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What is it about Fender?

#43
Others have already stated why Fender is so popular so I'll just quickly say why I chose a Fender. All I wanted was a passive bass with one pickup. It's something so simple, yet surprisingly hard to find. I found that most Precision copies had a combination of the following things I didn't want: way too expensive, jazz pickup in the bridge, active electronics, undesirable finishes, maple fretboards. Fender was the only company I could find that made a quality instrument with the exact features & sound I wanted.

I still look around for single-pickup basses, and I've yet to find anything as good as a P Bass in that price range.
 
#44
curbowkid said:
I think of fender like the PC of basses. Yea it was the original but there's still room to grow. I find Warwick and jens Ritter to be the MACs of the bass world. And if anyone knows anything about mac and pc. Steve jobs took an already invented thing, pc, and made it better, mac
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LOL - I always thought of Fender as the Mac of bass world: Although they didn't invent the bass (like Xerox with the GUI), Fender did perfect and innovate the design for masses (like Apple with the first Mac), but (like early 80s Steve Jobs) Leo was lazy and sloppy with patenting and marketing the product and their design was was taken and copied by competitors (a la Microsoft).
...If you really want to get crazy, you can even draw a parallel to Fender's CBS era and the decade Apple was operating sans Steve Jobs. Furthermore, both Apple and Fender also got their crap together after a horrible range of products in the 90s and really shined in the 2000s to today. Lastly, both companies are also great examples of the Halo effect in marketing: giving customers a great experience with their entry-level products (iPods/Squire CV series) to encourage customers to purchase the big-ticket items (MacBook Pros/American Deluxes, etc). Okay, rant over.

I actually just came here to say I've tried a lot of brands, but Fender is the only one that feels like home. Ever since I first saw a picture of Roger Waters with a P bass as a kid, I knew there something special. Ironically, I wish I could change my SN... I hate advertising that I'm a fanboy!
 
#46
In addition to everything else said. Fenders are very easy to adjust and repair. I think that was a big selling point early on over Gibsons and Rics.

Nowadays, because of their early success and interchangeable design, there are thousands of aftermarket parts available built to Fender spec making modding a fender/squier the cheapest and easiest route to getting a custom tailored instrument.
 
#47
A lot of us are just stubborn and stuck in our ways!

I play Fenders because I like the way P-basses sound and feel. I'm sure there are better-made instruments out there, but Fender is kind of the first choice since they make more Precisions than anyone else, and they're sold everywhere. Maybe some day I'll buy a Sadowsky or a Lakland, but hell, I live in a major city and I've never even seen one on a music store wall...
 
#49
BassDaddy77 said:
I think it's the balance of great ergonomics, playability, and a bass tone that most people associate with. Leo wasted nothing in his bass designs - form follows function.
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+1. He got it right.
eems like everyone else, except maybe Hofner, has simply tried to take the original Fender design, tone, etc, and expand on it some way or another so they can put their name on it.
 
#50
Holliwood said:
My 5 string will be a fender P bass.
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Although I'm definitely a Fender player(I own 5, atm), I've never thought they did 5ers all that well - I've never played a Fender 5 string that had a good B string, which is kinda the whole point of playing a 5er, IMO...

I'd recommend checking out a Music Man for your 5 string needs - even the new imports are really good, if you don't want to spring for SR5 prices...


- georgestrings
 
#52
klokker said:
+1. It's unreal really.
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and there is something to be said for a bass that you can plug and play in just about any situation, that lets you get a good, usable, band-friendly tone in a couple minutes.

Maybe not for the 'my tone is the soul of the band and as such must never be compromised regardless of gig location, duration, compensation or intent' crowd...:bassist:

mind you I am playing my SUB more than anything right now...but always have a P around for this very reason..show up, plug in, sound fine....l:)
 
#53
georgestrings said:
Although I'm definitely a Fender player(I own 5, atm), I've never thought they did 5ers all that well - I've never played a Fender 5 string that had a good B string, which is kinda the whole point of playing a 5er, IMO...

I'd recommend checking out a Music Man for your 5 string needs - even the new imports are really good, if you don't want to spring for SR5 prices...


- georgestrings
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+1 In fact, IMHO the first (and best) 5 string P bass was the G&L 5000, obviously a Leo design. Something tells me that if it bore the Fender name, it would still be in production. :smug:
 
#56
There may be a parallel with certain drum machines that were ubiquitous in early periods ofd certain genres of music. Once the consumer and the producer got used to that '808' sound, everyoine had to have that 808 sound, to the extent that modern drum machies capable of much more sophististicated sound production are prety much required to have an 808 emulation and are judged to soem extent on their 808 emulation.

So given the many hours of listening to recordings with Fender basses we're conditioned to that sound and according to some posts here, sound engineers are as well. Which is not to say that sound would never have been as common if it wasn't an instrument that players couldn't relate to.

I do not own a Fender. I will probably never own a Fender, but I recognize and want that sound.
 
#57
curbowkid said:
And if anyone knows anything about mac and pc. Steve jobs took an already invented thing, pc, and made it better, mac
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BOO! Macs are bollocks...impossible to use, only one mouse button when I used them and far too goddamn expensive! Besides, Apple (now dead steve jobs) sued Apple (half dead best band in the world even 50 years on) so quite honestly, **** 'em...PC TIL I DIE
 
#58
MikeyThrottler said:
... and they're sold everywhere. Maybe some day I'll buy a Sadowsky or a Lakland, but hell, I live in a major city and I've never even seen one on a music store wall...
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this too - many, many folks are geographically separated from the Lakland etc dealers of the world.....but just about any town of 20,000 people will have a Fender dealer...

also you could play bass for 40 years, but unless you get all geeky about it like us who frequent these forums, you could have no idea that Lakland, Sadwosky, Ritter etc exist....heck you might not even be aware of much other than Fender, Gibson, Peavey and Ibanez or Yamaha....
 

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