For better or worse, you will never again see a $1,500 (or $3,000) bass coming out of Fodera. Now that we have moved the building of everything here to the shop in Brooklyn, those price points just cannot economically happen. When you are building with all custom parts (except for our tuners), using all NY Metro Area, skilled artisan labor, providing health and retirement benefits and doing almost everything by hand with the very finest scarce materials, your ability to serve even the middle market really goes out the window.
That said, for better or worse, our Mission is to build the very highest quality stringed instruments that we are capable of. No compromises, no meeting price points...just getting things as perfect form, feel and tone-wise as we can.
Even the Standards started from asking the question, "if we build these using these techniques and in this volume, what would they cost?" We did not start them by saying "we have to build a bass for $X, how do we do it?"
It is a subtle, but profoundly different approach and one that suits the perfectionist, nut-job mentality that all of us here share (and cherish). Frankly there are a huge number of good builders that through both knowledge of automation and volume of sales will always be able to make (and service) a playable bass for far, far less money than we could ever hope to. We cannot beat them so why even try to join them?
Besides, none of us are personally interested in a making 1,000's of $1,000 basses. We greatly prefer having the time to view every instrument as special and associating it with the many extended members of the Fodera Family that are our customers and friends.
It is a decidedly anachronistic way of doing things, but its one that we hold dear and that we feel the World desperately needs to hold on to. Hopefully we will be able to for a very long time. Certainly all of you are a big part of that.
