Hey Fender- This is NOT cool!

[One Drop]

I'm sorry but that is stupid. Are these posts all from Fender shills? This is ridiculous! When you pay the money for a higher priced item, the aesthetics are a MAJOR player and only a dufus would say otherwise. Go ahead and pay $2K for your mismatched "tone master", and then bitch and moan when no one wants to pay more than $200 for your cheap-looking POS... Ok, so it's "hard" to match alder, so??? It's done. All. The. Time... And for that price point, it should be a given. Period. You get a 17-piece body that looks like poopie? Send it thru the LPB line!

The OP is 100% on point. That is a disgrace. For Fender... And all the Fender-apologists masquerading as "only the TONE matters, dude! We promise!" can go back to their cabal... How ridiculous! Do any of these zealots actually expect a reasonable person to accept such a ******** argument?

I'm sorry. I am normally not such a prick, but the "$@(& me in the @$$, and I will thank you later" perspective of some of these posts just got me a bit, well, zealous!

People obviously do in the main accept it because Fender continues to sell instruments based on this level of manufacture, and resell values hold up, which is proof your argument is specious.

As to telling people what they think is invalid because you yourself have different criteria, well, to each his own, right?

 

[Metalbasspro]

Ah another "my squier is better than any usa fender bass" thread. Listen to me, my fender american standard jazz bass has a pefrectly matched 3 piece alder body, trust me!
here it is:
View attachment 960809

But it seems to be a case where by a % do not match. If you are building guitars all day long I would imagine some will and some won't. Only one of my Jackson's has a one piece neck. The others are pressed at least in one place and I can't see under the paint in my newest. I don't think anyone was disputing every bass out there. Not yours either.

 

[Batmensch]

Meh, doesn't bother me.
AAMOF, I usually like these kinds of mismatches. IMO they give a bass character and individuality. Doesn't matter how much it costs, especially since it has no impact whatsoever on playability or sound.
And this attitude that this kind of mismatch on an somewhat expensive instrument is "deplorable", is, IMO, way beyond excessive, and anyone who thinks this is not a big deal being called out as a "Fender fanboy" is ridiculous.

 

[tzohn]

Aesthetics should follow function

 

[pasi]

This is completely untrue and total garbage. Early MIM fenders might have had a veneer but we're talking way back in the early 90s. I am so sick of these photos popping up again here on talkbass... they don't 'prove' anything. Could be from any factory anywhere. I've never seen anyone actually show photos of a Mexican fender that had a veneer top.

Yes ,totally agree this

 

[Bipslapper]

Solution - if you want a great USA Made Jazz Bass, buy a used Lull.....(if you can find one).

 

[basslifter]

Great pics. Point it out and make them an offer if it plays well...?

 

[svlilioukalani]

It seems like some people buy their basses to look at them, some buy them to play them.

It would be interesting to see how many pro players vs, amateurs care about matching grain on a fender. My bet is that pro level players mostly wouldn't care. When I play a Fender its all about tone and mojo. If I want a good looking bass I play my Alembic basses.

 

[TMARK]

Five pages on this? Really?

 

[AaronVonRock]

Meh. Matching wood grains isn't even on my list of considerations when buying a bass. I've actually never even thought about it until reading this thread.

 

[TMARK]

The existence of this thread bothers me.

 

[Johnny Alien]

1. We talk about $1200 like it is a high end custom piece. Like it or not $1200 is on the very low end of USA bass prices. There are tons of imports that sell for the same amount or more. Music Mans cost hundreds more, Lakland and Sadowsky thousands more. I understand that it's still quite a bit of money but we still need to recognize that it's a budget USA instrument in comparison.

2. Because of number one and the sheer number of basses that Fender builds it would be difficult to introduce stricter wood grain matching and continue to keep the price whee it's at. Of the other USA manufacturers I would say none of them come close to the amount of basses per month that Fender does. Could they do a better job at this? Sure...but the prices would go up and people would be complaining about that on the forums.

