Is Fender serious?

[MIJ Fender Guy]

In your humble opinion, which I disagree with.

I’ve a Nate Mendel and it’s great, I also have a Player II P neck purchased from a TB’r and it’s one of my favorites now. I also have a few MIA Fenders from 2008 to compare to.

Nothing wrong with MiM Fenders, just cause a few squeaky wheels want to spread BS.

There's good and bad out of all countries. I dislike mexican Fenders for various reasons. They are made to be cheap. MIJ are made to be good, and happen to be cheap-ish (usually).

If you think the MIA prices are reasonable for Fender to present, why not buy one?

 

[P. Aaron]

2 grand might get you a 1/2 decent bow on the DB side of Talk Bass.

 

[tb-player]

I bought a Nate Mendel Precision in 2018 from Sweetwater. $786.24 new. Wow!

 

[GretschWretch]

I'm not an FSO fan at all, but in one aspect, I wish I was; the modularity and availability of parts from a variety of sources. In that case, I'd spec and build my own and have a far better built bass (or guitar) that I actually wanted for far less money than an MIA, let alone the ludicrous prices any of the FCS go for, and especially with their limited options. Doing a Warmoth build would give me an MIA, at least to the same level as a Fender as I'm sure most of their hardware is sourced from overseas.

My gut tells me Fender is in a parlous state financially and Ca is a terrible place to do business, so I wonder how long they can survive trading on their name and history and little else. If one didn't care about the headstock and the name on it, everything they make, I can get better for less from other companies, and that's before I look at the used market.

Unfortunately, the headstock and the name on it are firmly fixed in bass mythology.

 

[MIJ Fender Guy]

Wow the JMJ Mustang is now 50 - unbelievable. That's $650 more than when it came out.

 

[MIJ Fender Guy]

I bought a Nate Mendel Precision in 2018 from Sweetwater. $786.24 new. Wow!

View attachment 7443538

Almost tripled. A disgrace.

 

[T McClure]

In your humble opinion, which I disagree with.

I’ve a Nate Mendel and it’s great, I also have a Player II P neck purchased from a TB’r and it’s one of my favorites now. I also have a few MIA Fenders from 2008 to compare to.

Nothing wrong with MiM Fenders, just cause a few squeaky wheels want to spread BS.

Right. I don't get how people can write off all MIM stuff when these very signature basses are often repeatedly posted by people here as some of their favorites Fender makes. The Flea and JMJ get near universal love, and that wouldn't be the case if MIM stuff had serious QC issues.

 

[DTF]

There's good and bad out of all countries. I dislike mexican Fenders for various reasons. They are made to be cheap. MIJ are made to be good, and happen to be cheap-ish (usually).

If you think the MIA prices are reasonable for Fender to present, why not buy one?

they make things in japan to be cheap , id love to try one ,they arent as common here for obvious reasons , i dont think there are many things produced in japan that arent of extremely high quality

 

[DTF]

I bought a Nate Mendel Precision in 2018 from Sweetwater. $786.24 new. Wow!

View attachment 7443538

 

[DTF]

Just to add a little perspective, a Fender Jazz bass had a list price of $271 in 1965. Adjusted for inflation, that is equivalent to about $2,800 today. I picked 1965 because that is the year my Jazz is from, although I bought it used in 1972 for about $200. I was debating whether to buy a decent used car or the bass. I went for the bass.

I know that this is somewhat an apples to oranges, and not a direct comparison, but I wanted to point out that we bassists have much more available to us, at much higher quality and generally lower prices, relatively, than in the past.

thats 7.5 oz of gold in 1965 , today 7.5 oz of gold would be almost 40k , theyre practically giving these things away

 

[Jeff Scott]

Here's something interesting from a play I did of their new Jazz ... it has a third, unmarked knob on it which I cannot figure out. It does literally nothing. I played with the thing in all the ways that I could think of to get a different response out of the knob, and couldn't.

That's the optional Producer Knob.

 

[BassicJazzy]

Now ya don't need a - NEW - "ROAD WORN" bass. That makes NO sense. There are lots of them on the market already that are "road worn" with road time on them for under $1k

I think those were designed back in the day of the grunge bands so it would appear the musicians had actually played their instruments for a little while before performing on stage. Otherwise, how would the audience know?

