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My reliable source confirmed something....

#61
JimmyM said:
Like you would do any different if you owned Fender. Rule number one is "If it sells, it stays." And the P,J, Tele, and Strat all sell bigtime to this day. If they didn't, they would be gone. As a matter of fact, until Hendrix came along, the Strat was about to get cut and he saved it. It isn't the manufacturers driving the market...it's the market driving the manufacturers.
Click to expand...

Not always true. Apple has pretty much created many of their own markets in recent years and have been very successful doing so (think iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc...). Innovation and being first to market can give you some significant advantages... including helping you drive the market :cool:
 
#63
jmattbassplaya said:
Not always true. Apple has pretty much created many of their own markets in recent years and have been very successful doing so (think iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc...). Innovation and being first to market can give you some significant advantages... including helping you drive the market :cool:
Click to expand...
And the second those Apple products quit selling, they will be gone.
 
#67
It's all about reputation and brand recognition.

Where your run-o-the-mill guy doesn't know every last model that Fender sells or probably even name 2 or 3 Fender products off the top of his head, he KNOWS they make guitars and that they are famous for making "quality" instruments (even if they aren't all the time lol). In this sense, the average Joe with some pocket money to spend on learning an instrument is probably going to go with something he hears about most as opposed to one the guitar store guys are schlepping to him as "better".

When it comes to sales and marketing, in some cases you can't fight the brand for long if at all. Working in the audio department at a Best Buy years ago, it took every bit of effort to get people away from the Bose crap and onto a better set of headphones that perform better and without the premium price tag. Sometimes people are obsessed with how cool they will LOOK with this gear as opposed to how well it works. While Shure or Sennheiser might make a far superior headset to Bose, people want to brag about their headphones and then the placebo effect takes place in the minds of these oh-so-savvy shoppers that don't let the salesman "trick them" lol. I'll admit, my first reaction to the Squier VM series when a guy at a guitar store handed me one was "What do I look like? A kid?", until I PLAYED it and my gosh was I blown away. STILL have that bass to this day!
 
#69
As a side note to people not believing this.... I did not ask my source about this information. I don't even know if he's on talkbass. He brought this up out of the clear blue.. i'm guessing to express his distaste for what has/is going to happen. I have ZERO reason to think he said this to get a rise out of me or anything else.
 
#70
gustobassman said:
As a side note to people not believing this.... I did not ask my source about this information. I don't even know if he's on talkbass. He brought this up out of the clear blue.. i'm guessing to express his distaste for what has/is going to happen. I have ZERO reason to think he said this to get a rise out of me or anything else.
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I don't think he's trying to get a rise out of you, but rather repeating rumor he's heard from other "reliable sources".......probably right here on TB!!!!!


:)
 
#75
chadds said:
You are comparing apples and oranges. :)
...and your opinion is based on what you were comparing. That's fair. The SWR pro gear was quite different sonically from the WP series. Genz also has different tone and packaging goals. SWR's peak was easily a decade before Genz started really selling some product.
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I am not debating that at all.. I am actually saying that SWR is not what it once was .. and that was a response to Growly Lytes who put SWR & Genz on the same tier and IMO they are not.

steubig said:
i had a brief chat with jeff genzler at namm this past month.
my understanding of what he said was that he will be doing amp r&d/design for fender.
i offered that i hoped the suits would let him continue to do good work.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm ............. So I wonder if that means we will be seeing some Fender Shuttles .. or SLs..
 
#76
My local dealer, where I've been going for years, told me the he was liquidating his Genz inventory.
Said the Fender distribution rep told him Genz and SWR were on hold.
The rep also apparently also hinted that something new would be coming out of Fender within the next year, that bass amp sales were down and expressed some dismay because Genz was selling well for them.
Local dealer was also feeling let down, he sold a good bit of shuttles and streamliners.
I went back a few days later and purchased a brand bew 6.2 with bag for the same as used prices on TB which is pretty low by local standards.
 
#77
Fender is performing very poorly as a business and this seems to be one of the results.

Look what happened when they tried to go public. Flopola. Tons of business and economics articles out there about Fender losing quite a bit of steam lately.

I speculated when the Chinese factory started doing Fenders alongside the Squiers that it was hedging against losses in the Mexican facilities. It would not surprise me if MIM guitars became MIC guitars and those facilities were used for something else, amps or accessories or something, or shuttered altogether.

Maybe Mexican-made 'GB by Fender' and Chinese 'SWRDesign' amps and cabs?
 
#78
I wonder if perhaps they are thinking that the days of the $2K 48lb head are over with for the average musician and they want to get in the market now, and in a better way than they have been able to in the recent past. I heard a few of their Rumble heads.. they were OK.. not bad .. but maybe it was just me .. the Shuttles sounded better.. the SLs blew them out of the water... so did the MkB heads in fact.. so maybe considering steubig's post, they want to do it right. I don't think we have seen the last of the design because it is just too good. For the Shuttles and the SLs.
 
#80
jeffbonny said:
Maybe they'd buy them and immediately shut them down like Fender did with Tacoma.
Click to expand...

Possible if you look at FMIC/Fender's past history with brands they aquire.

The Fender/SUNN connection. 1985 Bill Schultz gets Fender but no factories. Fender Japan makes product till the Corona, CA factory is completed. Fender still has no major manufacturing facility for it's amp line. Enter SUNN which FMIC purchased. Fender gets a facility already in place to build amps under the Fender name. No one will know if FMIC ever seriously planned to give SUNN new blood but Fender amps lived on through the old SUNN factory.

The Guild / Tacoma connection. FMIC gets Guild in 1995 and limps along with the line which was really suffering from poor sales when they were bought. Basically Guild is used to "teach" Fender Corona how to build acoustic guitars. In 2001 all Guild production moves to Corona. 2004 FMIC buys Tacoma. A company with wood sources and a manufacturing facility in place. Tacoma goes bye bye but Guild lives on. Guild being a more recognized brand. FMIC buys KMC and moves Guild there to focus on quality US made acoustics and Fender has learned how to make acoustic guitars.

The Fender/SWR connection. Who knows why they bought SWR? IMO SWR was dead the day Steve Rabe left. Maybe FMIC realized that and decided to put them on hold rather them continue with new designs. I still love the SWR sound but only the early stuff. Sad to see them go though.

The Fender/Genz Benz connection. This is just my .02 as all we know is Jeff is now doing R&D for Fender and Fender is handling GB customer service. I can confirm from a very reliable source that GB no longer operates their independent facility in Scottsdale, AZ. Make of that what you will.

OK Fender has tube bass amps covered totally with the new 100T and 300T. Those who want "big iron" with the Fender name on it are covered. Entry level stuff is covered by the Rumble line which IMO is decent but not what I'd call "pro" level stuff.

What Fender does not have and has no experience in, is a line of modern pro level micro class D amps. Fender has to see that class D isn't going away and they have no current line to offer. To me it makes more sense from a cost standpoint to look within your current list of companies and see who has experience in pro class D and has a manufacturing facility in place to produce them. Genz Benz fits the bill and I think it would be cheaper than Fender starting from scratch. I would not be surprised to see the GB line and name fade away only to be replaced with Fender class D branded amps. Or Fender "learns" from GB and then GB goes the way of other companies that FMIC has swallowed up.

Look at the history. Fender has ALWAYS done what's best for Fender. That will never change. Any companies that FMIC buys will be part of a plan that makes sure that the Fender brand is the one that benefits in the end.

Keep Low :bassist:
 

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