Fender ModShop, an area we are familiar with.
- Thread starter Unwound G
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jackthehack
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Unimpressed...
Verne Bunsen
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Several years ago I would have lusted over that, but then I discovered Warmoth....
Cagey
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So, basically I wanted a candy apple red Strat w/ gold hardware. Wang bar. Locking tuners. Like that.
I ended up at $2K and didn't get the neck wood, fretboard, frets or pickups I wanted. Figure it'd run me another $500-$600 to take care of those issues once it was delivered, so I'd be at ~$2,500.
Go to Warmoth, pack My Cart with everything right down to the pots and pickguard screws out of the builder and get my CAR SSS Strat w/ a Wilkinson vibrato mated with a no-inlay black African Ebony over Brazilian Ebony neck fretted with gold 6100s and an LSR nut. Add a set of Bill Lawrence "Microcoil" pickups from Becky, and we sit at $1,024, but I gotta assemble and set it up.
Hmm... decisions, decisions... what to do?
I ended up at $2K and didn't get the neck wood, fretboard, frets or pickups I wanted. Figure it'd run me another $500-$600 to take care of those issues once it was delivered, so I'd be at ~$2,500.
Go to Warmoth, pack My Cart with everything right down to the pots and pickguard screws out of the builder and get my CAR SSS Strat w/ a Wilkinson vibrato mated with a no-inlay black African Ebony over Brazilian Ebony neck fretted with gold 6100s and an LSR nut. Add a set of Bill Lawrence "Microcoil" pickups from Becky, and we sit at $1,024, but I gotta assemble and set it up.
Hmm... decisions, decisions... what to do?
Re-Pete
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Unwound G said:
It shouldn't be an issue of loyalty at all.....if you have the knowledge to source the parts & are quite happy to build - or have someone assemble for you- a parts guitar that is probably better than most brand name guitars then Warmoth is a great place to start. It will be a guitar that will last.
BUT there are drawbacks to this as I and many others have found. You have to know what you are aiming for in the functionality, and tone response of the guitar you build. You have to know what parts achieve that tone. And then, there's the blinding situation where you dead end yourself by shooting for something too variable and in the palette of what Warmoth offers, is not achievable. Some parts, for reason best known to Warmoth, aren't available on this or that body or neck.... It can be incredibly frustrating when you get so close and yet are so far.
Then there is the issue of brand recognition. The resale value of any Warmoth is vastly inferior to the resale value of the same type of guitar or bass that comes from the factory that originally made that type of guitar or bass. Even though the woods and electronics may be superior in the Warmoth instrument, you will be lucky to break even. While some of that may be that we are buying parts at a retail price and not OEM wholesale, you can't help but be disappointed should you consider selling a well made Warmoth & the prices offered.
In short, you will build a better guitar with Warmoth but you better not need to, or want to, sell it later.
Fender's website disappoints me immensely. I cannot access the USA site at all as there is a Fender Australia, and straight away, a click on the fender dot com will throw me to the wolves at Fender Australia instead of the USA site. Actually I shouldn't say I can't see the Fender USA site at all, but it involves getting tricky on the net to get access to it from Australia due to geo blocking. They want to you to go to your local Fender distributorship. In Australia, that's like walking into a remote country town mechanic shop and asking them how to order a Lamborghini! This nonsense is ONE of the reasons I was drawn to Warmoth when I initially found them years ago on the net....
LATE EDIT: OK I just tried that link above to Fender Mod Shop from here in Australia. First click, I get the model selection menu. Still on USA site. The second click (selected Stratocaster) an attempt is made to connect to the AUS site and search result yields 'No Result' presumably as this function is not available in Australia.... :tard: :doh:
Cagey
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Re-Pete said:
I don't know how secure you keep your computer, but on the entrance page alone there are 23 scripts trying to run before you're allowed to do anything. If you're running any script blocking, ad blocking, blacklisting, anti-whatever software, it may be trying to protect you.
I've been seeing more and more of this kind of thing as time goes on. The bigger the site's owners, the nosier they are. Some of the media sites are insane. I was on one the other day that had 83 different things trying to run on my machine. Soon, we're going to need gigabit data pipes just to support all the adware/spyware everyone is running.
Re-Pete
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Cagey said:
I'm not too sure what you mean here.....Are you saying the Fender site is trying to run 23 scripts (as you say) onto my PC every time I click onto that site?
