Performer by Fender
The Fender Performer was an electric guitar designed for rock and metal guitarists in the mid 1980's. It was also available as an electric bass. The Performer was only made for one year (1985-86), and was assembled in Japan. It was introduced in the transition period from the CBS-owned Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company to the new privately-owned Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, and it was discontinued after only one year. The unusual body and headstock shapes have been rumored to have originated in the shape of the scrap wood leftover from making Japanese Stratocasters. The design of the body horns is clearly based on the flat portion of the back of the Stratocaster body.
The body is small with a deep double cutaway. The tuning machines are found on the upper edge of the triangular headstock and a locking nut clamps the strings behind a plastic nut, as typically found on Fender guitars. The rosewood fretboard is two octaves and features a locking nut and jumbo frets. The bridge is a floating System I tremolo. The controls have inset rubber grips, the tuning heads have fully enclosed gears, and the jack socket is an enclosed, not 'skeleton', type, in contrast to many other Fender products with 'economy' hardware. A variety of metallic poly finishes were available including a sunburst pattern (non-metallic).
The two pickups are custom humbuckers which both sit at an angle as in the case of a Stratocaster or Telecaster bridge pickup. Tthe coils are offset to keep the magnets in line with the strings, although they are potted in epoxy so the magnets cannot be seen. The guitar features a volume knob, a tone knob, a pickup selector switch (neck/both/bridge) and, most importantly, a coil tap switch which disables one coil of each humbucker. The tone knob used stacked 250k and 1M pots with center detent which may have been a predecessor to the TBX tone control used in later Fender models.
