards.  Simple.

I think it was more a product of my limited experience with maple than anything else.  But experience with something new quickly makes it familiar. This was the case with my maple boarded Eric Johnson Stratocaster.  Strange became familiar, and I learned to love maple.

Travel is a lot like that; things that are foreign become familiar, and the familiar fades to foreign.  Just like travel though, you eventually go home...

Fender Eric Johnson Rosewood Stratocaster

How many Fender artists have not one, but TWO production signature instruments?

Not Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck.

They each have a production and custom shop version.

Need a hint? Assuming you didn't read the title?

Excuse for pic

Only one artist has two production signatures - Eric Johnson. A Rosewood Strat and a Maple Strat...  Weird, especially given how comparatively unpopular he is...

Having two signature is probably because he's a little nuts when it comes to tone, and there seems to be a method to his madness, and a compelling reason to own both versions of his brain-children. 

As acompletely unrelated person tends to say: Let's get into it. 

This is the left brain... I think.

Finish

Although not a classic color like "Lake Placid Blue" or "Burgundy Mist", this sort-of-blue/sort-of-green (dubbed a ridiculous "Aqua Lucerne Firemist") is an outstanding colour in its own right.  

Apparently, Mr. Johnson got an original DuPont colour catalogue from 1963 and chose this, and two others, for his rosewood signature model - none are original Fender colours, but each is from the same catalogue Leo would have chosen from. 

That's a pretty cool thing to do for a signature.  Respect the history, while still doing your own thing. Well, I thinks it's cool. 

Cooler still, the colour seems to change; Very blue when the context colours are warm (like most of these pics), but very green if the surrounding colours are cooler.  I've tried to illustrate this below, but trust me when I say the effect is much more noticeable in person.

Neck

Other than the colour, the bound neck is the biggest thing to set this guitar apart from other sixties inspired Stratocasters.  The neck binding has no discernible impact on the feel or performance of the neck, but it looks so cool; there is something about it that really makes it "feel" like a sixties instrument, sort of the same way a gussied up Jaguar (replete with bound neck) does.

Other items to note are the same as the maple iteration: 25.5 scale, 12 inch radius, staggered vintage style keys (no string trees! woohoo), and apparently a nut cut slightly differently that standard, with the string spacing notched slightly wider that typical.

This nut cut (phrasing?) puts the outside strings closer to the edge of the board, and there have been some mentions of strings resting right off the board at the neck joint when the nut was cut too wide.  No such problem here, but I will say that I notice the strings being closer to the edge, and thus have to be more precise higher up the register.

I suppose if there is a catch, and this is probably the reason Strats don't generally do binding, is that in order for the look to be pulled off, the pickguard colour really DOES have to match.

Imagining a tortoise shell pickguard would seem to make the binding blindingly white, and far too conspicuous. As such, I suppose the binding limits one of the Stratocasters best qualities - the ability to transform the look by simply changing the pickguard.

Pickups

Apparently, these aren't exactly the same pickups as in the maple version.  I'm not going to swap them so be sure, but they aren't the same to my ears (measured equal distance to strings FWIW). There seems to be more top end sizzle to these.  The bridge pickup remains mostly useless, but pairs with the middle really well in position 2 for a great "Layla" lead tone.

Despite how similar the pickups are, there are some differences though - lending credence to the suggestion that Mr. Johnson had a hand in re-voicing this version's.  They produce a more delicate, less aggressive sound than the maple's pickups, and are a touch more dynamic under heavy attack.

Which is better? Both sets are great, different enough to justify owning both IMHO, yet similar enough that if you could only take one to a gig, you wouldn't really have to choose between the two (assuming you didn't have a rail humbucker in one of them like I do).

Overall Better than Maple?

To be honest, I'm not sure.  There is something much more raw about that maple version: fewer pieces of wood, lighter, more "alive" in the hands, but also more of a fight to play.  This one is the classy one - less immediate, subtle, and patient.  Playing the maple version seems to always be an exercise in reaching the next crescendo, the dynamic quality only existing to bring you to the next explosion of volume on ten.

The rosewood is different, happy to lay back at five, sit in the pocket, and groove.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's really the only way I can describe it.

But don't worry, when it does go to ten, it does so with aplomb.  Definitely a keeper.