Defective Basses Sent To Developing Countries?

[Kerem Koseoglu]

This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but it's actually a sincere curiosity of mine.

I live in Turkey - which is a developing country. Whenever I go to a major music store to check some basses, I leave the store dissatisfied. Most of the (Fender) basses that I try have one of the following problems:

• Dead spot on G string
• Dull E string
• Weak G string
• Excess weight
• Misconnected electronics
• etc...

Mexican, American, Elite, etc; doesn't matter. Only Custom Shops and a few production basses seem to be OK.

I thought that this was a Fender QC sloppiness issue. However; I experienced the same with StingRay basses too. An Old Smoothie had the weakest G string I have ever seen (weaker than any other StingRay I played), and a shiny 5 string Special had a dead spot on the 7th fret of G string so bad that I could barely hear the note before it disappeared. That makes about 50% of all available StingRay basses.

I'm experienced enough to tell setup / EQ issues apart from acoustic / resonance issues; and the problems I'm talking about are definitely not setup / EQ issues.

So I can't help but ask: Do companies send defective basses to developing countries; assuming that they will be despairingly accepted? Or do fellow bass players in developed countries experience the same?

As of today; I'm hanging on to my rare impeccable American P Bass as hard as I can, because I don't know if / when I might encounter another one.

 

[Skammie]

I can't say for sure about your question. All I can say is that I had terrible luck with a 2018 P/J MiM bass because of poor QC.
I don't think you are in the realm of conspiracy theory. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if B-Stock gear was commonly shipped to so-called developing nations.
Good luck in search for a competent instrument!

 

[Wisebass]

Hi Kerem

I live in Turkey - which is a developing country. Whenever I go to a major music store to check some basses, I leave the store dissatisfied.

I think that the percentage of bad basses is the same in all countries!

(Which is bad enough and a conspiracy against all of us! )


The difference is in the number and size of shops and the clients (bassplayers)

The music market is different too, between different countries.

You don 't have thousands of hobby dad bands, butchering classic rock songs in dive bars in Turkey.

This typical hobby player doesn 't know a lot about instruments. He doesn 't know what a dead spot is.

He just buys a bass that has his favorite colour. ("duds" sell easier in developed countries!)


You have more pros! More pros means that bad basses will stay longer in stores!!!

Less and smaller stores can' t afford to sell floor models or B- stock gear at discount prices.

This makes it worse for a buyer!


of course IMO and YMMV!

You are free to think that there is a conspiracy against nice people,

who live in a beautiful country.

I don 't believe that arkadaş!


greetings to Turkey

Wise(b)ass

 

[jamro217]

Can't say for sure what the procedure is for determining which instruments leaving the factory are bound for certain countries. I assume it depends on the factory. Fender is a big corporation with more than one plant manufacturing basses worldwide. I think they would be more concerned with total numbers shipped rather than where they went. If QC is a problem and returning or fixing an instrument is commonplace, it would make sense to keep the clunkers nearby. It could be that they somehow get damaged in shipping in ways that domestic basses don't. Ships and planes aren't air conditioned in their cargo bays to protect instruments from extremes in transit. Maybe the Customs clerk hates American companies and beats up the cartons before putting them on the conveyor. Really, it could be a hundred things we haven't thought of. Luck of the draw, maybe.

 

[BassmanM]

I don't believe in such a "conspiracy". I doubt that any major manufacturer has the people and the time to check all their basses and take the lemons aside. That would be a big chunk of work. Also, considering that QC in some companies is not always top notch already, why would they waste time to pick the bad ones? Very unlikely.

Apart from that, some of the points you mention are common for the brands you name.

• Dead spot on G string --> The case on many, if not most MM and F style basses
• Weak G string --> Has been mentioned by many MM users.
• Excess weight - Depends on personal taste, but probably the case with most MM in general and many F, particularly the 5ers.

 

[user362432]

I believe WTO had World set in A, B and C quality by regions/countries. That was old world of trade, after WWII.
A - USA and Japan
B - Europe (western), Australia and Canada
C - rest of it...

Things are changing, thanks to Walmart and others, who are importing more junk from anywhere they can grab. However, mentality of "A, B, C" is still there, even manufacturers usually make things for "C" quality and with a bit care (and more $$$$) going for "B". That's where mentality "buy USA" comes from. That's why Japanese manufacturers tend to have much higher quality than some others. They manufacture for an "A" quality market....
Now...
In the world of trade, local dealers are not in any conditions to make good deals. It is not the same if Andertons buys Fenders, or some little guy in Moldova or (in this case) Turkey.
Is there some special markings to know what is what?
I am not sure. But, I believe manufacturers know which price is what..... and what kind of instrument goes to Wildwood and which one goes to Guitar Center "Trade deals" behind "price tag" are very lively....

 

[jj.833]

I have a bad feeling about Fenders I can see around big music shops (in Prague, Czech rep). They look nice (before you look too close). But when I try to play some, I'm almost always dissatisfied - they don't fit very easily in my hand, and the sound is okay, but not THE sound.

