Fender Fools Gold Jazz

[Lozz196]

14 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Same old, same old. Take USD price. Replace dollar sign with pound sign. Job's a good 'un.

Yep, been going on for a very long time, certainly most of the time since I’ve been on Basschat so well over 10 years

[dyerseve]

29 minutes ago, DTB said:

It’s the same with most manufacturers I think. I looked at several Silver Sky guitars by PRS before I bought my 2, saw lots with poor string to neck alignment, string to pickup alignment and other issues. 
My Yamaha six string bass has a poor repair on the neck obviously done at factory or importers. 
My Ibanez EHB1506 nut wasn’t secured properly. 
All of which are premium priced instruments. 
 

My suggestion for the fix for the fender was somewhat tongue in cheek but I have seen it done more than once. 
Actually the only guitar I have that was perfect straight from the outset is my Clapton Strat so someone at Fender Corona gives a stinky poo. 

That's! I've owned nearly 80 basses and never had such issues. Mostly though the basses I've owned are older basses.

The only bass I've bought new was a Yamaha TRB4 II in 2000. Built like a tank and impeccable build quality.

Also, I've only ever owned 1 Fender so maybe that explains it...

[Saul Panzer]

That's just sad, my Cruiser jazz is about as bad as that but wasn't even 1/13 the price.

[miles'tone]

Oh dear!

(I thought I was going to be looking at a Mani signature model for a moment. )

[dyerseve]

1 hour ago, Duroc17 said:

Fender sent that one for free to Bully Thakidd to review - you’d think they’d check before sending for review 

You are right but for me it's even worse than that. IMO they should never be producing instruments with such poor quality in the first place. Especially not at this price point. And to then let such a poor instrument be given out for review is a triple fail! But given the terrible setup on the bass they have been using for the promotional photos, seems they just don't give a stinky poo anymore.

[Doctor J]

4 hours ago, 40hz said:

How did these ever get signed off, QC-wise. Didn't someone at some point go " maybe we should recall all of these, to prevent reputational damage?"

 

Maybe they just don't/didn't care and assume/d people will buy them and not complain or notice? Pretty poor, either way you spin it, from Fender's point of view.

There's a thread about an early 70's Precision with a five figure price tag and a neck just as misaligned. Nobody seemed to care about that, just that it was old. Fender can get away with this because they have always gotten away with this. Brand names are more important than quality.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Doctor J

[miles'tone]

"The Fender Golden Shower Jazz" 🤣

[neepheid]

[dyerseve]

If only they had thought to put a pickup guard on it to hide the shoddy alignment...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... it probably would have ended up like this:

 

[Baloney Balderdash]

Why get a lower end Harley Benton at a 100£ that's boringly absolutely perfect, when you can get this unique abstract piece of art with a genuine Fender logo on for just 12 times its price, that's right just 1200£ of thrilling imperfection!

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[TheLowDown]

It's why I avoid Fender(and Squier, their budget range of overpriced products). It's how a lot of named brands work in different sectors. They get lazy, push their prices to the max and think their brand name will do their job for them.

Lesser known or uncoming brands try much harder.

Edited February 6, 2023 by TheLowDown

[Baloney Balderdash]

54 minutes ago, TheLowDown said:

It's why I avoid Fender(and Squier, their budget range of overpriced products). It's how a lot of named brands work in different sectors. They get lazy, push their prices to the max and think their brand name will do their job for them.

Lesser known or uncoming brands try much harder.

Fender have finally managed slacking behind sufficiently to undertake Gibson in the race to the bottom of the big corporate business low quality racing lane.  

 

Now if they could only crack the code of how to design their headstocks to snap off at one wrong look they would truly become untouchable. 

 

Absolute minimum quality for absolute maximum prices here we come!

 

Every capitalist's wet dream.

 

Hell's the limit for how low we can go from here!

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[neepheid]

Just now, Baloney Balderdash said:

Fender finally slacked behind sufficiently to undertake Gibson in the race to the bottom of the big corporate business low quality racing lane.  

 

Yeah, Gibson - sort yourselves out, Fender are out-Gibsoning you!

[Grassie]

Madness. I've owned a fair few Fenders (and Squiers) and as much as I love them, I've always struggled to understand how a simple, passive mass produced instrument that is basically a result of cookie-cutter production techniques can be so expensive, especially when you compare their US models to something like a Shuker, ACG, etc, where you can have a custom built bass for not much more dosh than what Fender charge for their top end instruments.

[Paolo85]

52 minutes ago, Grassie said:

Madness. I've owned a fair few Fenders (and Squiers) and as much as I love them, I've always struggled to understand how a simple, passive mass produced instrument that is basically a result of cookie-cutter production techniques can be so expensive, especially when you compare their US models to something like a Shuker, ACG, etc, where you can have a custom built bass for not much more dosh than what Fender charge for their top end instruments.

 

Well, as for Squiers, in my opinion the fact is that their competitors have not really surclassed them. Affinity are light, with thin necks back to front which my guess is most people, especially beginners, would enjoy. Classic Vibe have extemely good sounding pickups in my opinion and are not heavy for what they are.

I tried HB and Sire. Both were markedly heavier. My HB jazz was both stupidly heavy AND a serious neck diver. I understand their necks tend to be chunkier also for Ps. My uneducated guess would be that a chunkier neck is a cost saving as you get more tolerance in terms of what wood you can use. Then you need a heavy body to offset that, I would imagine.

