The era of guitar forums is unfortunately coming to an end.
https://www.fender.com/pages/forums
Fender has closed their own company forum, and many others will close soon too.
Hopefully, some of the older, more traditional ones will remain.
The era of guitar forums is unfortunately coming to an end.
https://www.fender.com/pages/forums
Fender has closed their own company forum, and many others will close soon too.
Hopefully, some of the older, more traditional ones will remain.
Fender has wobbled back and forth on their forum. Stopped it for a revamp a few times. After I'd entered all my Fender gear in registration where Fender stored my serial numbers and such. I spent a couple of hours setting that up. Just a month or two later, they wiped their forums and that feature, without warning, without a way to get at that information. That's why I haven't gone back to them. Fuck their forum.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
Indeed, it was a tragic loss -- twelve years of priceless information flushed down the crapper in the interest of corporate expediency and unbridled greed. For many it was the only venue that helped FMIC's customers figure out how their gear worked, and when it didn't, how to fix it. Apparently, Servco's hedge-fund hottentots (Fender's new owner) are not interested in that, only ever-increasing quarterly profits. I'll never buy a new Fender product again.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
I learned a lot from so many. Time....its the master.
Kenny Belmont
>:^{I)>
"Live and learn and flip the burns"
The "forum guy" is a personal acquaintance and he and I worked for over a week, trying to find a way to save the forum or at least devise an acceptable replacement format that did not rely on corporate sponsorship. To his credit, he is "one of us" in that he is a working guitarist who came up through the company ranks from the early days of the post-CBS era. Tacitly he shared my opinions on the impending myopic foolishness and really wanted to devise some way of preserving the forum and the priceless knowledge it contained. I proffer no defense for the idiots at Servco -- they think Fender is building the equivalent of disposable kitchen utensils or shoddy patio furniture such as one would find at a typical big-box store. That musicians are a special breed who often bond with their equipment for life was apparently of no import to them whatsoever.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
"Live and learn and flip the burns"
I think if Fender keeps going in their current direction, They will hurt there reputation Like Gibson and the result will be lower sales.
In a bit of irony, due to the coronavirus scare, Fender is offering free online guitar lessons for 3 months to the first 100,000 registrants. Wow.
Vinyl is one of the more knowledgeable amp and guitar techs who freely gave of his time and expertise at the FMIC Community forum. We're fortunate to have him here along with a handful of others I was able to "recruit" before Fender's site went tits up. There were several others who I'm hopeful will eventually find their way here.
"When injustice becomes law then rebellion becomes duty."
Very well done, Roger
It's a pity. Fender is such a powerful brand, even after they'd done everything to shoot themselves and their cusomers in the foot. They could make the products better and improve their customer relations. They could take that brand to the top again with one or two smart decisions.
If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison
It only opened like 12 years ago so they weren't even around that long compared to a lot of others that opened when the internet was just coming of agecin the late 90s to early 00's. I've watched many, many car forums disappear over the years that had been around since basically the beginning. Plus you cannot base what other companies do on a single company.
In general, it's not just guitar forums. It's forums, period. Social media has a lot to do with it, IMO.
That's the most promising reply. I've never had a Facebook, Instagram,(again Facebook) or Twitter account.
The most annoying thing I've found here is the character limit. If I wanted that, I'd sign up for Twitter.
Another promising thing, no Google Bot or any other search bot logins.
No adds, no search bots, who pays? Contributions? Is that possible?
Forums may be dying, but there seem to be a lot of people who won't rely on the modern "social media" for information. That includes me.
If I want to know what's happening with my family, I pick up the phone and call them. Same with "extended family", old co-workers, we try to get together at lunch, although that's not possible right now.
PHP script?, we seem to be stuck with it. The only software that seems to work with forums.
I'm just interested in a little bit of comraderie. Happy to share whatever knowledge I have. As long as someone isn't trying to make money off of it.
Cheers,
vinyl