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Tell HN: Fender Now Manufacturing Guitars to Vintage Specs

5 points by AnimalMuppet ↗ HN
I think this is interesting from a marketing perspective. It's probably not high volume, but it might have decent margins.

Could this be done in tech? Is there a market for new, made-in-2022 Amigas? Apple IIs? TRS-80s? (Again, probably not high volume...)

Sales-oriented info on Fender's offerings: https://www.fender.com/en-US/american-vintage-ii.html

5 comments

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smoldesu
"to Vintage Specs" is a slippery slope with a lot of different meanings. Behringer recreated the venerated V3340 VCO so they could mass-product dozens of synths based on the retro architecture. Thankfully they didn't go as far as marketing their clones as faithful recreations, but it does beg the question as to what "vintage specs" mean.

Fender seems to have a ravenous fanbase, so I guess they'll be the judge of it at the end of the day. Does make you wonder, though.

AnimalMuppet
If you can believe their advertising, it means exactly to the original specs - all of them. Shape, material, paint, pickup, everything.
brudgers
Probably not because one Apple IIc is more or less entirely fungible with every other Apple IIc.

While each Stratocaster is much less fungible with other Stratocasters, which is why new Stratocasters to vintage specs makes sense.

Also, the market for musical gear is very different from the electronics market. A guitar from the 1970’s is still fit for purpose to a degree a 1970’s computer isn’t because the measure of the guitar is musical sound and the measure of a computer is whatever.

Finally, the market for used musical gear is much much larger and more liquid.

tomcam
No equivalence. Pretty much any pro-quality electric guitar made in the last 70 years could be used in place of any other pro-quality guitar. Old ones are often even better than new ones, and most well-made guitars age like fine wine.

The same is not true with computers. You and I have almost zero chance getting a good job by programming on an artisan or otherwise Apple ][ or TRS-80.

aussiethebob
There is a lot of romanticism in guitar gear nerd circles, who are big believers in 'mojo'. Things like tone wood, degaussed pickup magnets, nitro paint and so on and so on.

There is zero reliable evidence that these things impact how the instrument sounds or plays, or that guitars age in any appreciable way (maybe acoustics, but certainly not electrics). Manufacturers are cranking out amazing instruments with remarkable consistency, we're truly in a golden age where even low tier instruments are likely to be every bit as good as what the 'greats' played on, which were after all just off the shelf guitars in their time.