Lavender Haze all in our brains: Fender, Andertons and Chicago Music Exchange have released a range of exclusive guitars with new pickups and unique wiring mods

Andertons and Chicago Music Exchange have become the latest retailers to partner with Fender for a run of exclusive limited-edition guitars.

Dubbed the Lavender Haze collection, it comprises uniquely finished Strats, Teles, Jazzmasters and Jazz Bass guitars, which also offer exclusive pickups and expansive wiring mods.

There are plenty of familiar ingredients in these recipes, including ClassicGear tuners, modern C-shaped necks with rolled fingerboard edges, and a 9.5” radius neck. There are also rosewood fretboards and the classic alder body/maple neck combo across the range.

Move on over to the pickups, though, and the story starts to get a bit spicy. That’s because they are saddled up with CME Full Dip pickups, custom-designed to “reimagine the classic Vintera II blueprint with sweeter highs, fuller mids, and an extra 5% of Chicago heat.”

They are propped up by Alnico 2 magnets, and are paired with some neat wiring layouts.

The Strat gets a custom Blender Mod circuit, accessible via the second tone knob. Essentially, it blends the neck pickup into the bridge position, “unlocking textures in switch positions one and two that simply aren’t possible with standard wiring”.

The Jazzmaster pups, meanwhile, have a 5% overwind for greater presence and push. The guitar also has a custom four-way switch for running both pickups in series. It’s pretty nifty.

Over to the Tele, and its overwound coils add “just enough bite to make the Telecaster’s natural twang feel more expressive than ever”, while that newly-added fourth position is also on offer.

For the Jazz Bass, its pickups get a more gentle overwind and are paired with a special circuit mod for maximum control with minimal real estate, via streamlined controls.

The Lavender Haze colorway pays homage to the classic cars and classic guitars from the golden-era of Fender. Thankfully, they’re not bank-breakers. The Strat and Tele are priced at $949.99, with the Jazzmaster and Jazz Bass rising to $979.99.

Head to Chicago Music Exchange for more.

A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He’s also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.