EXACTLY! thats why half the fender owners here have a badass 2 bridge on thier fender... and new pickups...and a preamp installed. And one model offered this, clearly it wasnt that popular since ive never heard of it nor have i heard a single thread about it in recent months. That being said i was talking about current models.... how can you defend a company with those statments after thier 2008 line... im guessing someone called fender for the first time in 5 years and were like... umm hi ... u realize theres all these companies offering better stock parts on your designs... then fender finally decided to revamp thier models. SO clearly somthing was wrong the past 5 or so years if they had to revamp the **** out of everything. And im not even talking about being innovative by making a new body shape and marketing it. They created the most replicated classic bass styles ever... obviously they are going to cash in on it, im talking about bang for the buck and evolution of the product line in comparison to modern competitors.
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Why is Fender so Popular?
- Thread starter ArpeggiFish
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EXACTLY! thats why half the fender owners here have a badass 2 bridge on thier fender... and new pickups...and a preamp installed. And one model offered this, clearly it wasnt that popular since ive never heard of it nor have i heard a single thread about it in recent months. That being said i was talking about current models.... how can you defend a company with those statments after thier 2008 line... im guessing someone called fender for the first time in 5 years and were like... umm hi ... u realize theres all these companies offering better stock parts on your designs... then fender finally decided to revamp thier models. SO clearly somthing was wrong the past 5 or so years if they had to revamp the **** out of everything. And im not even talking about being innovative by making a new body shape and marketing it. They created the most replicated classic bass styles ever... obviously they are going to cash in on it, im talking about bang for the buck and evolution of the product line in comparison to modern competitors.
There's nothing innovative in a new body shape. That's the problem...and why so many other "hipper / better / boutique bass companies aren't even very innovative AT ALL in their offerings.
34" scale? check.
Magnetic pickups? check.
trussrod reinforced neck? check.
4 or 5 strings? check
those were "innovations" from 50+ years ago, but simply adding a schnazzier bridge or active electronics or fancier woods or an extra inch on scale length or what have you are simply alterings or refinements, not innovations. And 95% of companies still owe Fender a pat on the back in their following the majority of these simple guidelines in their own wares (read: Sadowsky, Lakland, Avella Coppolo, etc), pointy bodyshapes or exotic woods be damnned (read BC Rich, Warwick, etc), color me unimpressed. Sure, subtle differences could be considered better, or define the brand (bell brass frets, luthite bodies) but on the whole they're just variations on a basic set of attributes that endure, that were introduced by FENDER. Get it straight and show some respect. You may not like their offerings, and that is awesome, but give credit where it is rightfully owed.
Of the past 50 years, what would you consider true innovations? HEre's a couple I think of off the top of my head
Carbon fiber contruction.
Lightwave pickups.
Fanned Frets.
Piezo element bridge pickups
Headless design with micrometer style bridge tuners
2 tek bridge (which effectively takes fancy woods out of the equation and exposes them for the mere window dressings they are)
Spector style sculpted ergonomic body contour
Extended range instruments (6 + strings)
Torzal Twist
Yup....any others? A french curve nightmare body design is not an innovation.
I'd take that out one more step.
Yeah, a bunch of people here on TB may make a mod or two to their Fenders, but out in the "real world", most people seem leave them alone, and just play them.
Of the countless Fenders I've encountered out in the real world playing, darned few had any kinds of mods.
At least his estimate is coming down; it went from 90% in his first post to now 50%.
I have a fender P-bass. Sure, MTD basses have a lot more specs and features and stuff, but so what? The fender precision is MY sound. It is such an effective sound that thousands of other bassists in the world can also call it theirs. I think that is one reason why they are so popular. My $0.02
I'll stick with my non-Fenders. Leo designed his basses to do what he thought they should do back in the day. This isn't even remotely close to how I play. I also have my own sounds.
I'm going to comment on this, even though I didn't make the original comment. You need to put the whole thing into perspective and look at some history.
There's a whole aftermarket of parts for fenders... bridges, pickups, pickguards, even necks. Why is that? These companies wouldn't be in business if people weren't buying these parts.
Even companies like Warmoth got started not for people to build their own bass, but for upgraded parts. See the thing is times have changed. When Warmoth (Boogie Bodies) and DiMarzio and Leo Quan started making parts for Fenders, there weren't all these newer active basses and stuff on the market. Back in 1976, if you wanted a new pickup or neck for your P bass, you had to get Fender parts. Or stick some other pickup in your bass. And people did, because they wanted something different.
Back in the 70's, bass players had about 4 choices of a pro bass to purchase. Gibsons and Guilds weren't always so popular, and Ric's had a very distinctive tone. Some people are fine with things just the way they come from the factory, but a lot of people aren't. I can name three off the top of my head... Marcus Miller, Geddy Lee and Jeff Berlin. All three of them modded their Fenders to make them better to them. Now you can have a custom bass built for not much more than a high end production model. But that was very rare back then.
Because the choices are wider now, you might want to buy a Fender precisely because of it's "traditional" tone. So the players that are using Fenders want that tone, and the other players are playing something else, because they didn't have to get a Fender and then mod it.
I did a lot of mods to my '74 Fender P, and my two '74 Rics. Now I don't need those mods, because I have other basses, so I'm restoring the Rics back to stock, for those times I want that particular tone. I no longer own a Fender, but I wouldn't mind having a P bass set up with flats for that same reason.
And the other thing is some people either just don't care, or don't know any better. Whatever tone thery get is fine, even if it sounds like everyone else.
There are a LOT of posts here with people replacing their pickups in their new Fenders and asking for advice. Some of it is because some of the pickups Fender offers just aren't as good as the originals, and the other reason is the same as why people were putting Dimarzio and Bartolini Hi-A pickups in their P basses back in the 70's, and EMG's in the 80's... because those replacement pickups got a different tone that the players wanted, and still do.
So there's nothing wrong with Fenders, but they can't do some things as well as some other basses, and an Alembic doesn't sound like a P bass either. And that's OK.
The thing is the prevailing lack of originality in much of popular music these days. Too many bands trying to sound exactly alike. You don't get that impact like the first time you heard Chris Squire's or Stanley Clarke's tone. I love Motown, but that was like 40 years ago! Let's move on, shall we?
And popularity does not equal quality, otherwise we would all like crap like Britney Spears (or who ever is the latest flavor of the week, I haven't listened to the radio in years)! Popularity often comes down to the lowest common denominator. Walk into Guitar Center and look at basses. You don't even see some of the basses the are available. And that's the way companies like Fender and Gibson want it.
You can change the comment above to "Of the countless players I've encountered out in the real world playing, darned few did anything new or different."
Yes, but 50% of those buying new pickups have no idea what they sound like until they install them, and 90% change them back to the original.
What do you base those figures on?
Obviously no one knows what a pickup might sound like in their bass, but often people hear sound clips and the like.
I've read enough posts right on this forum to see that 90% of those people do not put the stock pickups back in, and from my own experience installing pickups for people over the last 30 years. People are generally happy with their purchase, and if they don't like the pickups, they go for something else. There was a reason they wanted to replace the original pickups after all. They didn't just do it to spend money! They weren't entirely happy with the stock pickups, which is why they went looking for alternatives.
So there's nothing wrong with Fenders, but they can't do some things as well as some other basses, and an Alembic doesn't sound like a P bass either. And that's OK.
The thing is the prevailing lack of originality in much of popular music these days. Too many bands trying to sound exactly alike. You don't get that impact like the first time you heard Chris Squire's or Stanley Clarke's tone.
Amen!!
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