Dalibor wrote:
I understand this corporate bullshit but I'm trying not
to accept it as normal:) Ever since I saw "relic"
series of guitars. I can't imagine that there are
people buying that.
Well, Dalibor, I have two perspectives on this, one as an economist, another as a musician - and they actually fit together quite well. First of all, I really get specially irked when people put down a company for being a 'corporation', like all the evils of the world are concentrated in corporations. Let's take a look at one fact, shall we? Fender was a much bigger corporation (at least part of one) under CBS ownership - and how did it do? They totally screwed up the company, and Fender was almost liguidated, close to disappearing altogether. So, corporations don't have the power to sell shit that people don't want - if they do, none of them would ever go out of business, and many of them do, all the time. Like all companies in a market economy, if they want to be successful they have to produce what people want. As far as I know, Fender has been highly successful for the past two decades or so, so they seem to be doing the right thing from the perspective of their customers.
Now, who are the customers? Well, there are many different people, ranging from pro and semi-pro musicians that have been playing for decades all the way down to beginners. Fender tries to cater to all of them, including most of us here (including you, Dalibor, with your MIJ Jazzmaster, right?) who have bought their products from the post-CBS era. Judging from the posts on SG101, most of us are very happy with them. I have four US-made Fender guitars, all made between '87 and '97, and love 'em, I really do. They're phenomenal instruments. I've played multiple '50s and '60s Strats, and I thought my Strats were as good or even better. But of course, then you get the bedroom players and kids who want to make some noise, but have no clue what good tone is - AND don't want to spend a lot of money. Can you sell them a handwired 10W amp with one channel for $1000 (which is around how much it costs to make a good amp)? No way.
Here's a recent story. I have a friend, we've known each other for 25 years, a REALLY smart guy (valedictorian of his college class!), and a guitar player who likes to muck about, nothing very serious. He contacted me last Fall, and said he's thinking of buying a new amp (he had a piece of shit mid-'80s Crate), and what I would recommend. So, I do some research. He's got two kids and a wife, and not a huge house. He doesn't plan to play in a band, so no need to have a powerful amp. He also wants an amp that gives him a lot of distortion, so he can play metal but also wants flexibility. So, I come up with what I think is a perfect amp for him: an Egnator Tweaker. All-tube amp, everybody says it sounds like heaven, very flexible, low-wattage. I tell him about it, and a few weeks later hear from him. What did he buy? A Peavey Vypyr 100 solid state modeling amp. Doh!! Here's what he said about it:
"At half the price, with all those effects and amp models built right in, the Peavey was a value proposition that worked for me. It really delivers over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall gain profiles on the dirty models, at relatively low volumes. I got the 100w 212, which plays great at low volumes. It even has a power-soaker feature that helps a little in that regard. I think I comprehend that what I'm hearing is all emulated, pretty well void of tubish goodness. The clean models (Fender Twin, "AC30" clone, and some others) are completely sufficient for me, although they are miles from the real deals, admittedly, in tone. It has a direct USB out with what amounts to a built-in interface, so that will be cool for fiddling with Garage Band on my Macs. At$379, I figured, heck, what have I got to lose. If I get more serious in the future, I may move up to something tighter. The day I was in the store, I honestly couldn't hear a heck of a lot of difference between the tubes and transistors. Alas, what that says about my ears! Let alone my sensibilities."
Well, at least he understands his limitations. But the point is, let's say Fender was purist and only made great sounding, handwired tube amps. How many of those would they sell, when you take into account that almost certainly the majority of the market is the people like my friend above? They don't want 'tone' - they want cool features! I'm sure if any of us play that amp, we'd absolutely hate it, but that's not how he's thinking. Fender HAS to make the amps it does in order to stay in business. If they're not making a profit, they're making a loss, and once they're making a loss, they're on their way out. And the only way they can make a profit is by producing the stuff that people want to buy. Why is it so hard for people to understand that?? I really don't get it.
As far as the different kinds of Jazzmasters, this is something that goes back to Leo and Don Randall. I read several books on early Fender, and Randall was always pushing Fender to expand their line and to offer instruments at many price points. Leo wanted to just have a single guitar, and wanted to discontinue the Tele when the Strat was introduced, and the Strat when the Jazzmaster was produced, etc. Randall talked him out of that, and asked him to develp the Duo-Sonic and the students instruments, a step-up instrument in the form of a Mustang (a Duo-Sonic with a tremolo), etc. The fact is that the majority of people interested in offsets are interested in them because they play punk or alternative music, and humbuckers will work much better for them - they want to be like Kurt Cobain, not Bob Bogle! But why do you care that Fender offers offsets with humbuckers? They also offer super-accurate replicas of vintage offsets (and some in between). If they only offered humbucker-equipped offsets, then you'd have a point. But who cares if they also make stuff that doesn't appeal to you?
It's easy to tear down businesses - which in the end provide products that we all get a lot of enjoyment from AND provide jobs and incomes for hundreds if not thousands of people (including Dave Wronski, may I remind you). But hey, the great thing about the market economy, especially a global one is, if you think you can do it better, then do it! Don't forget that when Fender was bought from CBS in '85 it had to be rebuilt almost completely from the ground up. It was a tiny company at the time. Success was far from guaranteed. Instead, it was earned through wise entrepreneurial decisions of the Fender leadership, and I for one think we're all better for it.
OK, off my soapbox now. Sorry for the length.
—
Ivan
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Last edited: Jun 30, 2011 19:18:29
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