The Super-Sonic is an odd bird. It’s got a reverse body and headstock, to begin with. But it’s achieved a cult status in the guitar world for it’s unique look and sound.
Originally planed for a Summer NAMM 2020 launch, Squier made an early announcement for their Paranormal Series, and the Squier Super-Sonic has some of the biggest hype of the line.
it has a narrow 1.5″ nut, a 24″ short scale, is lightweight, and small. You can see how someone like me, a lover of small guitars, would want this one.
Let’s start with the feel. The neck is extremely comfortable for small hands, as is the scale. The neck has a gloss finish, which isn’t my preference, but honestly it feels good. The body itself is also quite comfortable and lightweight.
The big negative for me is the top volume knob. It’s not that I’m not used to having a knob there, but for some reason I kept knocking it with my knuckle.
The Super-Sonic also has a vintage-style tremolo. If you’ve played a Stratocaster trem, you’re familiar with this. I need to make some adjustments to it though — it shipped super tight and I prefer it a little more on the loosey goosey side.
Honestly, I find myself wishing they’d just made this super weird and dropped a Jazzmaster tremolo on it. Oh well — can’t have everything.
But how does it sound??? Good, I think! The pickups are wildly different! Bridge is more hollow and mellow and the bridge is an angry rock machine.
All-in-all, for $350 MSRP, I think it’s a solid buy. Good job again, Squier/Fender!
Demo also features…
Video Transcript
Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below.
Hey, I’m Emily from get offset and I have the brand new Squire paranormal series, super Sonic. These are kind of, famous and sort of the indie rock scene. They’re weird. They’re fun. They are reverse offset. And this. It is indeed a small guitar. It’s not nearly as big as a Jazzmaster. Doesn’t weigh as much either which really appealed to me.
[00:00:28] It has a 24 inch scaling a narrow nut width. Well, I’m not quite sure what it is. And these atomic hum bucking pick up pick ups, by fender Squire, whenever has a toggle. That goes between the bridge over here and the neck up here, a little whammy bar. That
[00:00:52] right. So I’d like to loosen that up and two volume controls off and then the middle.
[00:01:04] Yeah.
[00:01:14] Wired backwards. So I’m going to tune this guitar. If you’ve watched Ryan Burke’s video that came out right before mine, cause he lives a lot closer to Los Angeles. I, he talked a lot about, tuning issues right out of the gate, it out of the box. It really didn’t stay in tune. came with nines and I think this gotta get the tension out of them.
[00:01:36] So I am going to tune up a little bit because tuning is caring.
[00:01:42]other aspects of this guitar and that’s like glossy neck, which is not my personal favorite. I know a lot of people love glossy necks. I think they’re pretty fine. It’s not sticky. Really probably could get sticky, but it’s summertime. Which in Seattle means I think the high today was 72, and then sunny all day.
[00:02:06] So don’t tell people we don’t want, we don’t want more folk to use here. So I’m going to play this guy directly through my, a milkman, the amp. I have this here, my beautiful speaker cab. to monitor my sound stuff,
[00:02:30] whatever you don’t care, I’m going to then play through a couple of pedals. I’m going to shout out those pedals as I play them. So let’s start in. What’s called the, the bridge position.
[00:02:48] that would turn my volume down. Some.
[00:02:55] Clipping is not caring. Is. Right.
[00:03:25] So that was the bridge pickup. It’s pretty angry. Rock and roll. Very grungy, I think am I’m on the road? Oops. I’m on the wrong dang, wrong thing. And the podcast we use, the, the podcast and the podcast, we usually use a cat meals to bleed swear words, which I find fun.
[00:04:14] I think Ernie ball volume pedal tuner. And I gotta say it’s the coolest thing in the world. Alright, let’s move to the middle position.
[00:04:44] and to the neck
[00:05:10] So I think that I really liked the sound of the neck pickup, better than the bridge. It’s definitely more my speed, but I can definitely see using the, the bridge pickup one kind of cool thing about having two volume controls is getting a blend of those different pickups versus the same amount of both of them.
[00:05:37] let’s just all,
[00:05:51] a little bit of the bridge pickup.
[00:05:58] neat. So, as far as the playability goes, I think it’s a comfortable guitar. This over here is a nice arm. Rest, this lower shelf here. Doesn’t get in the way of my body. There’s really just no way to say that. without bringing attention to my anatomy. Which is a drag
[00:06:21] like, and I was, I brought in a bar right here. It makes it better. But with that, when I moved the vibrato bar away, I found myself constantly wrapping my knuckle on, on this, this knob, which kind of a pain in the ass. But. I think it will just make me change the way I play from a little bit less loosey goosey to a little bit more tight.
[00:06:49] Yeah. So unless the others handles some dirt, I’m gonna turn on my Halberd by electronic audio experiments.
[00:07:05] I’m going to play it’s Kim and Kelly Deal’s birthday. As I’m filming this. If their birthday will live in yesterday as this video drops, but so I’m going to play a little bit of a, the breeders
[00:07:44] now I’m going to try the diving bells by bookworm effects. Which is my favorite musical drives. Just the overdrive side.
[00:09:30] well, I never turned on the reverb. Let’s turn off the reverb.
[00:09:37] Let’s also tell him that Albert. So there’s a lot of stories.
[00:10:12] a lot of distortion. Distortion sounds good. Let’s try the somersault.
[00:12:30] Okay. I think we’ve established shit, holes, distortion, chorus, and the lay. Well, let’s throw in the S Y one just because it’s fun.
[00:13:25] somersault. I’ve never thought to pair this one with the somersault.
[00:13:48] there with the arcades. Reverb trip on their glitchy setting.
[00:14:04] that was admittedly a pretty niche sound. I just drummed up for y’all but this guitar, I like it a lot. It’s fun. It’s lightweight. after I put this. Barton it stopped hurting my knuckles. I do need to loosen the action on this via Bronto. it took a while to break in the strings. I’m probably gonna swap these out for string joy tens pretty soon.
[00:14:32] I it’s a 24 inch scale length and I kind of prefer to have heavier strings on a shorter scale guitar. It shifts with nines and they kind of, they don’t feel like rubber bands per se, but I’m not used to playing nines. I really would rather. play something a little harder. I, I don’t know, something that I’m used to, and so that would pro that’s going to require it.
[00:14:55] They’re a little setup on this thing. The two colors, it comes in a kind of literary charcoal, as far as the finish goes, it is like a metal flake, but it’s not like big flakes, this and stuff, stuff on there. it’s really handsome in person. I don’t, I don’t know how it. Is videoing or how it’s going to look.
[00:15:18]but I think it’s pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, I like the pickups more than I expected to. They are very different, which is nice when you don’t have tone controls, it’s weird that you don’t tell them. but I mean, it’s a pain paranormal series of guitar. I don’t know how you would expect the most normal stuff.
[00:15:38] I mean, it’s got an upside down head stuff. Which is honestly easier than I thought it would be to get used to tuning and returning and retuning Henry tuning. so there are about, I think there are 350 MSRP they’re shipping right now. I know now from fender and I’ve seen it online and some other places, I don’t know who has an in stock other than thunder by offender definitely does.
[00:16:06] So check it out. Squire supersonic with this very nifty by brought us he’s done. And I’m like, subscribe comment below. if you looked over my shoulder, I have another Squire ready to demo for y’all. So don’t judge me when I’m wearing the same shirt in that video. again, just Emily from get offset.
[00:16:31] Thanks for listening. Thanks for understanding. Goodbye.