BRAND PROFILE FENDER
Starting with the newest, what can Nicholas tell us about the NAMM newcomers, the Mustangs? “It’s got to the point, certainly in the States but in Europe as well, where a certain segment of the buying public, particularly people who are more entry-level or hobbyist, want as many features – as many bells and whistles – packed into their amps as they can possibly get,” he says. “You saw the rise of some other brands catering for that market, so we wanted to do more of that and reach that customer – but do it in a Fender way. “We looked at some of the things that we do
best – for example, when you’re a guitar player and you’re playing an inexpensive solid state amp, it’s very easy to get a sanitary clean tone and it’s very easy to get a supersaturated metal tone – but the middle gain sounds, your Keith Richards tones, or your Stevie Ray Vaughan sound, is kind of difficult for those amps to do. So we really spent a lot of time on that and made sure that if you’re a 15-year-old metal- head kid those tones are in there, but if you’re a recording enthusiast who knows what Tweed and Blackfaces and old Marshall amps are, then there’s something in there for you, too.” The new Mustangs pull this off with an easy
grace – they don’t just aim to make the right noises, they look reassuringly familiar. How does Fender manage that? “We call it the golden handcuffs,” Nicholas
laughs. “Everybody in our industry knows what Blackface and Tweed means. Everybody knows a Stratocaster and a Telecaster and when we want to try to do a product that is more iPod than Tweed Champ, there’s a segment of our customer and dealer base that says; ‘No! You’re Fender, don’t do that.’ So yes, the industrial design of the Mustang is deliberately designed to stand out and say ‘hey, I’m a new product’ and yet it’s got silver grille cloth, skirted knobs – things about it that harken to a Blackface Fender amp.” Back in the 1970s and early 80s there
was serious concern among amp makers that, quite regardless of whether their customers wanted them, valve amps had a short future ahead of them. But somehow, the demand, despite all the advances in simulation and, later, modelling continued to grow, so capitalism rode to the rescue and now valve amps are common once again – albeit at a price. But can Nicholas, with his worldwide view see an end to it? Are even the combined sales of Fender, Marshall, Peavey and all the rest enough to keep this ancient technology alive? “There’s certainly sufficient market to keep it going. As far as supply of tubes goes, we’ve done a couple of things. One is we purchased Groove Tubes and that allowed us to get a handle on some testing procedures that we hadn’t had before and it also strengthened some relationships with the manufacturers out there – of which there are only a few. We even brought on board a couple of people who made that a strong company, so purchasing Groove Tubes was a
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statement of faith on our part that we were going to stay in the tube amp business for the foreseeable future. “I keep reading that sales of vinyl LPs are up
again. They’re never going to be what they were in 1975 but there’s a certain musician or a certain enthusiast that just demands that sound. So on the one hand we’re working on iPhone apps – of which, by the way, the IK Multimedia one has just come out and we’re proud of that as an example of us trying to be right on the front edge of technology – but by the same token we also released the Tweed Champ last year and we have amps like the Super Champ, which is one of our top-selling models. The tube amp thing is not going to go away in the foreseeable future. It will only go away if people abandon playing the music that was recorded on those instruments and those amps.” If Fender has its work cut out lovingly
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The new Fender Mustangs don’t just make the right noise, they look reassuringly familiar
We constantly have one foot in the historical Fender thing and one in the digital world.
transformers, buys tweed and then gets on the forums and says ‘Hey! I’ve made an amp that has transformers that are soaked in swamp- water’ and he’ll sell it to enough people that it becomes a thing. “I believe that’s a lot of why you can’t even keep up with all the new brand names. You read Guitar Player and it’s like every month there’s ten new brands of amps. To be brutally frank about it, we at Fender watch that, but we’re not particularly scared of any one of those companies eating our lunch, because Fender has been making tube amps for 60 years.” And from a retailer’s point of view, of course,
cherishing its heritage and yet pushing ahead with SD Card equipped combos, modelling circuity and iPhone aps, it surely can’t overlook the boutique boys nipping at its ankles, either. “Whether behind the cash register or on the other side of it, I’ve been in the musical instrument business since the early 80s, so I was around when Fender and Marshall and Vox started reintroducing hand wired old-school amps. It was around the same time that people like Matchless and THD and those other guys were doing it, because it was a return to people feeling they were sick of rack-mount digital effect stuff and instead wanting a good- sounding amp and a couple of pedals. “I credit – or blame – what has happened since then to the internet forums, where anybody, anywhere, can get all the information they want on anything. So, somebody in a garage in some small town gets schematics, buys
while SwampWater amps might be hot this week, they might, equally, be out of business the next – and then what do you say to the customer to whom you’ve sold a broken one? With Fender, or one of the other big guys, you know they are going to be there fiercely defensive of their reputations, which means spares and service. It’s no exaggeration to say that we could
have talked with Shane Nicholas for hours. He’s clearly a man who knows and loves amps and he’s at the heart of one of the industry’s legends. But as time was running out we shot him a last, low bouncer – or a curve ball as he’d probably think of it. What does he, personally, think of modelling? Does he like it? “You know I do – in its place,” he offers. “Let
me give you an example. I don’t play gigs that often these days, but being at Fender, one of the great things is that everybody in sales and marketing here are musicians so we’ll throw bands together for an event we have coming up and say ‘hey let’s do a 60s rock thing’ or ‘let’s do a Hillbilly lapsteel, Hank Williams thing’. “So if you see me on a gig, I’m probably
playing a Deluxe Reverb or a Tweed Bassman, but if you see me at a vocal rehearsal, I’ll have a G-Dec Junior because it’s the quickest, easiest way to have 16 different tones and a bunch of different effects, a tuner and so much more. “So in my own life I use vintage Fender tube amps and I use modelling amps because there are applications for both.”
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