My Sires had QC issues, were heavy, plus the pickups tend to be on the harsh side which is not necessarely what one wants from a P or a J. Preamps are brilliant but that's only of interest if one wants an active bass.

Don't get me wrong. I had even more QC issues with new Squier Affinity. In the end I think nobody has yet cracked the formula of the perfect sub-400 P or J but overall for a passive instrument my go-to passive P and J basses are used Affinity to be modded, with a BC seller assuring they work ok, or I plan eventually to buy some CVs from trusted sellers or a shop with a good return policy.

 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Paolo85

[Paolo85]

...as for the main topic.. well, I am always a bit unconfortable when I read "Made in China", "Made in Indonesia" and "Made in the US" as if they were exact rankings in terms of quality, regardless of context. Obviously, if one looks within Fender products, that's the case, at least more often than not, by design. But if one zooms out, surely location on the map is not the main factor?

 

[Crusoe]

15 hours ago, Doctor J said:

There's a thread about an early 70's Precision with a five figure price tag and a neck just as misaligned. Nobody seemed to care about that, just that it was old. Fender can get away with this because they have always gotten away with this. Brand names are more important than quality.

I can remember when I started playing bass in the early 90s, the advice in the magazines was not to touch a 70s CBS era Fender with an excrement coated stick.

[Kev]

16 minutes ago, Paolo85 said:

. But if one zooms out, surely location on the map is not the main factor?

 

Absolutely

 

Instruments in the Far East in particular are built to a budget and, unlike the West, the quality of the product is almost directly proportionate to the cost in my experience.  If the budget set by the big company is high enough, they will be excellent instruments.  If not, they won't be.  Profit margins are another matter.

[Paolo85]

47 minutes ago, Kev said:

 If the budget set by the big company is high enough, they will be excellent instruments.  If not, they won't be. 

That's no doubt true but I imagine there is quite a bit of nuance there. Obviously, with sub-500 basses made mostly in Certain Asian countries and 1000+ basses made more often in 'The West', one should certainly expect the 1000+ basses to be way better on average.

 

However, watching an Andertons video with some comments on the issue I got the impression that cost of labour is a even for industrially made basses a key variable. In that sense, building in the USA at higher costs than in Indonesia does not, per se, ensure than more or better trained people do the job.

Obviously, if you look within companies like Fender, with production in very different places, it is exactly as you say. They tend put more "value added" production in the USA, and the most basic offering in China - although you get situations like this one.

But if you look across companies, in terms of construction, how does a Sire V10 compares to an USA Fender? Personally I don't know but I would not necessarily bet on the USA Fender.

My experience with the Ibanez SR line, for example, is that QC is excellent regardless of where a bass has been made.

 

 

[lemmywinks]

Crazy stuff on a £1.3k CNC bolt on plank. How do they get it that wrong?

[Waddo Soqable]

2 hours ago, Kev said:

Absolutely

 

Instruments in the Far East in particular are built to a budget and, unlike the West, the quality of the product is almost directly proportionate to the cost in my experience.  If the budget set by the big company is high enough, they will be excellent instruments.  If not, they won't be.  Profit margins are another matter.

Hmm.. I recently scored a basic Squier P (pj) bass that still had the cling film on everything Inc the machine heads and PUs.. It clearly hadn't been touched from new. 

Now this thing ( which I bought mainly as everything else I have is currently disassembled in bits) is excellent IMHO and sounds great exactly as is.

I'm not mega fussy or detail obsessed but the neck, frets, general build etc etc are absolutely fine and fit for purpose, again IMHO 

I didn't even have to drop the action or do the intonation. I've gigged far inferior basses to this in the past hundreds of times, including "names" that didn't play or sound nearly as good... pity instruments that go as well as this weren't available as cheapies back in the 70s when you were looking at the nasty short scale Woolworths jobs as a "starter" 

[shoulderpet]

Wow, that is pretty bad for that kind of money, glad he told it how it is on this.

 

The thing is in the bass community we often tolerate and excuse sloppy QC,I know it is not the case in this instance but people even make excuses for it based on price(oh it's only a Mexican Fender/only a Squier etc you have to expect some QC issues)or based on things that they can fix that they shouldn't have to (it plays well so I will fix the other flaws) and I would bet that Fender knowingly crank out some lemons knowing that probably only half of them will be returned to them.

[lemmywinks]

Mate of mine just got one of the PRS SE 245 guitars from the Andertons sale (£399 with gigbag - total bargain) and it's immaculate. Like staggeringly good, can't even find a tiny niggle wrong with it and it was setup superbly out of the box. If WMI can produce such amazing instruments, not rely on poverty wages and keep the price within that magic £500-£800 range then why do the big names struggle so badly with their production line instruments on home soil? How do you even get something like that with CNC?

 

This and the Gibson Rex from a different thread both have the type of issues you expect on a £200 AliExpress copy.

[miles'tone]

Fender Mexico:

 

Wtf is this? It's not even a proper Jazz. Sod it, the trainee kids can have a pop at it..

[lemmywinks]

Wait that's a MIM? Why is it £1.3k?

 

You can get a USA Jazz for that!