#Fender is sending cease and desist letters to rivals for copying their gear (guitars). Meanwhile they are making digital modellers that emulate others' gear (amps and pedals) and they do so in a manner that makes it clear what being copied. For example, their plugin Rockbox copies Scholz' Rockman

Everyone copies everyone in the #guitar world, it only exists as a market with tiny incremental differences between products

@ronanmcd
Not to mention the fact that all of Fender's early amp designs were just example circuits lifted straight from the RCA Receiving Tube Manual.

This is simply a matter of a company having too deep a bench of lawyers. They're paying the lawyers anyway, so occasionally, they're going to create some work for them, whether there is any merit to the case or not.

@TheGreatLlama yeah, good points. It also looks like something to do with a new CEO trying to make his mark (badly)
@ronanmcd
Yep, doing all the "smart business guy" stuff that simultaneously pisses off the customers and the dealers, and costs them market share in the long run.
@ronanmcd @TheGreatLlama it’s all gone down like a bag of warm turds with all of guitar/muso YouTube. The backlash on Fender is not going to be pretty for their bottom line I suspect.
@TheGreatLlama @ronanmcd Rick Beato was particularly striking with his take, that Fender guitars are built badly with awful quality control, if they built better guitars then people would be buying them.
@Wifiwits @TheGreatLlama i saw that. But then again, he's mates with Paul Reed Smith and has a signature Gibson. Plus his story about spending $900 in the 90s on something that was no good was odd... Why buy it?
But under it all Fender have really not covered themselves in glory
@ronanmcd @Wifiwits
For my part, I sold guitars in the 90s and I was never particularly impressed with what Fender was putting out. The thing about a bolt neck guitar is that it really is just the sum of its parts if they're assembled competently.
@TheGreatLlama @Wifiwits yeah, but at least it can be swapped. I have a hollow body with a glued on neck that I'm not convinced by; it's fine, I just don't love it. If I could easily swap it, I would. So in theory I like that approach to building, but I'm not very picky about guitars, I'll just play what feels nice.
At the moment that is my strat, as I love its base sound which can take effects
@ronanmcd @Wifiwits
Don't get me wrong, I love a strat... I just haven't picked up a Fender in years that's felt as good as the Squire neck I did all the fretwork on and bolted to a Warmoth body with some vintage spec pickups.
@TheGreatLlama @Wifiwits oh that sounds great. I do have a squier too, exceptional value
@ronanmcd @Wifiwits
It's from the era when they were coming from the Korean Samick factory, which was a good era for Squiers. The frets had been worj to the point where it wasn't playable at all. It's beat enough it looks like it was on tour with SRV, but after I fixed the frets it's excellent.
@TheGreatLlama @Wifiwits update- seems I'm not the only one noticing Fender have been copying others in all their emulation software. They admit it by their actions: https://youtu.be/QUTRWXcK-o8
Fender's Controversy Just Got WEIRDER! Why Were Marshall, Mesa & Vox Removed?

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