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New Fender Lineup


Cuzzie

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14 minutes ago, Machines said:

I'm still waiting...

The Jazz 5 thumbnail was up for a split second just now, down again now. So clearly they're mid-upload.
The J5 looked nice, tobacco sunburst I think, presumably with other options, £1959

There was a P/J 4 string too, and a J4.
No P5.

Si

 

Edited by Sibob
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On 03/11/2019 at 09:46, Muppet said:

Replacing the Elite range with an Ultra range is what I hear.... minor tweaks and a couple of new colours I'd imagine, to justify a 20% price hike.....

Tada.  Compound radius fingerboards are really nice but they did that on the Dimension bass but left off the asymmetric neck profile. 

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2 minutes ago, Rexel Matador said:

I saw that earlier and assumed they'd announced the April 1st product too early...

Solution looking for a problem?

 

Edited by bartelby
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They forgot to do an ultra version of the best Fender bass - the mighty mustang! Good to see that the £30 high mass badass-style bridge is considered high-end enough for these - I have one on my Squier SS Jag & have another on order for my '81 Precision. I guess the custom shop's RSD bass bridge from five or six years ago didn't take off.

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2 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

My inbox is creaking under the weight of mailshots from dealers desperately trying to big up Fender's latest overpriced & underwhelming offering.

Who the heck is in their focus groups?

Build it and they will come or something.

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Guess the line up is pretty much as we’ve come to expect, given their last 70 years of R&D.  

What was particularly funny about this launch was the huge preamble with teaser vids and a big reveal date. Think the strapline was ‘changing the way you play forever’. 

Guy Fawkes night in the UK. Not quite firewood but some way from fireworks. Maybe an indoor firework .. 

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There will always be the type of punter who wants the 'latest & greatest' so I see why they have to change the 'top of the range' offering every so often and hype it as something groundbreaking. The instruments look good and seem to address Fender's preceived shortcomings against more refined versions of these designs from other makers at a similar price point. Not for me though.

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The outcome is actually even more underwhelming that I expected and I didn't expect much. 

Basically they have added coil tapping features on the HSS Strat. That is the only significant innovation I see in the whole guitar and bass line. 

The rest of the guitars and basses just feature features that are similar to the previous Elites. The standard, 'new' pickups (or rather newly named pickups), 'new and improved' compound radius and other features are pretty similar to features covered in previous years. They have also removed the truss rod wheel, which I believe is a considerable backwards step from the American Elite.

In terms of the basses, I can't see any game changing improvements. The 'redesigned' preamp is probably the same preamp that is 'redesigned' every year. Unless the neck carve is something to die for I really can't see this being a massive success.

I mean, since Fender now have a Flea bass, would it have killed them to have designed a Jazz bass with the humbucker in the bridge position, with perhaps a coil split in the bridge? It would hardly be a risky endeavour since that whole concept is something that Sandberg have been doing (to great success) for years. 

Fender had marketed the line as being game changing but this is a really underwhelming release. I say that as a massive Fender fan. 

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There will be a market for the spec, high-end active classics while retaining the 'F' branding......but I'm also underwhelmed by the colours. Olympic White being the best it seems, the two-tone is quite nice. Cherry-burst is never a good idea 🤮

Si

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Can we report Fender for "fake news" on this one?
They regularly market their refreshes as ground breaking, brand new, better than ever before, and all they are ever really offering is a few new colours, and if you're lucky a pickup combination they haven't offered for 9 months.

I am SO bored with this stuff, I appreciate that's just my opinion, but surely most of you find these announcements massively underwhelming?

Eude

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From what we know, they’re still in ok financial shape and own about 25% of the market, so they’re doing something right. Possibly we, the vocal BC minority aren’t their target market. 

It’s natural they’re going to be paralysed by past success (and Gibsons mis steps), and terrified of cannibalising existing business. Their ‘configurator’ is a joke next to anyone else’s. There’s obviously a plan behind all this. 
 

Shame we can’t see their financials, be interesting to see what they make where. 


 

Edited by Drax
gramma
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