New Fender Standard Series Basses!

[tegs07]

26 minutes ago, Terry M. said:

Just curious if you tried any non Fender P type basses in your quest before settling on the Nate Mendel?

I have a Sandberg California which is a slightly different league. I still pick up the Fender more often though…

Edited Wednesday at 20:24 by tegs07

[Grassie]

Some thoughts:

Maybe by making F branded product in Indonesia Fender are considering phasing out the Squier brand. Someone mentioned it earlier and if they’re going to go the far east route with western branding then it actually makes a lot of sense

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if they go back to the OG branding first - the very early Squiers were stamped with a large Fender logo with a small Squier stamp underneath.

 

Fender regularly proclaim that they’re innovating with this that and the other, but other than different body shapes (Dimension, Meteora) their innovations are few and far between. I’d be far more interested in new instruments from them if they adopted some of the ideas they’ve had when building signature models and made them standard across all their ranges. For example, giving us more frets, downsizing the headstock, making the necks shallower, as you’d find on the Flea active jazz and the long forgotten Stu Hamm sig basses. Hell, even reintroducing the Lyte range as a permanent model. 
 

I honestly believe Squier’s days are numbered with this move to making Fender branded models in the far east.

[Stub Mandrel]

31 minutes ago, Grassie said:

I honestly believe Squier’s days are numbered with this move to making Fender branded models in the far east.

 

I very much doubt that.

[Cato]

I'm not sure why Fender get singled out for lack of innovation.

 

I don't think there have been any major innovations in bass design that have actually stuck from anyone since the late 70s/80s when active electronics and headless instruments entered mainstream production.

 

Since then everything seems to be tweaking the same , often Fender inspired, designs.

 

The only other major change in the landscape of electric guitars and basses I can think of in the last 50 or so years has been the dramatic improvement in the quality of budget instruments over the last decade or two.

Edited Thursday at 06:13 by Cato

[mikebass456]

6 hours ago, Grassie said:

Some thoughts:

Maybe by making F branded product in Indonesia Fender are considering phasing out the Squier brand. Someone mentioned it earlier and if they’re going to go the far east route with western branding then it actually makes a lot of sense

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if they go back to the OG branding first - the very early Squiers were stamped with a large Fender logo with a small Squier stamp underneath.

 

Fender regularly proclaim that they’re innovating with this that and the other, but other than different body shapes (Dimension, Meteora) their innovations are few and far between. I’d be far more interested in new instruments from them if they adopted some of the ideas they’ve had when building signature models and made them standard across all their ranges. For example, giving us more frets, downsizing the headstock, making the necks shallower, as you’d find on the Flea active jazz and the long forgotten Stu Hamm sig basses. Hell, even reintroducing the Lyte range as a permanent model. 
 

I honestly believe Squier’s days are numbered with this move to making Fender branded models in the far east.

The Lyte bass was one of the few that I used to own and wish I had never got rid of now.........😉👍

[Terry M.]

1 hour ago, Cato said:

I'm not sure why Fender get singled out for lack of innovation.

It could be because their two most famous designs look virtually the same since inception. A 2025 Volkswagen Golf looks very different from the version released in the 70s to use a motoring analogy. It's interesting that builders such as Sadowsky and Mike Lull don't appear to catch any heat from copying those same designs however and Fender got it in the neck when the Dimension was released for copying the Stingray concept. 

[Muzz]

Just to throw something else out there, and as detailed elsewhere on here, last year I picked up a Squier Sonic P new for £145 on the basis of 'How bad could it actually be?' (oh, and the fact it's very, very light (well under 8lbs)...yeah, I'm a glass-backed owd codger masquerading as a rock star) and it's a very good bass. Some tweaks to make it align more with my requirements (including a DiMarzio pup and one of Fender's own (much better) £35 bridges), and it's my main gigging bass. Now I know at the very bottom end of the model range I may have lucked out with a particularly good one (QC-wise), but it really is a good bass, and a great platform if you, like me, are an inveterate tinkerer, and are old enough not to get hung up on what it says on the headstock...

[JohnDaBass]

And here is another Fender from Indonesia SS KIngman V2

[okusman]

On 17/02/2025 at 17:25, Geek99 said:

I’d get the squier

I went back today and did just that.

Took a “second opinion” to check….but the Squier was head and shoulders a better finished and playing instrument.

[Geek99]

11 minutes ago, okusman said:

I went back today and did just that.

Took a “second opinion” to check….but the Squier was head and shoulders a better finished and playing instrument.

Good work 

now hit us up with photo-pron before we boil over 

[Terry M.]

16 minutes ago, okusman said:

I went back today and did just that.

Took a “second opinion” to check….but the Squier was head and shoulders a better finished and playing instrument.

Which is why I bought the Squier Affinty Active Jazz V. I almost feel like I'm being pranked. It's that good. Good choice on your part.

[kwmlondon]

On 20/02/2025 at 07:26, Terry M. said:

It could be because their two most famous designs look virtually the same since inception. A 2025 Volkswagen Golf looks very different from the version released in the 70s to use a motoring analogy. It's interesting that builders such as Sadowsky and Mike Lull don't appear to catch any heat from copying those same designs however and Fender got it in the neck when the Dimension was released for copying the Stingray concept. 

It's all about what you can trademark. I guess Fender didn't take the threat from copies seriously when they were cheap and bad - they gave people a taste for the guitar and aspire to a Fender one day. The lawsuits started flying when Japanese manufacturers started making products better than the origina and they could no longer own the Stra, Tele, Precision or Jazz shapes as they were ubiqutous, but the scroll headstock was a feature they could control. Must have been an interesteding meeting when they decided they'd be better off licensing out the Fender name and just take a percentage - amazing how quickly a knock-off copy becomes a MIJ. I'm sure there are lots of lessons here.

Edited 22 hours ago by kwmlondon