Explain me Fender guitars, for I am a dumbass

USA
up to 1966: mostly great, but there are some bad ones out there (and almost all of them left in near perfect condition are among the bad ones). $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
1966 to 1982 (or so, I'm not a Fender historical fetishist): mostly shit, although occasional good ones left the factory. You can get good sounds even out of the lame ones if it's one of the classic designs, and the instruments improve with age, so $$$$$$$$$$$$
1982 to present: build quality at least acceptable in all cases, custom shop guitars terrific, mere mortal instruments include some good ones, some uninspired/uninspiring designs. $$-$$$$$$$

Japan: build quality consistently good whenever it was built, some of the early 80s Japanese have started to improve with age, some goofy designs that never made it over to the US or Europe officially (like the Performer bass). The old Japanese Squires are getting discovered by collectors, but bargins are still to be had.

Mexico: wood's fine, electronics and metal parts general low quality and worth swapping out -- do it intelligently, and these instrument are good bargains as semi-pro instruments.

Other Asia: Trash.

Based on what I saw at the Frankfurt MusikMesse yesterday, I think Brazil is the new up 'n coming cheapo guitar source (no Fenders from them yet, but some high quality copies). Lots of sources of good wood, a long cultural history with the instruments -- the ones I played looked decent enough. Keep yer eyes peeled.

it wasn't cost effective to use real deal big-bar jazzmaster pickups in the mij models so they used strat-esque pups under jazzmaster covers. they're about as good as the pickups on any import, which is to say they're pretty much the first thing you'd want to upgrade on those guitars.

Duncan makes Vintage, Hot, and Quarterpounder JM pickups, in progressively hot output levels.

Vista was a series of Squier instruments, high-line stuff, really well-made, and unfortunately a total commercial failure. There should be a Model number on the headstock somewhere. Does it have humbucking pickups or single coils? Also, what color are they (black or white). Also, what color is the guitar? If I know that, I can probably nail down which model it is (should be either a Jagmaster, a Venus, or a Supersonic).

There was another Squier at one point actually called the Vista. You see them once in a while on eBay, and they look sorta like Strats. I've never known anything about them, and I actually discovered them by accident searching for a Vista series Super-Sonic on eBay. The Vista looked pretty cheap, and the few I've seen since on eBay either don't sell or sell for peanuts.

I FORGOT SOME THINGS ABOUT THE GUITAR...IT IS BLACK...IT HAS 21 FRETS AND IT HAS 3 PICKUPS. I DONT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUMBUCKERS AND SINGLE-COIL PICKUPS..SO....BUT I LEFT OUT SOMETHING ELSE...SOMETHING I THINK IS A LITTLE MORE FEASIBLE TO THE HISTORY OF THIS FINE GUITAR. ON THE BACK IS A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMER AND A NAME ..ROBERT NORRIS.. MY BUDDY TELLS ME THAT WHEN HE WAS IN THE MILITARY EVERYONE PROVED OWNERSHIP OF THEIR SHIT BY THEIR SOCIALS? SO IF THIS IS THE MUSICMASTER SERIES THEN ITS MORE THAN JUST SOME LAME ASS BUDGETY-FIRST ACT STYLE OF GUITAR. THERE IS NO "SQUIRE" OR "FENDER" LOGO ON THE HEAD OR ANYWHERE ELSE. NO STOCK NUMBER EITHER...WHICH IS WHY I THINK IT CAME OUTTA KOREA WHEN THE PREVIOUS OWNER WAS STATIONED THERE. AFTER ALL WE DID STATION OUR TROOPS THERE FOR QUITE SOME TIME. N-E-HOW..I CANNOT SEEM TO FIND A MANUFACTURER...I DONT REALLY KNOW ITS WORTH, BUT IM INTERESTED TO KNOW ITS HISTORY...EVEN IF ITS A BACK-IN-THE-DAY WAL-MART-SPECIAL...IT HAS A LOT OF TONE CONTROL...LIKE I SAID A WHAMMY ,A VOLUME AND 2 TONE KNOBS AND THE 5 CLICK TONE SWITCH THINGY.THIS GUITAR MAY HAVE BEEN SOMETHING OF RARITY OF THAT TIME PERIOD OR MAYBE IT WAS A COMMEN GUITAR FOUND AT K-MART OR COMMEN IN KOREA...WHATEVER IT IS, I THOUGHT ABOUT IT AND I GAVE IT A 7.48 OUTTA 9. WHY 9? BECAUSE NOTHING IS PERFECT!! AND BESIDES THAT IVE BEEN AROUND THE MUSIC STORES AND THE SHIT OF TODAY DOESNT HAVE THIS MUCH TONE CONTROL AND I FOUND IT ON A BUDGET...IM IN LOVE AND WISH I COULD FIND A NEWER REPLICA...SO CAN YOU PROVIDE ME WITH SOME INSIGHT? THIS ONE GUY HAS A SITE THAT IS DEDICATED TO HIS COLLECTION OF GUITARS HIS FIRST GUITAR WAS A VISTA RHODES V MINE IS NOT THE SAME. IN HIS PHOTO, HIS GUITAR HAS THE SAME LOGO AS MINE. DIFFERENT LOOK TOO. the site is www.rudetalk.com go to the bottom of the page click on rudys guitar page..and youll see what im talking about...no fender or squire label....remember that mine is rounded like the ax style.......thank you ....im not worthy...im not worthy......

