Hands-on demo: up close and personal with Fender's new top-line American Ultra Series

Best of 2019: It's arguably the company's biggest launch of the year, as Fender today announced its new American Ultra Series – the top-of-the-line, US-built lineup of electric guitars and basses that replaces 2016's much-vaunted American Elite Series.

And we couldn't just let that pass without a thorough video demo to see if Fender's raft of changes really does revolutionise the Fender experience, as was so boldy promised in the teaser trailer last week. 

Fender has made no bones about it. Sure, there is a time and place for vintage instruments, but sometimes you have got to push your designs forward, and that is what Fender is doing with the American Elite Series, deploying some of the boldest changes in recent memory to its most-loved instruments.

Having memorised the American Ultra Series' spec so completely that they are oft found reciting it in song, we consigned Simon Arblaster and Rob Laing to the MusicRadar studio, and these bold mavens of tone will talk and play us through the series.

So, if you want to learn more of the American Ultra Series' new "Modern D" neck profile and its "Ultra Satin" finish, the improved body contouring and sculpted heel, the compound 10"-14" compound radius fingerboards, the noiseless pickups and all of that, check out the video above.

See Fender for more details on the American Ultra Series. 

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Jonathan Horsley

Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars and guitar culture since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitar World. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.