My browser is Chrome & with the Kaspersky AV I run it shows a tab in the upper bar how many scripts (?) are co existing with the page I have just opened...Or at least I think that's what's happening. :icon_scratch:
Re-Pete
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Axkoa said:
On this point of authenticity, a whole number of circumstances usually determine the authenticity of an instrument. The decal is just one. Oh there are counterfeits out there, make no bones about it, but most folks just wanna sell what they have and give you the info as they know it. Many years ago I sold a Rickenbacker & mistook it for a 360 when in fact it was a 1997. Didn't know much about Rickys back then & without the almighty Google search I relied on what I had seen in magazines. When the eventual buyer turned up he was an expert in Rickys, took one look at the F Hole and told me it was a 1997 model....
My point being, sometimes the seller is unaware of the provenance of an instrument. They get told it's a Fender until some expert corrects them or whatever. And there are some folks who can pick a counterfeit by the decal used on the headstock, believe it or not.
Cagey
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Re-Pete said:
Yes. That's why I don't let Windows on the 'net, and even using Linux and Firefox I still use NoScript to block they myriad scripts everyone is trying to run on client machines. Some scripts are necessary to the functionality of the site, so you have to allow those. But, the vast majority of them are just spyware of various pedigree and can be blocked without issue. I don't use Chrome so I'm not as familiar with your options there, but a quick search turns up utilities like Scriptsafe and Scriptblock that appear to operate similar to NoScript.
rgand
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Like Cagey, I also run NoScript in Firefox with Linux. I can't view a lot of stuff but in general, I just figure I would rather not get the crap loaded onto my main computer. I do have an old laptop so if I really want to see something that's questionable, I can. It doesn't matter much if I get things on that one.
Cagey
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I still get to run just about everything, but only on my terms. If something appears to not work, I can selectively allow scripts to run until it finally does. If I'm uncomfortable with what I've just allowed, I can just restart the browser to wipe the slate clean of all scripts and start over. After a while you learn what things are needed, or just develop a sense of it, and you can often just look at the list of blocked items and pick the one or two that need to run.
For instance, if pictures or video don't show up or run, there's likely a script that needs to run to load content from a separate server. Those scripts will almost always have "cdn" in their name somewhere, indicating they're using a "content delivery network", which is a sort of localized resource repository some sites use to keep their data content separate from their functional servers, improve its response time or spread traffic more evenly.
For instance, if pictures or video don't show up or run, there's likely a script that needs to run to load content from a separate server. Those scripts will almost always have "cdn" in their name somewhere, indicating they're using a "content delivery network", which is a sort of localized resource repository some sites use to keep their data content separate from their functional servers, improve its response time or spread traffic more evenly.
TonyFlyingSquirrel
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Fender has a way of adding a feature to a Strat with an up-charge that reaks of narcissism just for associating it with their logo, and then calling it a new model, "The ......Stratocaster".
It's still a Stratocaster, come up with a new idea already, not just a way of up-charging an option on an old one.
They can do all of that and then some, and still not have the quality or the quantity of options that Warmoth has been offering at a consumer accessible price for decades.
It's still a Stratocaster, come up with a new idea already, not just a way of up-charging an option on an old one.
They can do all of that and then some, and still not have the quality or the quantity of options that Warmoth has been offering at a consumer accessible price for decades.
Logrinn
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TonyFlyingSquirrel said:
^
This!
I can't help but feel flabbergasted, when I look at news from Fender from the NAMM or some such, and they've come out with this completely new series, and the only thing they've done is changed the width of the screwheads for the pickguard! :doh:
I think sometimes we forget how small of a consumer niche we actually are. IME most guitar players aren't tech savvy guitar geeks the way we are. Fender's business model is so different from that of Warmoth I'm not sure why people even bother to draw a comparison. I think that what Fender is doing is great. What other manufacturers are doing it? I don't really get the hate for Fender having different models of Strats. That's a pretty basic MO for everyone. How many variations of a Les Paul are there? Ibanez RG? Schecter C1? The list goes on and on. The way I see it Fender did the hard work, Warmoth came along and added a twist and some polish and is making it work. Fender is a mass produced, assembly line factory. Warmoth is a bespoke boutique builder. These are two completely different things.
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