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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 11:35 am
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TheKingofPain wrote:
ZZDoc wrote:
Another observation, which piques my curiosity, is what appears to be a reduction in the number of posts across the range of Forums. FMIC' s corporate management decisions may just be killing interest by its customer base. The proverbial throwing the baby out with the bath water.



What? Are you saying that Fender continually trying to push knock offs of competition style instruments and putting tons of ad muscle behind them isn't resonating with people who are obviously here because they love the classic Fender designs and quality? Whodda thunk it? :wink:

Not exactly that. Saying that Fender has crossed the event horizon between expectation and realization, and the consequence of the ensuing reality check is not to their advantage.

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 12:25 pm
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ZZDoc wrote:
TheKingofPain wrote:
ZZDoc wrote:
Another observation, which piques my curiosity, is what appears to be a reduction in the number of posts across the range of Forums. FMIC' s corporate management decisions may just be killing interest by its customer base. The proverbial throwing the baby out with the bath water.



What? Are you saying that Fender continually trying to push knock offs of competition style instruments and putting tons of ad muscle behind them isn't resonating with people who are obviously here because they love the classic Fender designs and quality? Whodda thunk it? :wink:

Not exactly that. Saying that Fender has crossed the event horizon between expectation and realization, and the consequence of the ensuing reality check is not to their advantage.



True. I'm just saying that for the amount of money they sunk into that damn Dimension bass to try and appeal to customers who like Gibson style basses. ::shudder:: :shock: We could have gotten any number of decent Fender options. Like a single coil P bass outside of either the Custom Shop or import. You know, maybe an American Vintage Series option. There are plenty of redundancies in the Fender stable, but plenty of holes also. Instead of trying to $@!&# themselves out to people who honestly wouldn't play a Fender if you paid them. Some simply because "everyone" plays Fenders and they want to be "original". (These people exist. Hard to believe.) Instead of concentrating on what made the company great it's like they put so much effort in trying to be everything to everyone. Instead of just being the best Fender that they can be.

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 1:24 pm
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[quote="TheKingofPain]they put so much effort in trying to be everything to everyone. Instead of just being the best Fender that they can be.[/quote]
Well there it is again, isn't it. Only said differently. The money is not interested in the latter because the former is designed to yield profit.

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 1:46 pm
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TheKingofPain wrote:
Instead of concentrating on what made the company great it's like they put so much effort in trying to be everything to everyone. Instead of just being the best Fender that they can be.


Ultimately, I believe that will be their epitaph.

:(

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 2:00 pm
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ZZDoc wrote:
[quote="TheKingofPain]they put so much effort in trying to be everything to everyone. Instead of just being the best Fender that they can be.[/quote]
Well there it is again, isn't it. Only said differently. The money is not interested in the latter because the former is designed to yield profit.[/quote]



Yet it doesn't. Not sustainably. CBS proved that, and countless others proved it before. The Harvard model of continuous growth is a fantasy. It simply exhausts either the market or resources. In the end you are left with nothing but a stack of debt notes. Sure the people on the other side of the central bank benefit, but if you're trying to achieve the biggest stack of paper you're literally working for debt. So it's a fool's race. There is growth, and then there is sustainability. Profit is simply taking in more than you put out. That does not require constant growth. Actually to do it sustainably over long periods of time it requires knowing when to tighten the belt and when to loosen it. The reality is that Fender was doomed the minute Leo sold it. While we may get quality instruments, and faithful recreations. We will pay through the nose for them and we're all just watching a slow burning pyre. The bottom ALWAYS falls out. It's only a matter of time. The question is will the brand name be able to be picked up and dusted off again? Will anyone bother after it's run into the ground again? Will anyone be left that cares?

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 5:18 pm
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ZZDoc wrote:
Another observation, which piques my curiosity, is what appears to be a reduction in the number of posts across the range of Forums. FMIC' s corporate management decisions may just be killing interest by its customer base. The proverbial throwing the baby out with the bath water.