 

[andare]

There's good and bad out of all countries. I dislike mexican Fenders for various reasons. They are made to be cheap. MIJ are made to be good, and happen to be cheap-ish (usually).

If you think the MIA prices are reasonable for Fender to present, why not buy one?

My MIJ is a 93 PB62. Basswood body that is so soft that several screw holes are stripping, muddy ceramic pickups, small tuners with low gear ratio, unbranded electronics, plastic nut. It's made to be cheap. It's just not made sloppily or in a rush like many MIMs.
MIJs are not cheap anymore either. Nothing is.

 

[BassicJazzy]

Ditto. One Fender bass is enough for me.

Let's stick with our Rics, Jeff!

As for FSOs, I have been very happy with my new Sire P5 Fretless. I got it on sale for $350 and it's just as good (better in some ways) than my Am Pro II Fender. New ones cost about $2,000 lately. My Sire has no QC issues, the neck is awesome, and the pickup is better than the stock V Mod II pickup that came in my Am Pro II Fender. I'm going to stick with Sire or a similar brand if I want an FSO. MIM and MIA Fenders are no longer worth the extra cost!

I was waiting to hear how you liked that bass. Glad it plays well, they first came out in Europe and it took a year to get them in USA. My P5R fretted is outstanding.

Fender needs to revisit their business model.

 

[andare]

Now ya don't need a - NEW - "ROAD WORN" bass. That makes NO sense. There are lots of them on the market already that are "road worn" with road time on them for under $1k

RW basses are not just reliced, they are nitro. No nitro basses under $1k are available AFAIK.

 

[MIJ Fender Guy]

My MIJ is a 93 PB62. Basswood body that is so soft that several screw holes are stripping, muddy ceramic pickups, small tuners with low gear ratio, unbranded electronics, plastic nut. It's made to be cheap. It's just not made sloppily or in a rush like many MIMs.
MIJs are not cheap anymore either. Nothing is

A MIJ Heritage precision, their top of the line, goes for about 1500 on eBay. It’s their version of American Vintage. I’ve owned at least 30 fenders, many of them were American vintage, American, original, etc., and the Heritage I own right now is better than all of them. It’s nitro, CTS pots, cloth wire, slab board, etc. It feels a lot more like a Music Ma build than a Fender.

I used to waste my time with Mexican and American Fender, I would always see the people on here talking about Japanese fenders, but I would always dismiss it. Then I just decided to take a chance and buy one, and that was it, I would never buy anything else at this point.

Their entry-level precision, the Traditional II series, is about eight or 900 bucks. It blows the Player series away in every category, especially looks. The Heritage series is roughly the price of a road worn Vintera, which it annihilates in every category possible.

My point is just to let people know that if you have a problem with Mexican or American fender, get familiar with and seek a new Japanese Fender import. You’ll never be happier.

 

[MIJ Fender Guy]

I think what you got there is one of the first production basses when Fender moved production from US to Japan. I have heard the initial runs were terrible quality until the factory figured out how to manufacture them properly.

My '90 Jazz Plus was in the final production years of USA production, and was extremely well made. By '93 they had moved most of production to Japan, though a few models were still in process in US and got stamped '94. But the factory in US was pretty much closed by then.

So you got a beta version at best, and perhaps a "Friday afternoon car" as they used to say in the auto industry.

No that was about a decade earlier and the initial quality was top-notch, so much so that they were better than the US made Fenders at the time

 

[BassicJazzy]

No that was about a decade earlier and the initial quality was top-notch, so much so that they were better than the US made Fenders at the time

You are right. I guess they replaced the Jazz Plus with a different model, I had the dates wrong on the Japan thing. Thank you for correcting me. Somehow I had gotten that impression when researching serial numbers on my bass.

 

[tb-player]

 

[PNC7]

Are people out there actually buying Fenders at full price? I always assume you take 10% off as the max you ever have to pay if you even put in minimal effort or patience.

The Player II series have felt really high quality to me for the price they came out at - now that they’re creeping up there to $900 base it’s getting a little crazy though.