Fender

 

Actually, the description could already end here, but this name alone radiates competence and reverence and of course absolutely right.

What company founder Clarence Leonidas Fender, who went down in history as "Leo" Fender, has created, can not be valued highly enough and the history of rock 'n' roll would probably have been completely different without him.

With the Telecaster or simply affectionately called Tele, he not only designed the first series-produced, "real" electric guitar and brought it to market, but also the Precision Bass (P-Bass), the first electric bass, which was also the first fretted bass, which also helped it get its name. The Jazz Bass (J-Bass), which was a bit more delicate, even surpassed the success of the Precision from 1960 on. The name Jazz Bass is perhaps a bit misleading, since there is practically no musical style where this classic would not be at home.

With his second guitar design, the Stratocaster, often simply called Strat, he created the most popular and most copied electric guitar model in history. Even if it is often not recognizable at first glance, a large part of the electric guitars available today are fundamentally based on his ingenious designs, which were absolutely radical at the time of their market launch.

This also applies to many detailed solutions, e.g. the Floyd Rose vibrato system is simply a further development of the classic Strat bridge from 1954. The headstock with the tuners arranged in a row and the absolutely straight string run over the nut made possible by this also has to be mentioned.

As if all this were not enough, his amp designs have also brought it to absolute world fame, the Fender Deluxe Reverb, in its various stages of evolution, is still considered the most recorded guitar amp in history. And even the first Marshall amp was based on the circuit of the Fender Bassman, introduced in 1959. Other famous classics in the Fender amplifier range are Twin Reverb, Princeton, Super Reverb to name the most important ones.

Fender Musical Instruments Corporation Inc. knows how to celebrate this tradition and cult in a unique way and to revive it again and again through authentic reissues of legendary classics in various price ranges.

In particular, the Fender Custom Shop, opened in 1987, has created an excellent name for itself through incredible quality and at the same time also serves as an innovation forge whose ideas also flow into the lower-priced series production again and again.

For example, the Relic instruments, which were initially ridiculed by competitors with their artificial aging, but have now established themselves as a permanent fixture on the market and are now the most popular guitars and basses in the Fender Custom Shop segment, so that many other manufacturers have now jumped on this bandwagon, but mostly without flair, detail and not least play feel and vintage sound of a Fender Custom Shop instrument really reach.

The degree of aging is very finely graded and ranges from "NOS" (New old Stock) to "Closet Classic", "Journeyman Relic", "Relic" to "Heavy Relic", in the Masterbuilt range even to "Ultimate Relic".

Admittedly, it is not easy to find one's way through the huge Fender program and not lose the overview. As a basic rule, you have to keep in mind that the Fender range can be divided into the different price groups Squier (Far East production), Fender Mexico, Fender USA and Fender USA Custom Shop on the one hand, and on the other hand, there are both strongly vintage-oriented models and more modern versions of the old classics in each of these price groups, so that there should actually be something for everyone. Occasionally there are also Fender models from Japan that are priced between the Mexico and the USA production, but these are usually limited small series that are not permanently in the program.

For the right choice of the instrument or amplifier, we are of course as always very happy to help with advice and action.