In late 2020, the incomparable H.E.R. became Fender’s newest signature artist. The H.E.R. signature Stratocaster boasts Fender’s noiseless single-coil pickups and a stellar holographic finish (with a matching headstock) that’s sure to come alive under stage lights.
Video Transcript
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Hello. My name is Emily and you’re watching get offset. And today I have my Christmas present from fender. It is the H.E.R. Signature Stratocaster. And when this was released, I sent an email to my, um, my fender rep that the subject line was her signature Stratocaster, and the body of the email is just like as many applause emojis as I could, um, reasonably put into a single email to a human being.
[00:00:46] I was really excited when this came out, I’m going to move over to my other camera. And, um, I’m going to say, this is a very. Difficult guitar too. Like it’s hard to convey the beauty of this instrument. I had it hanging up, uh, right behind me and the, the light was just perfect the other day. And I turned around and I’m like, Oh my God, it’s Holly, because it’s holographic.
[00:01:12] It’s, it’s going to be such a great stage guitar when we have. Live music again when, when all of those lights had it and the strap is holographic it’s by rocket music gear. So I have a matching strap, matching headstock, matching guitar. Beautiful. It’s going to be a pain in the ass to add it. Anyway, let’s talk about this guitar a little bit.
[00:01:38] It’s a pretty, pretty classic Stratocaster, um, really smooth neck, maple, maple fingerboard, um, the noiseless Stratocaster pickups, which I’m already familiar with. And you’re familiar with too. I put a set of these noiseless pickups into, um, a Squire psych clone that we get to, to the singer of my band Sunday crush.
[00:02:02] So a noiseless, as you can hear. It’s not really making much noise with the stream and radium and the round B setting with, even with the gain set to about noon. So, Oh, maybe I should plug in the guitar. Oh,
[00:02:26] should I start over? All right. Well now the guitars plugged in. And, uh, you can’t, you can’t hear much, even though it’s in the bridge position, I’m going to actually bump it up to the neck position because that’s where I prefer, um, my strats, but yes, noiseless pickups even with the, uh, shrimp and radium gain set at about noon.
[00:02:50] Pretty nice and quiet.
[00:03:00] This might be a good demo guitar for me. Should I turn up so I can hear a little bit better?
[00:03:17] So let’s talk about just the build quality. I am impressed with it. I have found nothing really wrong with it. I have a little, um, I mean the, the fret board edges aren’t as smooth as my American professional two series, but these are, let me, I think these are made. Yeah, these are made in Mexico. So a little bit different build quality, um, but still quite comfortable.
[00:03:43] I really love the satin finish. It came basically in tune, which always freaks me out. Um, I think that the finish is just stunning and gorgeous. The pickups are indeed noiseless no bells or whistles with the wiring. Um, the tremolo system is responsive.
[00:04:10] you can get some pretty deep dives on that and we’ll have to tune again after that.
[00:04:28] That’s actually not bad.
[00:04:35] I’m great at guitar today.
[00:05:08] yeah, very, very nice cleans on this instrument. The, uh, Tuning machines are the vintage style with a split, um, which I prefer, which means no sharp edges. Around around, um, no sharp strings to, to poke you or prod you. I’ve. Um, I didn’t do it on boxing video with this guitar. I wanted you to know at first I had it for about two weeks.
[00:05:33] I still really. Really like it, I think I’m pretty safely out of a honeymoon phase, but I don’t have anything negative to say about this guitar. It is the first Stratocaster I’ve even been interested in owning since I bought my first guitar, which was a Squire Strat when I was maybe 10, 11 or 12 years old.
[00:05:53] I think I, you know, I think when I was 10, I saved it to buy the in 64 and then, uh, When I could save up another 150 bucks, I bought a, a Squire Strat. It was also shiny, but it was black. I really wish I could get the colors. Oh yeah. And you can kind of see the colors and the finish there. But, um, I think that this guitar will be a staple of my applying.
[00:06:20] So let’s just get through, let’s just get through the pick-up positions, played on a couple of different amp types. I know we’re already kind of long into this video, so.
[00:06:46] That was the neck. Let’s go with a neck metal.
[00:06:57] Let’s go with just middle.
[00:07:07] All right, let’s go with bridge metal
[00:07:18] and bridge
[00:07:27] bridge is my least favorite of the positions on any guitar ever pretty much, except for Telecasters. I said
[00:07:44] rich middle,
[00:07:53] middle.
