Radio Repairman Who Can't Play Builds Famous Guitars!! (Fender Guitars in general)

Member Name: Caveat-Emptor

Product:	Fender Guitars in general
Date:	09/07/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy To Repair, Sound Great

Disadvantages: There Are More Ornately Made Guitars

My review of Fender Guitar In General
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I was intrigued when I stumbled upon this subject -and though whole volumes have been written on the various aspects of Fender guitars; having been a pro guitar player and teacher at various times in my life I'd like to add my opinions to this subject.

Introduction
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Fender guitars are quite simply the best known, most instantly recognisable electric guitars on the planet.

Leo Fender (despite the many daft stories that have passed into urban legend) was actually a radio repair man, who got drawn into the world of gigging guitarists and bass players, during the 1950's (Leo eventually sold his share in the company, and set up G&L guitars).

What set Leo Fender's guitars apart from his competitors like Gibson, Epihone (Epihone was not part of Gibson back in the 50's), Gretsch etc... was that Leo deliberately made guitars like Heny Ford made cars; quickly, cheaply, and in a production line kind of way so they could be churned out easily -Leo even used car paint to finish the instruments. (Unlike manufacturers like Gibson, who would hand carve the 'top' embellish the fretboard and add binding to the edges of the guitar body and even the neck).

Now, I know this doesn't actually make Fender guitars sound that great (and in terms of craftsmanship in the early days, any one who knows about guitars will tell you that Gibson did it better), but for the first time the gigging guitarist had an instrument that could easily be repaired -and they could often do that repair themselves...

No binding on the neck meant Fender guitars were easy to re-fret and stone (fret levelling), a simple bolt on neck design meant it was easy to re-align the neck... or even replace it if necessary (impossible on a 'set neck' Gibson or Gretsch unless you were an accomplished luthier with a workshop handy, and a lot of time on your hands).

3 Things That Made Fender Guitars Legendary
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There are in my opinion 3 reasons why Fender Guitars secured their place at the forefront of guitar manufacture;


1) The simplicity of design that I've already mentioned above. Easy to make; easy to repair.


2) The second reason that sealed Fender's legendary position in guitar history was the introduction of the Fender Stratocaster; it just looked so damned sexy, and it had 3 pickups with 5-way switching (originally 3-way switching till Fender realised guitarists were jamming matches into the selector switch to get the in-between pickup sounds) for loads of tonal variation. There was also an amazingly innovative (for the time) tremelo system. That took advantage of Hook's Law (that a spring will return to exactly where it was stretched from once you release the pull on it), and employed 3 strings hidden inside the body (accessed from the rear of the guitar.

This guitar killed off much of the competition -it was so cool, and remarkably still looks cool today well over 50 years later... It wasn't perfect though; Leo (for some weird reason) didn't wire up the bridge pickup to either tone control (the manual on my Stratocaster stupidly states that the bridge pickup requires no tone control... this is utter crap, and a pain in the ass live cuz the bridge pickup is so trebly).

Fortunately guitarists (due to Fender's simple designs) quickly started customising their instruments -and rewiring the tone control to work on the bridge pick up... which is easy to do (I did on mine and also added a pull pot to get me 7 way switching- but you don't have to be a nuts as me to customise your strat).


3) The final of the formative reasons why Fender became so popular (in my opinion) was the introduction of the humble Fender Precision Bass Guitar. Before this point, bass players had to play those great bid upright double basses, and carry them about everywhere. This was hard enough, but bass players were also struggling to comete now that electric guitars with amplifiers were replacing the acoustic guitars formerly used at gigs....

Enter Leo with his relatively small (compared to a double bass) easily manageable, transportable, fixable electric bass (called a Precision bass because it had frets like a normal guitar -so for the first time bass players could be sure of playing the right note, even at speed -you can't be so confident on a fretless double bass!).

The invention of the precision bass guitar meant that bands could spring up in every town... all you needed was a drummer, a couple of guitars and a bass player and you were done! Leo's instruments tended to be a lot more affordable in the 1950's than the better crafted instruments formerly available.

For rock music the Fender Precision quickly replaced the Double Bass - which cost many times more (even today a set of strings for a double bass costs more than a new Fender Squier Precision Bass!!!{Squieir is Fender's budget range of instruments}.

Conclusion
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The three reasons above are why I think Fender became so popular, and I'm a really big fan of their guitars; especially the Telecaster and Stratocaster, which I recommend to anyone as brilliant and functional instruments.

If you're on a budget -there's also the squire range of Fender look alike guitars. Plus there are hundreds of other companies who make cheap copies of Fender guitars (though they're not all good).

If money's not your chief concern -go for one of the proper American built Fender's as these tend to be very high quality, and have much better pickups and hardware.

If you've just won the lottery you might want to locate and buy one of the actual mid 1950's Fender guitars -the prices they change hands for are mind boggling, but I've been lucky enough to play a few of them over the years; and they really are great!!.

Summary: Well Deserved Place In Rock History!!!