The failure of the Fender Blacktop series (and what Fender could have done to prevent it)
On the Guitar Center web site today...
...the Fender Blacktop Series has now officially fallen to Mexican-made Stratocaster prices.
Blacktop was an attempt by Fender to come out with some new and interesting guitars. Unfortunately, people just aren't buying them.
What Fender did that was wrong with the Blacktop series was introduce the guitar at a price that was too high. Had they priced it like the Fender Marauder (which is still lower than a Blacktop even with the GC discount), the guitar would have sold a lot better.
Guitar buyers by nature hate change and pretty much don't like anything that strays away from the traditional Stratocaster or Telecaster design, however they can be swayed to try something new if the price is right, and unfortunately Fender keeps fumbling this up time and time again.
For example, if the Fender Cyclone makes a reappearance (it was last made in the early 2000s), the street price of that guitar should be the same as the Mexican Stratocaster. If it were American made, then yeah I could see it having a street price of $799. But if Mexican or Asian-made, it should be $399.
And as far as color choices go, Fender should go back to what they did before and use car finishes, such as Ford's "School Bus Yellow" on the 2013 Mustang. If Fender wants ideas for different paints players would like, well, just look to what the car makers are using. Fender did this before and should do it again, because it works.
When a player sees a new Cyclone on the rack at the same price as the Mexican Strat sitting next to it, yeah he'd pick up the Cyclone just based on the price tag alone. And he'd probably love it and buy it shortly thereafter. And his friends would see it and they'd want one too, and get one.
Hopefully for 2013 Fender will wise up and start treating the prices of new models differently, because if they don't, all they'll ever be selling are Strats and Teles.
Why doesn't the tone control work for the bridge-only pickup selection on a Stratocaster?
On the majority of Stratocaster guitars whether made by Fender or by Squier, when you select the bridge pickup alone, neither of the tone controls affect the sound. The bridge pickup is "always on 10" no matter what you do with either tone knob. However the tone controls do work for the other four switch positions.
Does this mean your Stratocaster guitar is defective?
No.
It was designed that way by Mr. Fender himself, as in Leo Fender, the guy whom Fender guitars are named after.
What Leo wanted with the Stratocaster is a pickup position that sounded similar to a steel guitar; something that really, really stood out with a somewhat piercing and shrill sound (typical for pedal steel guitars of the time). Thus, the bridge pickup selection has no tone control wired to it whatsoever.
Do all Strats have no tone control for the bridge-alone selection?
No. There have been several models of Stratocasters over the years that do in fact use the Tone 2 knob (the one near the bottom of the guitar) to affect the bridge-only pickup selection. For example, several American Strats in the 1990s featured what were called TBX tone controls, and many that were delivered with TBX (if not all of them) did have tone control for the bridge-only pickup setting.
Do you need TBX for bridge-alone tone control? No. All it takes to get tone control on the bridge-alone setting it to solder a very small wire between two terminals.
On a Stratocaster 5-way switch, there are four terminals on top and four on the bottom. One side of the switch is wired to connect the pickups. The other side connects your master volume and two tone controls. Simply solder a little wire between the Tone 2 terminal and that open terminal, and ta-da, you've got tone control for the bridge-alone pickup selection.
If all of this sounds too scary to do on your own, every good guitar tech knows how to do this ridiculously simple modification. In other words, yes you can afford to pay a tech to do this because it hardly takes any time or effort to do.
sweet freedom
There are some songs from certain time periods that say a ton of about a decade. Sweet Freedom by Michael McDonald is one of them.
This song is from the soundtrack to the movie Running Scared from 1986, of which the soundtrack can be acquired separately. This song is also Michael McDonald's last top 10 hit he ever penned.
The video for this song is from a bygone era where video production could be silly and still work. The video features McDonald himself and Blily Crystal and Gregory Hines from the movie. This was considered a big deal because the video had to be shot completely outside of the film. The actors probably agreed to be in the video without being paid, because back then music videos were still very new (only 5 years old) and people at the time thought they were nothing but a fad that would die out quickly. They obviously didn't.
When I recently rediscovered this song, I COULD NOT STOP LISTENING TO IT. I literally listened to the song at least 5 or 10 times in a row because it's just so frickin' catchy. I mean, yeah, it's very electronic in its sound, but what a sound it is. There's just something about it that hooks you right in and keeps you there.
The funny part is that Sweet Freedom sounds like a ton of other songs that were around at the time. I'm not sure of the synth that was used (probably a Korg?), but there were a lot of similar-sounding songs on the charts - especially in movie soundtracks.
I was 11 years old in 1986, and I remember when this song hit the charts and seemed to just stay there forever. The song sticks in my mind just that much.