[00:08:00] Middle neck,
[00:08:06] neck,
[00:08:19] let’s play some rock stuff on it. That was a little bit of funk and some I’ve played funk and I played jazz, but, um, Let’s do just, this is Michelle Sullivan, slow Pinker.
[00:08:37] That was the neck, neck, middle,
[00:08:43] middle,
[00:08:49] middle bridge.
[00:08:54] This is the bridge.
[00:09:00] I’m going to move to the Vox sound on the stride minute radium on the bridge
[00:09:11] bridge, middle,
[00:09:17] just the middle.
[00:09:24] Middle neck.
[00:09:30] Well, let’s do the marshal sound,
[00:09:39] neck, neck,
[00:09:45] neck, middle,
[00:09:51] middle.
[00:09:57] Muscle memory failed me there. Middle bridge,
[00:10:04] just the bridge.
[00:10:10] Let’s really crank the gain. Now I’m going to turn to the gain up on the Iridium all the way up.
[00:10:33] middle, middle bridge.
[00:10:50] All right, middle
[00:11:08] Nick and middle
[00:11:24] and just the neck
[00:11:41] Nice. So now I’m going to go to the VOC sound with the game cranked
[00:11:49] on the neck.
[00:12:04] neck, middle.
[00:12:21] middle
[00:12:35] Uh, middle bridge
[00:12:51] and just bridge
[00:13:07] Nice. And finally the fender with the game cranked.
[00:13:56] Wow. That was embarrassing.
[00:14:28] you know, I really loved this neck pickup.
[00:15:11] Generally, I think this guitar has great cleans. Um, I think it sounds pretty good driven as well, which is important. I, I mean, personally, I’ve played it on a couple of demos already, uh, with various dirt pedals, tremolos, et cetera. So, um, there’s kind of, you’re going to hear a lot from this guitar in terms of how it sounds.
[00:15:34] With different effects, which is why I didn’t want to delve into many effects in this, in this particular video. Um, perhaps I will go back and edit in some, some other types of effects, but
[00:16:54] I should play that more so I can play it better, but I mean, this guitar was made for her. Um, she plays a lot more R and B, so it makes a lot of sense. Um, that it’s heart and soul would be in more crystal cleans, but it can still like really drive a dirt pedal when she wants to go in. Or you want to go in for, uh, a big.
[00:17:16] Big nasty solo, you know, so I think it’s a great guitar. I can not put it down. Um, as far as bill quality goes, it’s not, it’s not the American professional two series. It’s not an American professional series. Um, but it’s still really, really good. These are just North of a thousand dollars new, I think. Um, I think that’s about the bill quality that you would expect for, for that.
[00:17:44] Just kind of like those little, like chef’s kiss touches, um, aren’t present like the, like the super rolled, um, edges here is kind of the big thing that I’m like, damn, that’d be nice to have a no contoured heel, which would be another nice to have, especially if you’re you find yourself playing high up on the front board a lot.
[00:18:06] Um, but everything else, like. I can’t think of anything wrong with this guitar. I can just think of like, Hmm. That would be really nice to have. So that says that’s pretty, pretty freaking good, pretty freaking good feeling to have to not be like, Oh God, why is this fretboard like, not right. Like, it’s perfect.
[00:18:26] It’s just move. Sat in like really nice and fast. Um, definitely kind of what I would, what I would want. I never thought I’d play another Stratocaster. Um, but here I am really, really adoring one. So kudos defender, kudos to her. She deserves a signature guitar more than more than most people I think. So I think Prince would be pretty stoked about her having a signature guitar too.
[00:19:19] I didn’t have any Rivermont for this whole video. Did you notice? I just noticed
[00:19:32] Yeah.
[00:19:43] Nice. Well, uh, thank you to fender for sending me this guitar to demo. I really appreciate the time I have had with it. It’s a beautiful instrument. I think it’s, um, if you’re curious about this guitar, I think you’ll be happy. With it, especially if you like strats shoot, even if you don’t, I didn’t think I liked strats, but now I think I might be changing my mind a little bit, uh, considered buying things on Riverbed commerce, Sweetwater through our affiliate links in the video description.
[00:20:14] Uh, also please consider releasing your music online via distro kid, uh, district kid.com/vip/get offset. Save 7% on your first year of district kid. We get a little bit back costs you nothing extra to use any of our affiliate links. It just means we get a little more help from it. So once again, thanks for watching.
[00:20:34] Thanks for understanding, please like comment, subscribe. My name is Emily one last cut to this school tar. So beautiful goodbye.

