[MUSIC PLAYING]
JUSTIN NORVELL: Our instrument platforms
have always evolved and moved.
They're not set in stone.
Everything changes and everything evolves.
We've always just been pushing forward
for what musicians need today.
It totally speaks to the spirit that goes all the way back
to the origins of Fender.
The evolution of this series was something
that took several years.
We really look at every component,
what has an impact on tone, every piece of that system.
It's not just the sum of its parts.
It's the way all of those parts work together
that make that final instrument and the way
that it resonates that makes something magic.
The goal with the Ultra Series is
to create an instrument of immediate and maximum
inspiration, making the guitar not be in the way.
These instruments are super contemporary,
in the fact that they are manufactured
in a way that probably couldn't have even happened back then.
It represents the height of our precision
that we're working with here.
Manufacturing techniques have evolved,
and tolerance has gotten tighter with CNC manufacturing.
Being able to do some of these new contours,
these new dimensions, showcases the precision
that we have through the milling process,
through the sanding process, through the paint process,
to retain all of those contours and keep
that awesome, new design looking perfect.
The idea of modifying the body shapes
is not one that we take lightly.
The body of the Stratocaster and Telecaster
hasn't really manifestly been modified
or changed in over 30 years.
And you've got to retain the essence
and the spirit of the original mission of the instruments.
You can look at it from the front
and say, that's a Stratocaster or that's a Telecaster.
The back, where it actually is worn against your body, where
your hands do go when you go up high on the neck, that's
kind of the real estate that we chose to make
some of those modifications.
So all of the sculpting and the contours
that we did to these instruments make it even more ergonomic,
and more sculpted, and allows you
to get up in the higher access a lot easier.
The neck heel is thinner up there.
There's a lot more cutaways, so you
could just play a little bit higher with a little more
ease than you can with, say, a vintage instrument.
The race car of the lineup, if you will, but the first thing
we really started with was the pickups.
People love the sound of Fender single coil pickups.
But a lot of people want to lose the 60 cycle hums.
So noiseless pickups have been something
that we've been working on for over 20 years.
We've gone through five generations
now of those pickups.
And every time we go through a generation, we learn a lot.
And there's a lot of generations between the generations
that don't even see the light of day.
So, really, how we're doing it is a trade secret,
the special sauce.
However, these new sets of Fender
noiseless pickups, the Ultra Noiseless,
are the best that we've ever done.
Imagine a pickup is basically six microphones
and one is pointing at each string.
Each string, it being a different gauge,
and being either plain or wound, will have
a different level of output.
So what we're doing with the stagger
is we're, kind of, decueing the tone of the pickup.
It's the bobbin For noiseless, it's
how you're achieving that hum canceling.
There's also the magnets, the wire gauge,
the number of lines.
And so all of these are variables
that you can play with in a bunch of different ways
to be the best modern sound that can be.
So the Ultra Series also has new wiring, achieved
by our well-known S-1 switch.
And the S-1 switch on these instruments
does some really cool new stuff.
Like on the Strat, it brings in the neck pickup
wherever you are.
So if you're in the bridge pickup,
and you want to dial in some neck pickup and get tele tones,
you can do that.
That's something that we haven't done before with this series
of insturments.
Another thing that we have on the humbucking instruments
is the double tap, that enables you to get a real single coil
sound when you split the coil.
A lot of people with a humbucking pickup
like to be able to split the coil.
But when you do, you actually have a very weak single coil.
So what the double tap does is it actually
boosts the coil to be a full-sized single coil when
you're in single coil mode.
When you go to a humbucking mode,
it reduces the coil back to be at parity with the other coil.
On a Stratocaster, everybody loves that position, too,
in the middle that's the two single coils.
And now, you can get that sound with the humbucking model.
So neck shapes have naturally evolved with time,
and for the way that people play,
and what modern people are doing on instruments.
And this D shape really works for everybody.
So I think a hard V might not be for everybody.
A really big U shape neck might not be for everybody.
However, this shape, especially with the broken edges
and how it feels, it is a great, fast playing neck
that everybody that we've shown it to has loved.
In addition, the Jazzmaster, the Jazz Bass, and the P bass,
we have the bound necks, the block inlays,
et cetera, which just add that deluxe element.
We hark to different periods of Fender
within some of the features that we're choosing,
but doing it in a very modern way that's very today.
One of the things that we wanted to do with this series
is really, from a color standpoint,
is go with depth, and having an ability to have a color that
has a lot of depth to it, and a lot of change
as you flop it in the light, and kind of get it playing
with shadows, et cetera, to showcase all those new cuts
and contours, and things that we've done,
to evolve these instruments.
For example, Texas Tea is a color that in certain lights,
it looks black.
In certain lights, it's got a gold tint to it.
In certain lights, it's got some green going on.
The white metallic literally has pinks and light greens
that come out of it, like almost like a hologram.
So all of these colors, there's a lot going on.
And they're beautiful and elegant.
They speak to the idea and the ethos of these instruments.
So here in the Corona factory, these instruments
are still handmade.
There are 150 hand processes.
And in those hand processes, we are not
assembling parts that we get from other places
and just merely putting them together.
Everything is made here.
So in addition to the necks, the bodies,
we're stamping the pick guards, were stamping the Jack
Ferrules, were making the bridge components,
where every screw, every spring, hand polishing
the saddles, et cetera.
We assemble this entire instrument,
and it's really an interesting juxtaposition
to see us stamping out an Ultra neck
plate on the original, old machines, next to the tools
and dyes that are sitting around with 1957 dates on them.
Even these new components that we're making
are still coming off of the original equipment
and being made in the same way that they were back then.
So it's a really nice through line of that evolution
that you really are still getting
the original vintage Fender mojo, just reinterpreted
in a new, modernistic way.
We are still getting up every day,
and we're thinking, how do we make it better?
How do we make it more modern for today's players,
making today's music, and what's tomorrow's music,
and what's the next genre that's going to be founded,
and what's the sound going to be of that genre?
It's something that we're very proud of,
and I think it will resonate with people.