I think the real reason is that I'm used to my old jazzbass which I play for some 20 years. When anything is different, I tend to take it as bad sign.

But, when I play a small-luthier-company made instrument, there's almost always much more life in it than in stock Fender. I find it logical that the big company bussiness demands are generally not adding to the quality of sound; this seems to be the case of any good product that a big company acquires and starts to 'develop' in the heavy footed corporate way. My opinion only.

Never came in my mind that the reason could be marked by political borders. It would be a nice explanation, but I don't believe it much. I don't really know whether Czech rep. is developed or developing, with all the religious hatred and nationalism it's probably undeveloping country now. But I know people who went to US to buy a bass; their luck is not better than here in Prague. I guess that if you want to have a good new Fender, you just need to see many of them and then choose one. It's hard to do in Czech because the market is small, I guess it would be similar in Turkey.

Now, all this written, I'm going for a cigarette which I will light with my Istanbul tourist shop lighter I got some years ago. The Instanbul tourist shop lighter liquid somehow smells differently than a normal Czech lighter does. Stinks to high heaven. I find it beautiful. Greetings!

 

[DirkP]

Dead spot on G-string isn't a qc issue, it is a feature. Fender qc control left always something to be desired. I never knew how much junk can be placed between a pickguard and a body until I bought one of the AVS '63 Precisions. The most expensive non-custom shop intruments Fender ever offered...

Weight: with the exception of CS models and the old American Vintage Series, Fender just buys wood and uses it. They don't care about the weight. I know back in the days when small shops ordered from distributors, they asked for not to heavy instruments and got them.

 

[Zooberwerx]

This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but it's actually a sincere curiosity of mine.

I live in Turkey - which is a developing country. Whenever I go to a major music store to check some basses, I leave the store dissatisfied. Most of the (Fender) basses that I try have one of the following problems:

• Dead spot on G string
• Dull E string
• Weak G string
• Excess weight
• Misconnected electronics
• etc...

Mexican, American, Elite, etc; doesn't matter. Only Custom Shops and a few production basses seem to be OK.

I thought that this was a Fender QC sloppiness issue. However; I experienced the same with StingRay basses too. An Old Smoothie had the weakest G string I have ever seen (weaker than any other StingRay I played), and a shiny 5 string Special had a dead spot on the 7th fret of G string so bad that I could barely hear the note before it disappeared. That makes about 50% of all available StingRay basses.

I'm experienced enough to tell setup / EQ issues apart from acoustic / resonance issues; and the problems I'm talking about are definitely not setup / EQ issues.

So I can't help but ask: Do companies send defective basses to developing countries; assuming that they will be despairingly accepted? Or do fellow bass players in developed countries experience the same?

As of today; I'm hanging on to my rare impeccable American P Bass as hard as I can, because I don't know if / when I might encounter another one.

How did the aforementioned basses stack-up against the Asian offerings (Ibanez, Yamaha, etc) in terms of consistency & quality?

Riis

 

[Kerem Koseoglu]

How did the aforementioned basses stack-up against the Asian offerings (Ibanez, Yamaha, etc) in terms of consistency & quality?

Riis

Never tried an Ibanez bass, but I don't recall any significant problems with the Yamaha TRB* and JP* basses I tried. I didn't try as many as Fender / MusicMans though.

 

[JRA]

(just be thankful you're not irish. )

 

[micguy]

Dead spot on the G string is a result of Acoustics. There are some things that can be done that partially tame it (lighter tuners, graphite reinforcement rods, but a maple neck on a 34 inch scale bass is going to have some spot on the G string with reduced sustain. It's a matter of degree.

Excess weight is endemic to bass. You can make a bass that's relatively light, but you have to be very careful about the parts you use, and the particular piece(s) of wood that you start with. To do all that well is sorta the point of a custom shop or boutique instrument - production models are likely to be heavy, with some exceptions.

A dead E string may be location specific to dome degree - a bass that arrives in Turkey has had a fair amount of transit time on the boat, and has a fair chance of having dead strings. The first to die on a bass is typically the E string. Then again,even the guitar that comes from the Fender factory to the Hollywood Guitar Center might, after a few days of having the kids play the heck out of it, have a dead E string. One kid with sweaty, grimy hands, and the strings are toast.

A weak G string is a Musicman hallmark - some of it potentially related to the circuitry, which boosts lower frequencies (that don't occur on the G string). If you're finding that on passive basses, not sure what would cause that.

Not sure about misconnected electronics - that sounds a bit odd.

Anyway, I think most of what you're seeing is either stuff we deal with in the first world, or stuff that makes sense given that the thing has a long journey to get to your store. If you buy a set of strings more "locally" - maybe made somewhere in Europe, and pop them on a decent bass, I think you'll be fine, or at least as fine as if you were in the first world.

 

[Gunga Din]

'Turkey is a developing country' - fella, I was there last month with work and it looked anything like a 'developing country'!

I was just outside Istanbul for a week and it looked everything was doing a roaring trade!

Not buying it, fella.

 

[JW56789]

KK, for what it's worth, I can walk into any music store here in Nashville, TN ( . . . . . Music City USA ! ! . . . .), where we have lots of big music stores, and find exactly the same issues. Though I would posit that obviously it's a little more common on cheaper instruments.

 

[ole Jason]

Just buy an oud instead

 

[GTHintz]

This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but it's actually a sincere curiosity of mine.

I live in Turkey - which is a developing country. Whenever I go to a major music store to check some basses, I leave the store dissatisfied. Most of the (Fender) basses that I try have one of the following problems:

• Dead spot on G string
• Dull E string
• Weak G string
• Excess weight
• Misconnected electronics
• etc...

Mexican, American, Elite, etc; doesn't matter. Only Custom Shops and a few production basses seem to be OK.

I thought that this was a Fender QC sloppiness issue. However; I experienced the same with StingRay basses too. An Old Smoothie had the weakest G string I have ever seen (weaker than any other StingRay I played), and a shiny 5 string Special had a dead spot on the 7th fret of G string so bad that I could barely hear the note before it disappeared. That makes about 50% of all available StingRay basses.

I'm experienced enough to tell setup / EQ issues apart from acoustic / resonance issues; and the problems I'm talking about are definitely not setup / EQ issues.

So I can't help but ask: Do companies send defective basses to developing countries; assuming that they will be despairingly accepted? Or do fellow bass players in developed countries experience the same?

As of today; I'm hanging on to my rare impeccable American P Bass as hard as I can, because I don't know if / when I might encounter another one.

I don't know that your qc in Turkey could be too much worse than here in US but I notice that most new fenders suck. They really don't have anything special that makes you go WOW when you plug it in. Music man can be like that too. I find the older basses to have mojo and a wow vibe that new ones lack. I'd recommend brands like Yamaha, Spector euro, Warwick, they all seem to have more going for it than these new fenders. I think all 3 have a sort of fender bass style. I think the Yamaha Attitude is a cool take on a precision. It's got that vibe but better pickups and they really take great pride in their product quality. Billy Sheehan plays one too. I like how they sound. Good luck.

 

[arbiterusa]

So I can't help but ask: Do companies send defective basses to developing countries; assuming that they will be despairingly accepted?

I was the product manager/designer for a company that handled a lot of imports from China into America, and drop shipments from our suppliers in China to other nations (Argentina, India, Pakistan, etc). My boss did not send me on trips to China to examine container loads of guitars to make sure that they were "defective enough" to be sent to "developing nations", quite the opposite. These were lucrative deals for us. If I got one complaint on a shipment I might well have been fired. We took quality of items shipped to our international partners EXTREMELY seriously, more so than the US market to be honest.

You'd have to be out of your mind to send B-stock as your international shipments. Even back then in the late 1990s, international sales were a large part of our income stream. They're more so now, and they'll be much more in the future. America isn't going to be king of the world for much longer. The guys in the executive suites have known that for years. And been acting accordingly.

ETA: Turkey is not a developing country. You guys are pretty first-world these days.

 

[Bassamatic]

It may seem like a conspiracy, but no large manufacturer does the 100% inspection required to weed out the weaker or poor quality instruments, and send them to a particular location. In mass production, likely less than 5% are spot checked during production and pre-shipment. B Stock are usually returns and items used for demo and trade shows - not as common as you might think.

More likely, there is just a lot of poor quality instruments being turned out and not caught due to very lax QC procedures. It may be that the good quality ones are snapped up right away and the stores are left with the less desirable ones.

Turkey is a wonderful country! We hope to go back again soon. They are huge exporters of consumer electronics, among other products.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but it's actually a sincere curiosity of mine.

I live in Turkey - which is a developing country. Whenever I go to a major music store to check some basses, I leave the store dissatisfied. Most of the (Fender) basses that I try have one of the following problems:

• Dead spot on G string
• Dull E string
• Weak G string
• Excess weight
• Misconnected electronics
• etc...

Mexican, American, Elite, etc; doesn't matter. Only Custom Shops and a few production basses seem to be OK.

I thought that this was a Fender QC sloppiness issue. However; I experienced the same with StingRay basses too. An Old Smoothie had the weakest G string I have ever seen (weaker than any other StingRay I played), and a shiny 5 string Special had a dead spot on the 7th fret of G string so bad that I could barely hear the note before it disappeared. That makes about 50% of all available StingRay basses.

I'm experienced enough to tell setup / EQ issues apart from acoustic / resonance issues; and the problems I'm talking about are definitely not setup / EQ issues.

So I can't help but ask: Do companies send defective basses to developing countries; assuming that they will be despairingly accepted? Or do fellow bass players in developed countries experience the same?

As of today; I'm hanging on to my rare impeccable American P Bass as hard as I can, because I don't know if / when I might encounter another one.

I you are very close to the European Union, could you find a cheap ticket and buy a bass in Paris, London, or Berlin?

 

[BurningSkies]

You see: Conspiracy Theory

I see: typical mass-produced QC & upkeep in many retail outlets no matter the country.