I HAVE A NEW TOPIC..I recently bought a ZOOM 505 II effects pedal from a local-yokal hes says its great...well...i pay 75.oo (a discount at the time) i walk into his shop a year later and tell him of the features i dont like..he tells me that its mainly used for recording.....it a fine piece but to change effects you have to store them....bad part is you store them over the factory presets....
so i guess what im getting to is....i would like to find more info on how to utilize this piece of equipment..i know to play like the band you need to know what they are tuned to and how many guitars are used but im looking for tone controls that allow for an almost synthesized "boss" effect......maybe i should just ditch it and get a boss all in one.....they are the $hit! to see what i am using....goto...www.zoom.co.jp customer support sucks and id like to find a decent forum..and maybe network with people who own them....you guys are great....ill get those pics ASAP....thanks

Consistently, the worst wiring/electronics I have ever seen in a modern guitar. Despite the fact that we don't sell them and there are no local dealers, I work on more Schecters (via musicians friend I assume) than any other guitar brand, including Samick, Squier, and even First Act. The last one we got in for repair had MASKING TAPE where the electrical tape should be, a tone pot literally filled with solder, and was brand new out of the box. "Pretty" looking godawful pieces of shit. Perhaps if they spent less on the abalone, and more on electronic parts that worked...

I think they figure the first thing anyone is going to do is rip out the pickups, so why sweat the details.

Boss pedals are all pretty good, I've got a Boss Flanger and a Tuner. Personally, I have not come across any of those multi-effect pedal board things that I liked.

The squier 51 is a great platform to build on. It's a solidly made guitar, feels good, interesting control system (no tone knob), etc. Pickups are, unfortunately, crap, but easy to replace.

OTM, and sums up practically the entire industry.

haa

Does anyone else feel like it's a particularly Fendery thing to have the high E string feel just a tad lower in output and less rich/resonant than the others? (Even with the pickups angled way in close to it?) I used to think of this as just a thing guitars did, but now it feels somehow connected to Fender designs -- like you're playing single-note stuff and there's this drop-off when you hit the top string, so you wind up playing up the B instead.

(I know it's just a thinner string, and all, but I'd never expect it from a thick/sustainy guitar like a Les Paul or a semi-hollow. Maybe I just need more gain to compensate.)

you try bumping up the pickup heights very slightly on that side?

part of this comes down to fenders obnoxious post-SRV obsession with supposedly overwound beefy pickup design. angling the pickups is probably a good call.

yeah yeah, they're at the appropriate slant, especially at the neck -- I'm mostly just wondering if this is a common side-effect of the thinner/twangier types of designs Fender has, or of the single-coils, or what. (haha or whether I should buy more expensive Fender products.) it's natural enough for the high E on anything to have a slighter and plinkier natural sound than the B and G, but it seems like with big warm sustainy (and humbucker) guitars you don't notice a drop-off as much as on a thinner/pingier guitar like a Tele or Strat.

haha basically I am asking if this is a thing or if I'm just tripping

(the one thing pickup-angling can't really solve is that the pickups will still be nearly as close to the B as to the E, so if you are playing a lead line and cross up from B to E, you can sometimes really hear the switch.)

this thread is probably as good a place as any to get the fact that i think that fender has lost their way and is pretty much turning out terrible overpriced crap at this point. i'm pretty much done with them at the store, and after picking up G&L as a line, I have no idea why anyone would keep buying the Fender stuff. Unfortunately they dont make a jazzmaster, so if you want one of those your options are limited to either the craptastic mexican versions or the unforgivably overpriced american ones.

