Fender Custom Shop Disappointment

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

I can’t really speak as I’m as guilty as the next person, but some do get drawn into the Fender CS market expecting something that’s going to be better or equal to a quality vintage instrument. For a lot less money you can order a bespoke Shuker. You’ll get exactly what you want and it will probably sound better too.

 

Co-incidentally I took one of my CS Precisions and my Shuker P to a gig last night. I played about half and half with each. There really wasn’t anything in it apart from the fact that the Shuker was substantially less £ and it felt more me as I played a part in how it turned out.

 

Horses for courses, but if I was going down the P route again, I’d go Shuker. 

[Old Man Riva]

2 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I’ve played loads of Fender CS basses and own quite a few. The only two I’ve had issue with was a Pino Signature which had a really chunky neck that I didn’t particularly like and a Van Trigt Master Built which my brain couldn’t correlate the price tag with (£8k). It was a nice bass, but not 8 thousand pounds of nice.

Aged ice blue metallic 1970s P bass with Jazz neck in Peach Guitars? 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

4 minutes ago, Old Man Riva said:

Aged ice blue metallic 1970s P bass with Jazz neck in Peach Guitars? 

Might have been 😎

Someone bought it as it’s gone now.

[Old Man Riva]

14 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Might have been 😎

Someone bought it as it’s gone now.

It certainly was a lovely bass! But as you say, probably not £8k worth of nice…

[CookPassBabtridge]

Thought it’d be worth sharing my recent experience of trying to get a Fender Custom Shop quote, which is in-line with the title of this thread!

 

I’ve always loved sunburst jazz bodies without pickguards. I’m also a bit obsessed with one being authentically Fender, so wasn’t interested in buying a third party body and bolting a Fender neck to it. Official Fender bodies are routed horribly under the pickguard section so one of those wasn’t an option either. I liked the idea of a finely crafted custom bass as well, so off to the Custom Shop I went.

 

There were a couple of extra things I was interested in to make the build a little more personal - namely an anodised gold control plate and the truss rod adjustment wheel that the Elite series had. Nope, sorry I was told…that sort of thing pushes it into Masterbuild territory. The gold control plate was a weird one seeing as you can buy them from the likes of Tiny Tone for about £30. 
 

Anyway, the apparent lack of flexibility for something called a ‘custom shop’ build irked me somewhat. In all honesty the experience has made me draw the conclusion that non-masterbuilt custom shop basses are essentially just instruments bolted together from stock US parts by one of their top 50 luthiers. Each to their own, but for the prices they charge I’d want something far more bespoke. These days I think the mod shop is a more reasonable option if you’re not after anything too weird and wonderful and just want a specific colour, neck or pickup choice. 
 

Bit disappointed by my experience but it’s OK, I’ll either just save the money or look at a classic Roscoe instead 😏

[Doctor J]

In Soviet Fender, Custom Shop customises you.

[Lw.]

Once you get it into your head that at some companies (including Fender) Custom Shop doesn't mean custom made for the end user, it just means the product is made by their best people, a lot of these problems go away. 

 

A lot of the FCS instruments are made to order for retailers, others are made as show cases as to what the people working there want to make, the rest are standard models they just churn out. For most I think they're just top end of the peg Fenders.

 

Price can be a very emotive thing but if you put it to the side, I've played lots of FCS basses & an equal number of vintage Fenders - there were stars and dogs among both sets. FWIW - The best two P basses I've played were FCS, I own one of them now. The same with most basses - if you find a good one, buy it if you can.

[Ander87]

Hm... I'm very much like the OP here - I have learnt to love P basses (growing up I thought they were the most boring thing, eh!) and most of the basses I've had have been either P basses or Stingrays.

 

When the P needs call, I find myself drooling for the CS Fenders and do dream of ever having one - but then I think 'hold up, get a Limelight for one third of that and make it more yours' and that 'want' disappears. I do think it's an itch to scratch and I would like to try one.