Count me in on that. It's inconceivable to me that of the 90-some product lines of the Fender Stratocaster alone, there is nothing that really appeals to me. Ditto for the Telecaster.

The last Strat I bought I wanted one with a locking Trem, so I got a MIM std locking Trem model. I tried and I tried but I just didn't click with it in the end. It was just a normal Strat, with a mediocre bridge humbucker that lacked a good tone and it had small frets that just didn't fit the theme of the guitar . I sold it recently because it never got much play.. Reluctantly, I ended up buying my San Dimas as it had about everything I was after, except single coils. It doesn't have that fender vibe, but it's as close as I'll ever get. It's a great guitar, but if fender finally had something that ticked all the boxes, I'd ditch this one in a heartbeat.

I don't know about anyone else but, every new Strat I see being released- i feel underwhelmed. I just don't think Fender are as adventurous with their offerings as they used to be. I don't see anything I 'want' and nothing appeals. I get more pleasure out of buying used Fenders than I do new because you can get good deals and the models of the last 25years are still out there in good condition.. I don't see anything aimed at the 'younger player' anymore, or anything aimed at the directions of the music industries..

I used to dream of owning XyZ offerings when I'd rifle through catalogues as a teen, I dreamed of owning a stable of my ultimate guitars.. Now I just hope that something good is going to come of all the changes.

As for these forums, in the time I've been herer I've seen all the topics and no-one has left many stones unturned. I don't post much unless it is within interests of the Fenders I am passionate about.. I haven't met a Strat I haven't seen before, a question that hasn't been asked before etc.. Members have come & long gone, But I still like to read the forums because I love fenders & always have been. :) I'm not exactly what you would call a loyal customer, I don't go to the same barber religiously, I don't shop at the same supermarket, buy gas from the same station or buy clothes from the same brand/store. But among a small chosen few guitar brands, I prefer Fender the most.

As Fender I guess in one way or another, is approaching a new era. For good or bad, who knows. I'm not optimistic about it that's for sure. I just think that everything in USA is eventually going to downscale and Mexico is going to expand. My advice is to "get em' while you can" if you are after an American standard fender guitar :|

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 7:45 am
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Blertles wrote:
.Count me in on that. It's inconceivable to me that of the 90-some product lines of the Fender Stratocaster alone, there is nothing that really appeals to me. :|

I'm usually 'ho hum' when I browse through the stores. I pulled the trigger on that new 60th Anniversary '54, basically for the
'one of 54 'neck plate and the fact that it was a nice repro I wasn't paying $5K for. Swapped out my '57VHR for it. I have space limitations.Without the neck plate, I wasn't interested. So now I have that, my '89 Pewter Clapton, the '87 Clapton Prototype I bought last fall, and the Gilmour. I bought an MIJ Fender VI last spring, and an Orange 50 bass amp for it. If Fender had made a combo bass amp with a cabinet the size of the Orange, they'd have had my $$$. But NO! The Mesa Boogie King Snake I just acquired is a tweaked repro of the original Santana amp which started out as one of Randall Smith's hot rodded Fenders. '1000 lbs of amp in a 1 lb box', so to speak. 40+ years later Fender has yet to equal that. :? :? :? :? Have a beautiful 12 yo LP Heritage Custom Shop Elegant with a tobacco SB quiltop. Guitars with baseball logos, or those which look like they've been dragged down 40 miles of bad road don't light my fire. You can please some of the people some of the time, you can please some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:22 pm
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Funnily enough ... I bought my Pro Junior amp as a temporary replacement for my Magnatone...
But the amp has grown on me to the point that it is on e of the more versatile small amps I've come across in some time.... ( I don't care for modeling or anything more than reverb or tremolo on an amp... ) the simpler the circuitry design, the more controllable the natural sound when pushed to distort...

So Yes Fender is a huge corporation that has to broad base it's customer pool... Sometiomes they get right and sometimes not so....
Still if we look at the competition.... The most copied design is the Stratocaster and the Telecaster... So ..... :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 7:12 am
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As to the plant closing, don't discount that the U.S. economy is a shambles. Retailers of all varieties are closing and downsizing. I would also venture to say that there exists a glut of musical instruments. Where I live I can pick up nice MIA Strats for a few hundred dollars from guys who are out of work and out of hope. If you have a good job and can afford a $1000 or more for a nice guitar you might consider yourself lucky.

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 7:55 am
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oneal lane wrote:
As to the plant closing, don't discount that the U.S. economy is a shambles. Retailers of all varieties are closing and downsizing. I would also venture to say that there exists a glut of musical instruments. Where I live I can pick up nice MIA Strats for a few hundred dollars from guys who are out of work and out of hope. If you have a good job and can afford a $1000 or more for a nice guitar you might consider yourself lucky.

Ain't that the damn truth.

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 8:16 am
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I think Leo's legacy will live on through boutique companies like Victoria and the tons of boutique guitar builders cropping up. For acoustic guitars, I think I'll stick with Martin. I'm pretty much through with overseas guitars and amps as well as effects. It either will be MIA whether a company like Gibson makes it or I build it myself. I've built roughly a dozen effects pedals a nice one of a kind Tele clone and a couple of amps, all built in my workshop in Pennsylvania. Fender and others will just keep digging a deeper and deeper hole till they're just a memory. So many companies are doing it now for short term profits. Sadly, Egnater is going down the same hole. I love my Egnater 20 but if it goes, it probably won't be replaced by another one. I have one or possibly two more amp builds in mind. :mrgreen:

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 9:33 am
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I feel that smaller builders is becoming more and more part of the future, as the giants shift to cheapest possible production and bean counting.
Many of the smaller shops deliver their American or European made products at prices competitive with Fender USA. My guess is that what the big guys save on larger production runs and more automation, they lose again on being top heavy, with a pretty bad management:worker ratio[*]. The smaller guys don't have that disadvantage, so even if much more time is put into each instrument, the prices stay relatively competitive.

[*]: The old military rule is that for every four fingers, you need a thumb. But every thumb becomes a finger in a higher hierarchy, so four supervisors needs their own manager too. The bigger the organization, the more managers you need, relative to the size. And as a company grows older and bigger, the ratio tends to worsen too, and the wage discrepancy between the top and bottom increases near exponentially. Any company where there are five steps or more from the bottom to the top tends to be very top heavy, and with a huge overhead.


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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 3:17 pm
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arth1 wrote:
I feel that smaller builders is becoming more and more part of the future, as the giants shift to cheapest possible production and bean counting.Many of the smaller shops deliver their American or European made products at prices competitive with Fender USA.

Mesa Industries and PRS are interesting studies. Though not related, I think of them as 'The Smith Brothers' of the industry. Randall and Paul picked their niches and over the long term appear to have been able to be profitable not-withstanding their price points. Paul moved into off shore guitar production while still maintaining a high quality product at t lower price point, doing what Fender failed to do, along the lines of some of our discussion. Now he's doing the same in the USA. Their MIK and moderate priced MIA products echo their MIA line but is NOT a clone. Mesa no longer sells through GC and is picky about whom they do sell through. Not so for Fender who seemed to have found it necessary to be all things to all people.

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 12:27 am
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There's been talk on the Jackson forums about this and wether or not it will happen to them. Jackson USA production is very low compared to what's coming out of Asia. With a daily production of 10-15 USA Jacksons per day, one has to wonder.. :?

It would prolly make sense to, being that the prices are so high that they have to make 10-15 vs. Fender's few hundred or so per day.. It doesn't sound economical to continue like that.

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Post subject: Re: Anyone seen this: Fender closing plant in Connecticut?
Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 1:42 am
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63supro wrote:
I think Leo's legacy will live on through boutique companies like Victoria and the tons of boutique guitar builders cropping up......Fender and others will just keep digging a deeper and deeper hole till they're just a memory.


+1

You know there's something seriously amiss when you see Fender guitars for sale at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, truckstop gift shops, and Circle K's.

:roll:

Arjay

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