Fender Player II Modified Extends Player II Series

Fender is a never-ending story. On the surface, the brand has celebrated the legendary instruments forged by Leo Fender and his team in the ’50s and ’60s for almost 80 years now. But Fender has also improved, refined, revitalized and/or reenergized those original designs with astonishing consistency.

If Leo were still tinkering in his workshop today, he’d be doing the very same thing. That he got the Fender Telecaster, Precision Bass, Stratocaster, Jazz Bass, Jazzmaster, Jaguar and other stringed wonders overwhelmingly right is not up for debate, but he also envisioned those platforms to be messed with and modified.

The latest incarnation of the Leo Fender spirit are the Player II Modified guitars and basses that both extend the Player II Series and replace Player Plus models. Refinements and value additions featured on Player II Modified include (depending on the instrument) Player II Noiseless pickups, rosewood or maple necks with rolled edges, chamfered tremolo blocks, TUSQ nuts, enhanced bridges and string trees, locking tuners, new bass preamps and more.

An added intrigue with the Player II Modified updates is that some of them weren’t designed as one-and-done upgrades—they were harmonious elements of a strategy to improve playability, tone and tuning stability.

Another bonus is that Fender’s Patrick Harberd offered to take Guitar Center Riffs readers through the company’s thought processes regarding Player II Modified. And Harberd isn’t merely spinning tales about guitars. He’s sharing a fascinating “insider view” of how Fender culture continues to honor Leo with the type of innovation that keeps the brand relevant.

Except for the colorways, Player II Modified instruments and the outgoing Player Plus models seem pretty similar. Could you explain the main differences between the old and the new here?

Harberd: They obviously occupy a very similar space, but the Player II Modified guitars are very different from where we are today with Player Plus. One of the huge things is the next generation of noiseless pickups—Player II Noiseless. They're a significant improvement over the previous generation—super brilliant, glossy, sparkly and everything you'd want out of a Fender single-coil.

How did the team accomplish that feat?

Our goal was to get the Noiseless pickups to sound much more like traditional single-coils than previous iterations. Typically, when you’re adding material and capacitance—in this case, the extra coil at the bottom of the pickup to kill the hum—you’re going to darken the sound of the pickup. To get the open and clear single-coil tone we were seeking, we revisited the overall construction of the pickups, as well as magnets, wire and windings.

There’s more, of course.

Yes. We’ve also upgraded the bridges. One of the big improvements is a chamfered tremolo block for the Stratocaster, which offers a wider range of travel and more expression. That’s a feature present on the American Ultra II and American Pro II Series guitars, and we’ve now included it on the Modified Strats.

Shop Now: Fender Player II Modified Telecaster with Maple Fingerboard in Electric Blue

What is the benefit of a chamfered tremolo?

A conventional tremolo block is pretty much a rectangular shape, but the chamfered blocks taper down to a narrower end. It’s a different part. You get more travel, because when you push down on the tremolo bar, the tapered block doesn’t contact the body cavity as quickly. You can basically dive bomb on these things if you want to.

Did you need to make any other adjustments to ensure the improved tremolo worked as designed?

The improvements are kind of thematic, so I’ll go in a few directions. One of the threads we're trying to weave is Graph Tech TUSQ nuts are now standard across the series—which is a big upgrade from Player II. There’s also a modern string tree. Instead of the “butterfly” design, which is a flat, stamped piece of metal, the modern tree has a scoop or swoop that creates a really nice transition surface. There's not any single point where the string can get hung up.  So, you’ve got this tremolo with a wider range of travel, a TUSQ nut that is harder and more consistent than the synthetic bone material we’d used previously, and a modern string tree that eliminates pinch points. All of these improvements aren’t simply individual upgrades, they all work together to increase tuning stability and expand what the guitar is capable of performance-wise.

What triggers Fender to upgrade particular lines and what is the basic process for determining the scope of improvements?

We have a roadmap. In this case, Player Plus launched in 2021, and we wanted to look at refreshing or replacing the line. So, the discussions basically start with, “Okay, here’s the thing as it exists today. Now that we've had a couple of years with it, what do we think about the pickups and other features.” In addition, we are always watching what people are responding to through forum and social-media posts. What are people interested in? What don’t they like? People always say, “Don’t read the comments,” but you have to see them. You have to sort through all of the crap to see want people want. We also talk to touring artists and gigging friends of ours to get feedback. We pull data from all of these different areas but analyzing all of those competing thoughts and ideas is an artform for sure. It’s not science. It comes down to us saying things like, “How do we feel this moves the needle? Let's try this recipe. I don’t like that very much, so let’s tweak this instead.”

How did the tone talk unfold for the new Player II Noiseless pickups?

First, we have some excellent pickup and electronics specialists. There’s Tim Shaw, obviously, but also Steven Casado, who did a lot of design work on the Player II Noiseless pickups. Steve is great at translating our tone lingo. He can take comments such as, “It needs to be juicier” and “It’s not creamy enough” and turn them into engineering drawings. Once we start to get prototype pickups, we do critical listening and comparison tests. But, then again, the comments from us can be like, “Is this doing that thing that we wanted?” Of course, if someone on the team has a vintage Strat or Tele, we might bring it for A/B listening. Maybe we’ll compare a prototype to some hotter pickups. Versatility is kind of the name of the game. We wanted the pickups to sound beautiful for clean tones, but we also want them to be able to bring the heat when you’re playing with a bunch of gain or distortion.  

We can’t forget about bass players, of course. What does Player II Modified bring to the low end?