 

In a past life when I was playing guitars I played a Private Stock 594 worth 10k£ and to be honest it felt like your "regular" 3k£ PRS, so I understand many of the sentiments here.

 

Having said that, I've heard and read that if you want a NOS, CS feel-like Fender, the American Original 60s in nitro / Vintage II series are on par sound and finish wise - and you get to do your own relic as time goes...

 

Best,

 

Ander.

[TrevorG]

I tried a CS about a couple of weeks ago expecting the £4,000 bass to be twice as good as my £1800 Precision. It wasn't set up but it felt like there was no point. The feel was a bit grubby. I understand it's a copy of something that was made in a very different time but, apart from the neck plate and the price tag, there was nothing about it that felt special. Isn't that the whole point?

[Lw.]

36 minutes ago, TrevorG said:

... expecting the £4,000 bass to be twice as good as my £1800 Precision....

And this was your first mistake. 

It's the same across all price points but you only receive marginal gains on incremental cost increases. Obviously "good" in this instance can mean different things to different people but in the same way the 4k bass wasn't twice as good as your 1.8k bass, your 1.8k bass won't be twice as good as the next persons £900 bass and that bass won't be twice as good as someone elses £450 bass. 

 

If you don't like it, fine move on. If you, do buy it. Price tag is pretty meaningless when compared to enjoyment.

[Ander87]

10 minutes ago, Lw. said:

 

If you don't like it, fine move on. If you, do buy it. Price tag is pretty meaningless when compared to enjoyment

I agree with your sentiment buddy, but it’s fair to expect definitely “more”. What that “more” is is complicated for everyone and depends on pockets but for me personally I can do up to 2k£ to be impressed with a bass (inflation will bring that up for sure eventually). Above that I can’t justify. For others that point is 1k, 8k, etc and that’s perfectly fine. 
 

very true on incremental increase bringing marginal gain though. 
 

Ander. 

[Misdee]

The thing about Fender Custom Shop basses is they are making expensive recreations of their ordinary instruments, albeit vintage ones.  And anyone who has played a lot of vintage Fenders knows they are a mixed bag, to put it mildly. It's not surprising that the CS basses are unpredictable, and Fender basses are very setup -dependent. Any Fender bass , Custom Shop or not, the difference between a good one and a bad one can quite often be a simple matter of adjustment.

[Geek99]

On 08/10/2022 at 18:21, Reggaebass said:

Can’t say I’ve ever had any precision pickups tilted that way 

Nope nor me. 
 

edit, I hadn’t seen @Supernaut had retracted. Please ignore my remark 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Geek99

[Geek99]

On 09/10/2022 at 00:56, blisters on my fingers said:

No they are not.

 

So Supernaut share your wisdom with us.

 

 

 

 

He has, to be fair, already corrected himself and conceded the point.

[Lw.]

19 hours ago, Ander87 said:

I agree with your sentiment buddy, but it’s fair to expect definitely “more”. What that “more” is is complicated for everyone and depends on pockets but for me personally I can do up to 2k£ to be impressed with a bass (inflation will bring that up for sure eventually). Above that I can’t justify. For others that point is 1k, 8k, etc and that’s perfectly fine. 
 

very true on incremental increase bringing marginal gain though. 
 

Ander. 

Oh yes, for sure! I can't afford to stretch to a 4k bass & can completely understand someone being upset if they did stretch to that and it turned out to be a bit of a dud. Even the idea of trying something that's a financial stretch and it then being a bit disappointing would be painful for some people. 
There's just so much in the price of a [new] bass that isn't driven by quality; not to be talked about on this forum (unless they've changed the rules) but inflation & currency fluctuations are going to lead to higher prices regardless of the bass quality. Then the higher prices leads to less of them being bought, which leads to higher prices again blahblahblah... 

 

Sometimes I think you just have to say "Do I like this bass - yes/no", then look at your pile of cash & see if they align. After that it's a sunk cost so you'd may as well forget about it. 

