Dave’s Photo Blog

I’ve been very late in writing up this story, which is about another abuse of gullible musicians by Fender®. OK, so I think Fender makes great guitars, but they really annoy me when they try to market their way into a new purchasing demographic. I wrote about this last fall when I pooh-poohed the Fender custom guitars that are replicas of instruments played by famous guitarists. But this line, the Fender Road Worn line, is even more insidious in its vacuous nature. These new Fender guitars and basses are supposed to look like vintage classics, and feel like old friends. Give me a break.

Fender apparently thinks they can get a premium for taking a brand new guitar and scuffing it up with an orbital sander. What’s up with that? I mean really, this is getting ridiculous.  Fender is now taking mass-produced guitars that are supposed to look like they have random wear-and-tear. Notice this section from the advertisement. That’s a Fender Telecaster on the left and a Stratocaster on the right. But here’s the thing. These two guitars are very strategically positioned to obscure the most visible part of the scuffed body.

You will notice that the left side of the Telecaster is covered by a call-out box about financing, and the Telecaster itself obscures the left side of the Stratocaster. Do you think this is deliberate? I don’t think so, I think it’s very cleverly crafted advertising. Right under this image, four more guitars are displayed.

But they don’t have an almost $1,000 price tag next to them, do they? The ones next to the price look pretty unworn because the worn bits are hidden. Here’s another example of why I think this is a deliberate subconscious trick. Look at this photo from the cover of the advertisement.

As a photographer, I almost immediately noticed something odd about this picture. The shadows. You see, this photograph is meant to have ambiance. It’s meant to look like the poor directional lighting in a dusty old road house somewhere. But it’s actually a very, very clever studio photo. Why? Because it is not trivial, not trivial at all, to be able to throw that deep a shadow from the pickups, bridge and knobs and still have the bottom of the guitar completely and perfectly lit. If the light is coming from somewhere above and behind the face of the guitar, the bottom edge should be completely in shadow, but it’s not.

In order to pull this trick off, you have to have something lighting the bottom of the guitar that cannot reflect back onto the top of the guitar. You do that either by using a room with a very high ceiling and no overhead lighting, or by using lots and lots of black, light absorbing fabric well above the top surface of the guitar. The photo looks cool, but it’s not very real. I mean, it’s not a fake, don’t get me wrong. It’s actually a very nice picture. What I’m saying is that the lighting that occurs on this photo would be unlikely to occur in real life. Anyway, the point is that these are all very carefully and deliberately composed and exposed photographs. They know what they are doing.

Now I will introduce you, somewhat sarcastically, to the Fender Road Worn signature scuff – an oblique shark fin-like shape on the top of the guitar just about where your arm will be when you are playing it. Notice how the right three guitars in the photo of four above all have basically the same scuff pattern. Here’s a better look with a quote from the Fender web site.

It’s truly an art. It’s very hard to make a guitar look convincingly worn unless you know the secrets.

Now, in Fender’s defense, they do say that there are other differences than just the scuff marks on the front. They say they use slightly different equipment such as pickups, fret-wire and a nitro-cellulose finish and that they are already broken in. User reviews are mixed. Some folks think that this wear (or reliced, as in relic-ed) process makes the guitar a better value when stacked up against the more expensive Fender guitars. But a lot of folks also think this is just a gimmick. These instruments appear to be made in Mexico and the conventional wisdom has been that the Mexican Fender’s are not as good as the American-made Fenders. But you will notice that in most cases you pay a whopping premium to get a Road Worn guitar – as much as 56%. Check out this price comparison I put together from retail prices at the Guitar Center.

In this case, I do have to offer an opinion. If you really want to purchase a Road Worn guitar, the 50’s Stratocaster is the best value relative to the standard Fender guitars. Better yet, just buy a new one that you love and start playing out and beating on it. Or use an orbital sander. Here is what you, and Fender, are trying to achieve. In this case, a real Fender Jazz Bass that’s been beat up over the years being played by Clint Conley of Mission of Burma. That’s what I’m talking about.