The other big thing for Player II Modified that's very exciting is the bass preamp is a completely new design. One of the important things we wanted was for it to be more transparent. If you picked up a Player Plus or Deluxe Series bass and activated the preamp, there was an audible shift in the tone. However, if you have a Player II Modified Precision or Jazz Bass, when you flip on the preamp, you hear no tonal difference—assuming everything is at unity on your boost and cut controls. Not coloring the sound and making a preamp that was purely additive or subtractive, was a big improvement.

Shop Now: Fender Player II Modified Jazz Bass with Maple Fingerboard in Olympic Pearl

Can you elaborate on the bass preamp a bit more?

In the previous design, there was no passive tone control. Your sound was purely controlled via the 3-band EQ in active mode. If you were in passive mode and wanted to roll off your tone—like, getting a P Bass-on-the neck-pickup vibe while playing a Jazz Bass—you’d be out of luck. Now, you have a passive tone control that works in both active and passive modes.

We also completely re-tuned the 3-band EQ. For the Bass band, we slightly increased the center frequency and changed the slope of the EQ curve to make it more focused when boosting. For the Treble band, we lowered the center frequency and narrowed the Q to work better with the natural frequencies of the pickups and reduce noise when boosting. Finally, for the Mid band, we lowered the center frequency and narrowed the Q to make it punchier and “growlier” when boosted, as well as to make it more of a scalpel. Before, it was like a little bit of a sledgehammer—basically functioning as a midrange boost with a pretty noticeable volume bump. The mids are much sweeter now.

That said, some players might like sledgehammer mids.

Absolutely. And you can still get there if you want—you just have to tweak the controls a little more.

Is there anything else we should mention about the basses?

Yes. The Player II Modified basses have a new tuner design. They are now tapered tuning posts. As you add winds, the string gets pushed down the post, which produces a steeper break angle behind the nut and under the string tree. It's much the same idea we discussed about the guitars—improved intonation and tuning stability. A sharper break angle is also going to deliver more solid fundamentals on the bass. Similar to the chamfered tremolo block on the Strat, this is a feature present on the American Ultra II basses we are introducing in this series.

Oh, what about the Telecasters?

For the Player II Modified Telecasters, there’s a more subtle change. Instead of steel block saddles, they're satin chrome-plated, brass block saddles—it's the traditional Tele bridge-saddle material. The attack is a little softer than steel, but still nice and twangy.

We also noticed the fretboard radius for Player II Modified models is 9.5", while the radius on Player Plus instruments is 12". What was the decision to kind of “go back” to the original Player Series radius, rather than continue the flatter radius of Player Plus?

We wanted to tie the neck more closely to the existing Player II series and really lean into the idea that these are the “modified” Player versions. Also, people have responded well to the existing Player necks. They’re super comfortable.

Something some players might miss is the paint gradients on Player II Modified finishes appear to be history.

They’re gone. However, the new color palette is really exciting and fun, and there’s lots of metallic flake, ranging from subtle to obvious, depending on the finish. Sunshine Yellow, for example, has flake in it, but it’s not in your face. There’s some nice depth, but it’s kind of subconscious. The flake pops in the right lighting conditions, or at the right angle. I think the new colors are modern, but also firmly within the Fender wheelhouse. They feel true to Fender.

How do changes to a series—such as the Player II Modified extension—affect the teams that actually build the instruments? I’d imagine even minor amendments would need to be documented.

When you change anything, you also typically change materials and processes. That means new work instructions for the factory. Even if the changes are minimal and the process is similar to the previous one, there’s still a learning curve. That’s always a bit of a challenge, because people are trained in a specific way. A good example is using TUSQ nuts on these instruments versus synthetic bone nuts. If you're used to cutting string slots on material A, you all of a sudden have a totally new material to work with. It requires training. It might require some development of processes and experimentation—such as, “Do the existing files we used on synthetic bone work as well on the TUSQ nuts? Do we need to be a slightly different size, or different teeth or a different shape?”

Shop Now: Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster with Maple Fingerboard in 3-Color Sunburst

We probably take for granted that a manufacturer has to design how to build a guitar. The job isn’t done after you design the guitar itself.

Absolutely. That's a whole discipline onto itself that’s not unique to Fender. It's one of the great challenges for any manufacturer—how do you take an idea, have it touched by dozens of team members throughout the design and manufacturing processes, and turn it into a great instrument.

Typically, how long is the gestation period between initially conceptualizing upgrades and holding the improved guitars in your hands?

Generally, about 18 months. Sometimes, it’s longer. It depends on if we have a totally radical new concept for a design that's nothing like the existing architecture. That's when we'll need to get everyone on the design team—and, ultimately, the people in the factory who have to build the thing—on the same page, because there may be logistical, manufacturing and/or part sourcing impacts.

Does it upset the production schedule if someone says, “Stop. We have a better bridge. We need to include it with the upgrades”?

Every manufacturer makes running changes, but major features take time to implement. That’s why we build in significant development stages. In fact, we're starting to work on 2027 right now.

Fender does a great job at adding value to its more aspirational models. The upside is that players get awesome guitars at affordable prices. The other side is Fender has already given them a great guitar, so how do you get them to want a better guitar? Is there a strategy for gently nudging players up the line?

There's no strategy or formula. We know there are some players to which having a USA-made Fender is really important to them. We also know there are other players who are a little more frugal or they just like to tweak what they have. So, rather than thinking specifically about how to move, say, Player II customers up to USA models, we tend to look at the big picture and go, “Okay, for an American-made Ultra, what is that customer going to care about?” We do a lot of thinking about who the customer might be for specific models or upgrades. Now, that’s really hard, because everybody has a unique personality. We can try to put people in big tents, but it’s often so fragmented as to what any individual person is looking for. If somebody wants to step up, we try to make it obvious how and why stepping up to another model might be right for them. But whatever series we are working on, the bottom line is we want compelling instruments that are going to excite players.