3. Fender has been doing this for years and years. You will find many vintage basses with the same thing going on. I had a Fullerton reissue with the most obvious 4 piece body I have ever seen. It was one of the best playing and sounding basses I have owned. It's a Fender thing. Some people like flame and quilt tops. I don't like them at all. I do happen to like the mis-matched body thing though.

 

[rogerbmiller]

The existence of this thread bothers me.

It bothers me too. Fender should just do a better job matching woods. Then posts like this wouldn't have to exist!

 

[rogerbmiller]

1. We talk about $1200 like it is a high end custom piece. Like it or not $1200 is on the very low end of USA bass prices. There are tons of imports that sell for the same amount or more. Music Mans cost hundreds more, Lakland and Sadowsky thousands more. I understand that it's still quite a bit of money but we still need to recognize that it's a budget USA instrument in comparison.

2. Because of number one and the sheer number of basses that Fender builds it would be difficult to introduce stricter wood grain matching and continue to keep the price whee it's at. Of the other USA manufacturers I would say none of them come close to the amount of basses per month that Fender does. Could they do a better job at this? Sure...but the prices would go up and people would be complaining about that on the forums.

3. Fender has been doing this for years and years. You will find many vintage basses with the same thing going on. I had a Fullerton reissue with the most obvious 4 piece body I have ever seen. It was one of the best playing and sounding basses I have owned. It's a Fender thing. Some people like flame and quilt tops. I don't like them at all. I do happen to like the mis-matched body thing though.

Or fender could just paint more of the basses that are poorly matched?

 

[petrus61]

This is completely untrue and total garbage. Early MIM fenders might have had a veneer but we're talking way back in the early 90s. I am so sick of these photos popping up again here on talkbass... they don't 'prove' anything. Could be from any factory anywhere. I've never seen anyone actually show photos of a Mexican fender that had a veneer top.

False. They were doing this on the MIM Std line at least until the mid 2000's. I know for a fact because I refinished several of them. Even the solid colors used a veneer. The MIM's that didn't use a veneer were the Classic and Artist series. Looking at some of the most recent MIM Std's, they do appear to have stopped using veneers, but that will have been a change made only in the last 10 years or so if it's the case.

 

[Johnny Alien]

Or fender could just paint more of the basses that are poorly matched?

You are talking about thousands of bodies being made. Introducing people to grade the bodies on a low priced USA instrument will bring up the cost. End of story. And a bass that has a price of $1200 is never going to sell for that. I have never gotten less than 20% off of a new Fender. So that is a sub $1000 bass at that point. This is TB. We assume everybody is a geek about this stuff like the people here and they aren't. If that bass sounds good it will sell. Why should Fender introduce extra layers of cost for the 2% of the population that cares about these things...even if it was 20%...the bass will sell. And the person that passes it up will just find another one that looks better to them.

 

[rogerbmiller]

You are talking about thousands of bodies being made. Introducing people to grade the bodies on a low priced USA instrument will bring up the cost. End of story. And a bass that has a price of $1200 is never going to sell for that. I have never gotten less than 20% off of a new Fender. So that is a sub $1000 bass at that point. This is TB. We assume everybody is a geek about this stuff like the people here and they aren't. If that bass sounds good it will sell. Why should Fender introduce extra layers of cost for the 2% of the population that cares about these things...even if it was 20%...the bass will sell. And the person that passes it up will just find another one that looks better to them.

You sure only 1 in 50 people would care?

 

[Tanner5382]

The reality of this situation is that if this was a different manufacturer a lot more people would be agreeing with the OP instead of defending the brand.

 

[flojob]

Cool man. Ill build yall a bass with tons of "mojo and tone" and yall give me 1200 bucks. You know...cheap and usa made.

 

[Bodeanly]

Five pages on this? Really?

I only read the first page and some of this one, but I came here to say that this "imperfection" would be the reason I bought this bass. Otherwise, I'd just be purchasing something that looks just like something else.