Another funny thing is that I've never seen Running Scared.
Yeah, I'm going to watch it just because of Sweet Freedom. :)
Computerized guitars (and whether they're worth buying or not)
The vast majority of solid-body electric guitars today are pretty much manufactured the exact same way they were 60 years ago. Planks of wood make up the body and neck, and simple passive (meaning non-"active") electronics are used for pickup selection, the pickups themselves, volume control, tone control and output jack.
While true the countries of origin where the guitars and their electronics are made have changed, the formula for how an electric guitar is put together has not.
The only thing that's really changed when comparing guitars then to now are the materials.
A few examples:
Guitar nuts from years ago were almost exclusively made from real bone (as in cow bone), while today they are almost exclusively synthetic bone (Fender's synthetic nut material is called Cyclovac).
Before advances in plastics came along, many guitar manufacturers used a material called bakelite (pronounced "bay-kuh-lite"). Fender used this material on their early pick guards (which you can still get new if you really want it) and control knobs. Early Fender amplifiers also used bakelite knobs. Gibson also used bakelite for their pick guards, sometimes the pickup rings, etc. Basically speaking, anything that was plastic on the guitar was bakelite in the early days. And no, you don't want bakelite because it's just not that sturdy compared to modern plastics.
Finish materials have changed quite a bit over the decades. Most guitars now use a proper polyurethane coating to keep the body paint shiny. I say "proper" because finish coatings really didn't start getting good until the 1990s. In the 1980s and earlier, urethane coated guitars would dull right out in a short period of time (a shine would last 5 years at best with any regular guitar use). Nitrocellulose lacquers aren't used that much because like the guitars made from years ago, that lacquer will crack, pit and chip. Some players like that for the retro look a guitar can get over time, but in all honesty you're not going to get that "well worn" look unless you play the guitar hard and often. You're better off with a modern polyurethane coating, trust me on that one. And no, the nitro lacquer does absolutely nothing for tone no matter what anyone says, nor does it let the guitar "breathe" because the wood is dead. Nothing dead can breathe. Ever. Nitro lacquer finishes do not promote better string vibration and do not affect a single-coil or humbucker pickup's sound in any way. What a nitro finish does do is crack, chip and look like crap after a few years. That's what you get with nitro and nothing else.
The computerized guitar
Guitar makers have tried over the years to modernize the solid-body electric guitar. Several models (some of which are for sale right now) exist, but the problem with the computerized guitar has always been the same:
Nobody really wants one.
What counts as a "computerized guitar"?
It is an electric guitar that:
- Has some form of computerized control on it somewhere, such as motorized tuners.
- Has the ability to connect to a computerized device (MIDI, USB or both).
- All of the above.
Here are three guitars (one from Fender and two from Gibson). I'll first show them to you, and then tell you why I think they suck. Click any link below to see the current price for one.
Fender VG StratocasterThis is the most computer-enhanced "Fender approved" Stratocaster you can buy. There is a circuit board sitting inside this Strat, and the Roland "enhancements" basically give you any type of sound you were ever looking for.
Epiphone Les Paul UltraThe computerization here comes in the respect this Les Paul has a USB port when you can connect the guitar to compatible software on your computer.
Gibson Firebird X
The Firebird X (which is pronounced as "Firebird Ten" as the X is the Roman numeral 10) is without question the most computerized electric guitar on the market right now. The only way I can describe it is by saying it has everything. And I mean everything.
The GOOD stuff about computerized guitars
Well, I'll first begin with the GOOD about computerized guitars.
They are priced fairly
Given the amounts of tech that are stuffed into these things, the prices are actually quite reasonable.
They do the job they were designed to do
A computerized guitar does deliver on all its promises. There's no hype involved with these things at all. You do truly get a technologically advanced instrument that can do far more compared to its non-computerized predecessor.
They play like guitars should play
Care was taken to make sure a computerized guitar at its core is still a guitar. Pick one up and play it, and it's basically no different than a non-computerized solid-body electric. And yes, that's a good thing.
The BAD stuff about computerized guitars
Machines and computers just don't mix when it comes to guitars
An electric guitar is a machine that by nature is a very physical instrument. This isn't like a synthesizer where it just sits there and you play it. With a guitar, you sit down with it, you stand up with it, you move around while playing, and so on.
That being said, computerized guitars by nature are pretty much meant for studio use only. Bring one on stage and you're asking for a very expensive accident to happen.
The tones out of most computerized guitars are digital character and not player character
The sound you hear is what the computer in the guitar (if produced by the computer) "thinks" a guitar is supposed to sound like. For most players this is a huge turn-off because what makes a guitar tone is the natural properties of the pickups and not a circuit board.
