Comments

• Buco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce

  June 4 edited June 4 Posts: 5,993

  So incredibly short-sighted. But most likely it's a move made out of despair. Like, either we give this a shot, roll a dice, pray it lands well for us or we're going under very soon. As Tim said, if they made great guitars they wouldn't have this problem. Never was a "tone deaf" more fitting as a pun.

  Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  June 4 Posts: 880

  https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/125513#Comment_125513

  I would not personally be sad to see Fender or Gibson go out of business. I think that's really doubtful, I think they are both cash cows. I like Squier and Epiphone because I think their instruments are decent quality for the price but the big names really feel like they are searching over corpses trying to get whatever $$$$$ they can.

  It is super odd to me, I went to buy an amp from a guy and he had a couple strats and he's like this one is a blah blah blah aniversary model, there's only 120 of them made, and in my head I'm like, white strat that looks like every other white strat. Then he points to another one and he's like that's a blah blah signature model and I'm like, black strat, looks like every other black strat. I'm sure they play fine and he was a good musician I think but I don't get it, it's like collecting limited edition plates or something.
• Buco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce

  June 5 Posts: 5,993

  To me it feels like the only reason Fender let this laughable campaign go forward, is that they're in trouble financially. I read that they were approved a 40m line of credit recently and the article was indicating that if the company seeks an emergency line of credit, that's not a sigh of good financial health.

  I don't know much about Gibson other than they filled for bankruptcy in recent years. But they did win a lawsuit against Dean just last year and its use of the V shapes. So perhaps that's what encouraged the corporate heads at Fender. Bill reminded me yesterday that they lost a suit vs PRS over the LP body shape. First they won but then PRS appealed and it was upheld. So the whole thing can be a murky territory legally. But Leo Fender never copyrighted the Stratocaster body shape. He did protect the headstock. So it seems he intentionally left the body shape in public domain.

  It would make me sad to see them go down. Because of the people who started the brands and the people who built the brands into what they are. I'm surprised that there is so much criticism over the current quality of Fender guitars, even the high end models. I haven't played anything recently but the Internet reviews are generally very favorable.

  Lastly, do we even know if this effort comes from Fender leadership or Servco Pacific? (maybe that's been addressed in one of YT videos but I don't watch them) They're the ones with a majority stake ownership. They're mostly a car dealerships company. They bought Fender as a turnaround investment. I don't know much about corporate business but isn't that the term when you buy a business that's not doing well but you believe you can make it profitable again?

  

  Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel