Fender Showmaster

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The Fender Showmaster is an electric guitar.

During the 1980s, many hard and stadium rock guitarists made modified their Fender Stratocaster guitars in order to let their athletic music styles be played on their guitars. Modifications included new pickup configurations with added humbuckers in addition to single-coils, deeper cutaways; 7-string capacity; heavy-duty locking tremolo arms (such as the "Floyd Rose" series); droopy, pointed headstocks (sometimes reversed, Firebird style) and active electronics. Such guitars became known as 'SuperStrats' due to their origin in the Stratocaster. Soon, many guitar manufacturers began producing instruments with these modifications straight out of the box. Most notable were the manufacturers Ibanez, Jackson/Charvel, Carvin and Yamaha (the company Bill Schultz started at before his tenure as the current FMIC Chrmn/CEO). However, Fender itself, the genesis of the entire class of guitars, had limited success thereabout. Some of this was due to Fender's CBS ownership, often looked back upon as the cause of Fender following instrument trends rather than leading them as it had in Leo Fender's day. Another factor was the 1985 sale of Fender to Bill Schultz and his group of investors. Many radical instrument ideas were either severely weakened or straight out killed in the crossfire during the sale. Fender had already made multiple attempts at the superstrat audience, such as the Performer, the HM Strat (i.e. heavy metal) and the Prodigy; however, none were especially successful. Finally, Fender came up with an idea - the prototype to the Fender Showmaster.

Note: In descriptions of pickup configurations, H refers to humbuckers and S refers to single-coils.

The Fender Showmaster was introduced as a Custom Shop model in 1998. It featured a carved maple top, a set maple neck, and an HSS or HH pickup configurations. Later, it appeared as a U.S. Special/ Highway 1 model, retaining the set maple neck, HSS & HH pickups and its traditional Stratocaster headstock (with Showmaster label, respectively). A Squier model soon appeared; however, it had a bolt-on neck and either a reverse Strat headstock or a 3 to a side arrangement. All models are absent of a pickguard. Some may come with Floyd Rose tremolo systems, Fender's standard 6-point tremolo, or Fender's American Series 2-point tremolo. Custom Shop Models are also available with a hardtail, or non-tremolo bridge.de:Fender Showmaster