Fender HQ Tour

[Guitar Lawyer]

Arizona House Representative Tom Forese and I toured the new Fender headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona. Mark Van Vleet, Fender's chief legal officer and senior vice president of business affairs, and Michael Spandau, Fender's chief information officer gave us the VIP tour. It was an amazing place and everyone I met there was totally welcoming and kind. We toured the whole facility and ended up spending a lot of time with senior vice president of Fender brands, Richard McDonald. Richard is quite a character. From under his desk, Richard pulled out Strat serial No. 196 in its original case and handed it to me. Wow! Not every day that I hold a $100k guitar! It was very cool. There were lots of Jackson and Charvel in the office too. They had a Randy Rhoads conference room with Rhoads Vs hung on the walls. There were Jackson and Charvel guitars hanging all around the office. Upstairs in the marketing department they had a photography studio and they were taking pictures of a sweet black Jackson V (kinda looked like a King V). At the end of the tour Mark and Richard asked if we wanted to play some guitars in their sound room studio. They asked what kind of guitars I wanted to play and I asked if they had any new Charvel or Jackson guitars! Indeed they did... Here are some pictures of the office and some of the guitars I played in their sound room.

Randy Rhoads Conference Room:




Notice anything interesting?




Nice Kelly and 7 string!





I had them set up an EVH 5150III (signed by Mr. EVH himself), and also a G-DEC 3 Thirty Metal practice amp with TONS of jam tracks that we jammed to! Fun.

[Cygnus X1]

Nice!
Glad they have a focus on the J/C branding.
Just remind them to log in here a little more often.

[BenoA]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing that cool story. What is that way cool neck joint on the Jackson? Upcoming new product?

[Guitar Lawyer]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing that cool story. What is that way cool neck joint on the Jackson? Upcoming new product?

Yep, new neck joint for upcoming product line...

[Devotee]

Yep, new neck joint for upcoming product line...

Ooooh! What's the story behind that Kelly?

[Confuse-a-Cat]

Nice photos.

I've been wondering for a while why Jackson have never tried a more ergonomic neck joint on their bolt-ons, and I guess now they have. That red dinky with the offset dots was posted to their facebook page a few days ago; we don't know anything about it really other than they were asking whether people preferred it with binding or without. The photos are on one of the latest pages of the new model teaser pics thread. I like it. Was the black one the same spec in a different finish? And any ideas on where they're made? :p

And yeah, I agree with Devotee, I want to know about that Kelly...

[Guitar Lawyer]

...Was the black one the same spec in a different finish? And any ideas on where they're made? :p

And yeah, I agree with Devotee, I want to know about that Kelly...

Here is another picture of the black one. Yes, it was just like the flame-top red one. New control cavity routing (smaller). You can sort of see the new control cavity in this picture on the back of the red one. They are made in Indonesia. They played terrific.



The Kelly was really smooth. Neck-through, EMGs, white bevels... awesome. Oh, the green 7 string was light as a feather, very surprising.

[toejam]

Very cool. Thanks for posting! The new neck heel looks pretty neat.

[Confuse-a-Cat]

Nice. Is that a maple fretboard I see on the black one?

[fullmetalguitar]

Nice. Is that a maple fretboard I see on the black one?

And does it also have black binding on the neck? Kind of looks like it in the pic. Thanks.

[Guitar Lawyer]

And does it also have black binding on the neck? Kind of looks like it in the pic. Thanks.

Yep, maple neck with black binding. The black finish was not glossy, but also not flat black like primer either - sort of in-between. Also, I believe the 7 string had a longer scale.

[stevieb91]

Thanks for posting this!!

[MetalHeadMat]

WOW very nice!!!

[sully]

GL, always nice to see you here.

Glad there's a RR conference room and that his last name was spelled correctly!

I like that neck joint; glad to see that they're catching up!

Sully

[groverj3]

I saw the red one on their facebook page but it's really great to see some new models with differing features! I wonder if the pro series is returning in some form here.

The 26.5" 7 strings had already been confirmed previously but these new bolt-ons with the ergonomic heel look pretty sweet!

It looks like the green 7 has the bridge pickup pretty far away from the bridge. There have been conflicting reports of that being fixed in production and the pictures on the Jackson website confirm that. But all the early ones I've seen anywhere else still look like it's almost a middle pickup.