Players more often than not prefer digital tone to come from anything but the guitar (such as digital effects pedals) because they can exert more control over it. Furthermore, if the digital tone doesn't agree with the player, he can simply remove it.
Most players consider computerized guitars "not real instruments"
Even though a computerized guitar is a real instrument in every sense of the term, players get turned off from them because they feel guitars should all be 100% manually operated things.
Do I personally agree with this? Yes, I do. I feel that you can express yourself better as a player with a non-computerized solid-body electric. I also feel that it makes you a better player overall. All electric guitars have their quirks, but that's part of the fun of playing. If you have a computer do everything for you, well, that's just no fun at all.
Is it wrong for a musician or band to have no Facebook page?
I've been on the internet a long time. A really long time. Heck, some of you reading this probably weren't even born when I first started using internet in 1996. No, I'm not saying that to brag (because it's really nothing to brag about), but I am saying I've seen a lot of things come and go over my 16 years of using internet.
Let's back up to the middle of the 2000s for a moment and concentrate on 2005. This was when MySpace was huge in popularity. Everyone was using it. Nobody had really ever experienced "social media" before, so it was a totally new and exciting thing.
A ton of musicians and bands used MySpace pages as their primary web destination. What I mean by that is musicians and bands thought it was a really good idea to only use MySpace as the place where fans could see what the band was doing, see when their next shows were, post comments on the page, and so on.
For a while, this actually worked, but then something happened.
MySpace lost popularity. Big time.
It all happened in the scope of one year, 2008. That was the year Facebook knocked MySpace out of the top spot as the #1 social media destination, remained there ever since, and MySpace never got its popularity back. And it probably never will.
What did bands do? Here's the funny part - nothing. They continued to use MySpace all the way until around 2010. Some of them migrated over to ReverbNation (a seriously crappy site no band should ever use), and then slowly.. ever so slowly.. moved over to Facebook, got a fan page and established their new social web presence there.
And here we are in 2012. Facebook, even though still the #1 social web destination, is losing a lot of ground with the masses. Many have closed their accounts, never to return. And since the "Timeline" thing that Facebook launched back in March, many musicians and bands lost a ton of traffic from that. Many bands have said - rightfully so - that Timeline killed most if not all their Facebook traffic, and they were right, because it did.
The mistake a lot of musicians and bands make on the internet is...
...using social media as their primary web presence. BAD IDEA.
Bands in the mid-2000s honestly believed (as did a lot of other people) that MySpace was going to be the #1 social place on the internet forever, and that you couldn't possibly go wrong by having your band's only web presence there.
Well, all those people were wrong, obviously.
And they'll all be wrong again when people really start abandoning Facebook (which is closer to happening than you think).
All the bands will say the exact same thing about Facebook when it dies that they said about MySpace in 2008: "I PUT ALL THIS WORK INTO THIS PAGE FOR NOTHING!"
You watch. It will happen.
Is it wrong for a band not to have a Facebook fan page?
No, it's not wrong at all to be "Facebook-less".
The only two types of sites that truly survive no matter what happens are free blogs and self-hosted blogs.
If you have no money, you use a free blog like Blogger, LiveJournal or Xanga. (Update: WordPress is also a good choice and they do have a free option.) All three of those sites have been around since the late 1990s. Yes, really. They have longevity and staying power. Social media does not and never did.
A self-hosted blog is one like you're reading right now. No, it's not free and never has been, and yes it's a very nerdy/geeky thing where you have to know how to write/modify code and crap like that. It doesn't matter if your site is a dot-com, dot-net, dot-org or dot-whatever. Google will find it. And yes, you want Google to find it because you want people to know you or your band exists.
Google, generally speaking, prefers blogs over social media because it has more to index and can do it a lot easier compared to the 2,000-ton piece of crap known as Facebook.
If you don't have a blog for yourself or your band now, GET ONE
You might as well start preparing for Facebook's demise, because it's already well underway.
Whether you're a serious musician/band or just do it for fun, get a blog and start writing to it regularly. It doesn't matter what you put there (it can even be totally stupid stuff); the point is to just get a blog and start writing stuff.
Have a blog if for no other reason than for Google to be able to find you or your band in more than one place on the internet. Don't think about it. Just get one and start using it. You can link out from your blog to all the other places where you do band stuff like SoundCloud for audio, YouTube for video or whatever. Centralize everything around your blog. Make that your starting point for all your public internet music or band-related stuff.
I'll put it to you this way: I have several regular readers who find me by typing my name in a Google search and then come here. And I'm totally okay with that. Believe me when I say that you would want the same thing for yourself or your band, because when Facebook dies out (which it will), your fans will go to Google to find you. And if you don't have a blog, you might as well be invisible at that point.