it's sad really, all the people that revitalized fender in the late 80's are gone, and the people running the show now are so convinced of the value of their brand (and taking the company public) that the basic design tenets of reasonably priced easily modified repairable guitars have been passed up in favor of gouging the public - another good manufacturer gone the way of Gibson i'm afraid. lame.

xpost: not to keep banging on about G&L, but the fact that the ASATs (thats code for tele btw) have individually adjustable pole pieces that actually work (tech dork moment: the magnets on the G&Ls are actually attached to the pole pieces, so you aren't just moving the pole pieces like many screwtop pickup designs) is designed to fix this exact problem.

hmm nabs i haven't played plugged in in a couple months but that big of a jump from b to e is not one of the experiences i recall (and def something that would drive me crazy) w/my strat--which while i agree in principle with what you are saying john is a really amazing guitar.

oh i have nothing bad to say about fender guitars in general (well, some things on specific models obv), i just hate what has happened with the company. strats and teles are iconic brilliant examples of industrial design - its just unfortunate that fender has lost sight of why in the interest of piling up money and positioning themselves for public offering (although this is not confirmed, boosting your prices and acquiring as many brands as you can in a short period of time is textbook stock exchange wrangling). many of my instruments are fenders, and i love them all.

i think we're saying similar things--at this point i think there are a few amazing finds in their product line and a lot of stuff that's not worth the money for one reason or another.

the most egregious quality error on my guitar -- which I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't even notice until recently -- is that I think whatever mechanism is used to pot the bridge pickup just missed. as in, there is a pole-sized dot of wax immediately adjacent to each actual pole, at a slightly incorrect angle.

oh, that and a tiny spur in the first fret that the E string would hang on when bent a bit, but seriously how often am I gonna bend the E at the first fret

it's sad really, all the people that revitalized fender in the late 80's are gone, and the people running the show now are so convinced of the value of their brand

If you a copy instore, it's expensive, you'd probably enjoy reading The Soul of Tone which is a very thick coffee table book on the company's history of amp making. From that, it's probably overstating it a bit that they've done nothing in the last few years that's been good, but the people in charge are very much into maximizing the history of the brand and trying to convince that the magic is back.

I bought a Fender SuperChamp XD soon after they were issued and am still fairly impressed by it, all things considering. Of course, it's made in China and I have one that has been solid.

But near the end of the book, it's fairly thin on things Fender can point to to be proud of. They seem very hot on their SuperSonic amp design.

I think they're stuck with the same thing so many famous US companies are saddled with. They made the decision years ago to dismantle all their manufacturing and have it done in a revolving ever-changing series of factories overseas, wherever the cheapest labor costs drive it. They lost quite a bit when they did that and it's not possible to get it back, even if they still have some custom manufacturing in the US.

I think of US-made Fender stuff as mostly aimed at people who can charge it off to their advances at major labels, upper middle class and upper class types buying as investments to hang on the wall in the basement and ...

I have a SuperSonic and the damn thing breaks down constantly.

If I could keep it in working condition and knew how to mod it to fix the high cut in the one channel I'd keep it but man she's been a bitch.

hi

jaguars are made of sex.

"buying as investments to hang on the wall in the basement" - that made me shiver. Even if it was a rare, legendary, played by a famous person guitar it's meant to be played!

I wonder how many of those Fender 40th Anniversary strats are actually ever played?

Baby boomer investment strategy?

I think they're stuck with the same thing so many famous US companies are saddled with. They made the decision years ago to dismantle all their manufacturing and have it done in a revolving ever-changing series of factories overseas, wherever the cheapest labor costs drive it. They lost quite a bit when they did that and it's not possible to get it back, even if they still have some custom manufacturing in the US.

OTM. I've seen two new identical guitars that have wildly different build qualities. If anything, if you're dead set on a Strat don't expect to find a good one in one day. Expect to play a lot of different ones, hem-and-haw, indecide for a bit, and end up putting together one from parts.

The Japanese-built Fenders seem to have a pretty good build quality with a narrow standard deviation between lousy and good.

thats actually a sort of timehonored tradition tho, at least with volume pedals, the old ernie ball/fender/dearmond volume pedals all ran/still run with a string loop.

oh cool, i guess it was an artisanal handcrafted wahwah then

Library coworker of mine did this interview with the guy who did the Fender history book:

http://stereoembersmagazine.com/75-years-of-fender-guitars-an-interview-with-guitar-and-amplifier-historian-dave-hunter/