 

Incidentally - used Custom Shop basses come up pretty frequently at much more reasonable prices, given most of them are relic'ed anyway there's very little to tell the difference between a new & used one! 

[blisters on my fingers]

3 hours ago, Geek99 said:

He has, to be fair, already corrected himself and conceded the point.

To be fair, he actually didn't.

You did read both his posts?

[Ander87]

20 minutes ago, Lw. said:

Sometimes I think you just have to say "Do I like this bass - yes/no", then look at your pile of cash & see if they align. After that it's a sunk cost so you'd may as well forget about it. 

very good summary that I totally agree with. 
 

21 minutes ago, Lw. said:

Incidentally - used Custom Shop basses come up pretty frequently at much more reasonable prices, given most of them are relic'ed anyway there's very little to tell the difference between a new & used one! 

very true….! But even those are coming up! I kinda regret not haven’t jumped on one of those CS precisions that were around the 1800-2200 mark less than a year ago…!

 

Best,

 

Ander. 

[Geek99]

15 minutes ago, blisters on my fingers said:

To be fair, he actually didn't.

You did read both his posts?

I felt he did correct his assertion and agree that the pickup isn’t set correctly here

 

he didn’t actually write “I retract my earlier assertion that it supposed to be like that” but I felt saying “that’s not right” is a de facto retraction 

 

 

[blisters on my fingers]

Is it still St Crispin's day? 

 

 

 

 

 

St Crispin - the patron saint of cobblers 🙂             

[bassbloke]

IMHO 90s CIJ/MIJ represent best bang for buck.  I bought a 96/97 MIJ 70s jazz on this forum a couple of years ago.  Fantastic bass for £700.

 

I was in Barcelona on hols with family a couple of weeks ago and stumbled across a guitar shop near El Bron that had loads of 2nd hand 90s MIJ basses.  I gave a few of them a reasonable inspection and there wasn't a dud among them.  Loads of major and all under €1000.

[diskwave]

You've only got to look over on Talkbass, constant woe with Fender Custom Shop stuff, QC all over the place. But it's not just CS. A relative of mine has bought a new 62 RI Strat unseen and it's all over the place..... Still kicking myself for letting a Mex Road Worn P slip thru the fingers..lightweight, tight QC and thumpy. Anyway I digress, that classic 50's nitro is lovely. 

[Lw.]

2 hours ago, greavesbass said:

You've only got to look over on Talkbass,

 

Eww - no thanks! 

 

Some lessons to be learned; 
1 - don't buy blind

2 - never sell your basses

[Steve Browning]

On 08/11/2022 at 20:53, bassbloke said:

IMHO 90s CIJ/MIJ represent best bang for buck.  I bought a 96/97 MIJ 70s jazz on this forum a couple of years ago.  Fantastic bass for £700.

 

I was in Barcelona on hols with family a couple of weeks ago and stumbled across a guitar shop near El Bron that had loads of 2nd hand 90s MIJ basses.  I gave a few of them a reasonable inspection and there wasn't a dud among them.  Loads of major and all under €1000.

 

Exactly my experience. Japanese Fenders represent exceptional value for money. The models with the US suffix especially.

[Ander87]

15 hours ago, greavesbass said:

A relative of mine has bought a new 62 RI Strat unseen and it's all over the place...

I think buying 2nd hand solves this! I am thoroughly impressed with the two American Originals I got (AVRI-RI’s 🤣) - good sellers were honest about them and tried and tested of course…

 

… I’ll say that even for Japanese ones - I got one of the recent Fender Boxers made in Japan brand new from pmt and I did NOT like it. Well finished but not well balanced and super super dull sounding!

[Minininjarob]

As a new bass player I am a little perplexed about the road worn/relic Fender basses, its fake patina right? I bought a Player series and I'm happy with it, I'd like to "age" it myself playing it for a long time!