Fender Fanned Fret?

[Rabidhamster]

 

[Watchootognbout]

Why would anyone choose to wrestle with Fender to get what they can easily get from other makers?
Why would anyone expect Fender to do what a handful of other makers successfully do?

 

[Bitterdale]

Extremely doubtful. They'd buy a fanned fret brand before they make a Fender with fanned frets.

Exactly. This is how Fender operates.

 

[Jack Butler]

I actually disagree. If they thought they could make enough profit they would do it. They don't think they could sell enough of them to make it worthwhile for them. They are likely correct.

Fender IS the resistance and no amount of money will tempt them to stray from that.

 

[Jack Butler]

Why would anyone choose to wrestle with Fender to get what they can easily get from other makers?
Why would anyone expect Fender to do what a handful of other makers successfully do?

and not only that, why would Fender do it for a very niche market.

 

[Naviiin]

Meh, not holding my breath. I do wish some companies who do the whole FSO thing would consider doing like a straight up traditional P bass, but multiscale and headless. Kinda go crazy with the concept instead of doing 90% of what current day Fender does.

 

[Phaidrus]

I actually disagree. If they thought they could make enough profit they would do it. They don't think they could sell enough of them to make it worthwhile for them. They are likely correct.

Well, I have the impression Fender retain a degree of idealism (or traditionalism, if you wish) and hence are not driven entirely by the principle of financial profit.

 

[ardgedee]

If Fender ever experiments with multiscale, it will be with a 7-string guitar, not a bass. The guitar market is many times larger than the bass market and they're going to go where the volume benefits them.

Has Fender ever even made a 35" single-scale bass? That's a configuration common enough these days to be unremarkable, but I don't think Fender's tried it yet on any of their brand or sub-brand lines.

 

[burpgun]

No.

at least… I hope not. I can't think of a more disastrous endeavour. (Bass wise) I'd imagine it to be a complete failure worse than the Dimension episode. (Not that there's anything wrong with them. Just that it didn't work for Fender. At all).

This right here. I didn't like the Dimension but it was Fender trying something different and the market saying "nope."

 

[Killing Floor]

Except for a clever scale modification every fanned fret bass is an end to end spec-wise copy of a Fender.

That's not a slam on anyone, it's simply an inarguable fact. If you're Fender and you singularly created an industry and the demand for that industry and the demand for all the followers why on earth would you touch a toe to someone else's niche adaptation?

Maybe in 30 years if every other bass was multi scale and Fender was no longer the largest seller they might have to react. But the more likely case is they don't.

For the record fanned/multi scale is a clever idea. Not knocking it. Just answering the OP.

 

[DeltaPhoenix]

I bet that it's way more likely for EBMM to build a FF bass. They have the Kaizen and Majesty multi scale guitars. They have taken design chances. IF EBMM built a multi scale bass, I certainly would be interested in trying it out.

 

[dabbler]

[QUOTE="_Obra_, post: 28462087, member: 186851...

IMHO I don't see any real need for it except for visual and unnecessary different.[/QUOTE]

It may not be a real "need", but I honestly believe that a 34-37 inch 5 string Jazz with a good pre that had a passive mode with a passive tone control (something along the lines of what Site has) would find a pretty decent following.

Hmmm, maybe Sire should make one.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

It took FMIC 20 years to develop a 5 string P pickup (if you consider the Stingray 5 the onset of the 5 string bass revolution). Why? Simple. FMIC developed 5 string J pickups and they didn't think they'd have to do anything else.
Leo Fender was an innovator. The last innovation FMIC (as CBS) did for bass guitar was the ill fated Bass V in 1965. And id like them to bring that back, with a bridge that can handle a low B.

 

[Jefenator]

If you were the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, would you want to invest a bunch in R&D & marketing, only to have your new product be measured against Dingwall's Super P & Super J?

 

[dabbler]

Why would anyone choose to wrestle with Fender to get what they can easily get from other makers?
Why would anyone expect Fender to do what a handful of other makers successfully do?

Oh, I don't know. Remember when Porsche said they would NEVER make an SUV because they were a CAR company?

The potential to expand one's market, and profits, has guided companies into new directions before.

 

[dabbler]

If you were the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, would you want to invest a bunch in R&D & marketing, only to have your new product be measured against Dingwall's Super P & Super J?

Ummm, even if it wasn't the BEST fan fret J the fact that it said "Fender" on the headstock would attract a certain demographic.

 

[Jefenator]

Ummm, even if it wasn't the BEST fan fret J the fact that it said "Fender" on the headstock would attract a certain demographic.

I wonder...
Might want to run some focus groups before tooling up.

 

[40Hz]

Don't count on it.
Putting a 5th string on and batteries inside them was as bold a move as they've made since the Jazz bass.

If you ignore the Dimension series. Which the Fender diehards roundly rejected because "t wasn't a PB or JB."

So much for trying to innovate. No good deed goes unpunished as the saying goes.

 

[J Wilson]

Changing string length (while keeping constant tension) is one approach to covering a wide range of frequencies, but the string gauges still have to do most of the heavy lifting.

On a 5 string bass, the B string is tuned to less than a third of the frequency of the G string. If you start with a 34 inch G string, the B string for the same tension with the same diameter string would be 108.6 inches long (that's a bit over 9 feet).

Dingwalls have an 8.8 percent change in scale length. To compensate for that change in scale length, a diameter change of 4.3 percent (there's a square root involved in the math) is necessary. I'm happy with 130 gauge strings on my 5s' (I like low tension). On a 37 inch scale, I could go with a 125 (the math says 124.6, if you want to split hairs) for the same tension. Not a big difference, really. The key is no matter what scale length you pick, you have to design the string to work well with that, and (unfortunately) commercially available 5 string sets fail at that.

If you're looking to Physics to solve the floppy B string problem (forgive me for introducing Science and a lifetime of Engineering to the problem), you can do much more with the right string gauge than you can with scale length on a practical instrument. Floppy B strings are a string problem.

Thanks, micguy. Wasn't aware of these things and I appreciate the lesson.

All the Best,

JW

 

[Grahams Groove]

Except for a clever scale modification every fanned fret bass is an end to end spec-wise copy of a Fender.

How do you figure? Super P and Super J, yes - they say as much in the name. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, Dingwall (DRoc, ABZ), Maruszczyuk, Schecter, Ibanez, and a few others all makes models that deviate from traditional Fender specs with bridges, pickup config/spacing, body shape, and/or preamps.