Fender Mod Shop

Finish work i would assume
It wouldnt be a line tech assembling it,,or atleast ya’d figure its one of the senior line techs

 

Mod shop guitars are MIA, right?

 

Ant , I’ve built one on there a couple times myself , came away thinking I’d be better off buying an ultra or pro ll.

 

The only + is you get a personalized strat with less options or cost than CS.

I have not had my hands on one so I can't comment if there is a higher attention to detail.

 

I guess $300 is cheap for a personal shopper that pics your parts
Hell thats how the rich folks do it,,,,right?
Live a little

 

All i can say is if i lived in the US, i would get one. I play around with it sometimes, its lots of fun(maybe i have too much time om my hands). Its like designing your own signature Strat. A bit limited with some features and no nitro, but i would take one over any of the American stuff(Original series excluded) any day.

 

Actually, I think the guitar to compare it with is the American Pro II, which is at the $1500 price point.

I don't think we are promised anything from the mod shop other than different colors, pickups and neck combinations that aren't available in the off the shelf models.

And the major drawback of the 'You can't return it for any reason' policy.

Here's the off the shelf version of what you created for $1499.99 Is the color red worth $300 extra?

• Three V-Mod II single-coil Stratocaster pickups
• Upgraded 2-Point Tremolo with Cold-Rolled Steel Block
• Deep "C”-shaped neck profile with rolled fingerboard edges
• Bone nut; 22 narrow-tall frets for easy bending
• Treble bleed circuit maintains highs when reducing volume
• Includes Deluxe Molded hardshell case

 

It’s basically a partscaster. I don’t mean that in a negative way at all, you’re just picking parts they already have on hand and they’re throwing it together for you. If there’s a color combo you want, with a certain neck and pickups, I say go for it! There’s no special build quality - other than maybe paint they’re just pulling necks and parts off the shelf and assembling.

 

It's about the added choices. My avatar picture shows three Strats with rosewood necks. Two were GC specials, the third I got from the Mod Shop. The quality is identical, but I could get an HH Strat with a solid rosewood neck in Mystic Ice Blue through the Mod Shop. Prices were lower last year, though. I bought in May, and I got a 10% discount on mine because I bought a Fender Play membership for a friend (that I'd been planning to get him anyway). That took the original $1700 price at the time down to $1530. With the rosewood neck (which at the time was a no cost Mod Shop option, amazingly), not a bad deal, as the GC price was and is $1649 for their rosewood necked Strats. Mod Shop prices have gone up considerably since then.

 

If you a member of Fender Play, you get a 10% discount on guitars purchased through the Mod Shop.

 

People like "bespoke" stuff. It makes them feel special.
Manufacturers like bespoke stuff - it means you have a buyer for a product you build, can cut distribution and retail out of the supply chain and keep their margins, and charge the consumer more for the end product.

eg: https://www.zendesk.com/blog/bespoke-coming-product-service-near/

If you aren't the sort of person who swaps necks, pickguards, pickups, electronics... then the mod shop is a good option to get the guitar you want without going full custom shop.

As people have said above... the mod shop has a limited number of rotating pieces. Other than the bodies, which may very well be sprayed to order... especially those that don't currently feature on any production guitar. The rest of the stuff comes out of the buckets along the back wall. Compare this to companies like Warmoth who make each body and neck to order, or true bespoke luthiers who build your entire guitar from scratch giving you a completely unique instrument. There is nowhere on the mod-shop site to choose your pickup routes or neck pocket contour for example.

Neither of my strats nor my tele came out of any factory. They've evolved over time as I found bits I liked and bits I didn't and swapped them over. That suits me... but different stroke for different folks.

If there is something you can pull together on the mod shop that ticks every box, buy it. If not, look at what's close... particularly neck, body and tremolo. Everything else can be changed.

(Strat 1... MIM Lonestar strat in Ocean Turquoise with original neck & middle Texas Specials + aged white plastics + electronics + bridge, SD JB HB... that I may yet change for something else, warmoth tortoise shell guard, MIA Jim Root neck with ebony board, Fender locking tuners.
Strat 2: MIM Roadhouse body in aged copper with original bridge, the takeoff maple neck from the MIM Lonestar with standard tuners, 2005 MIA American Standard pickups + delta tone electrics, chinese aluminium pickguard finished as distressed copper, distressed copper tele knobs, all-parts chrome-effect pickup covers).

 

No argument, but just for clarity: You can get a Strat in SSS, HSS, HSH, or HH in the Mod Shop. Teles can be SS or HH. But it's true that you can't just pick anything. You're choosing their pickups options, and the routes come along for the ride.

I didn't want "bespoke" so much as a pickup, neck, and color combination that they just so happened to offer.

 

It seems like with the ModShop you get more personalization. Had to go ModShop to get the color I wanted on my Acoustasonic.

Had to go ModShop to get a fully (both neck and body) mahogany Tele. And with the Tele I was then given the option of the pick guard color and 6 different pickup choices, tons of neck choices, etc. It was worth the additional dough in my opinion.

And you get a nice neck plate

I could be wrong but I swear my ModShop guitars are a bit higher quality workmanship. And, they’re the only Fenders I’ve kept. I sold all the rest to buy Reverends.

 

I played around in the Mod Shop. Cool idea for “semi-custom” guitars. You pick from the dim-sum menu and get something, theoretically, almost custom shop for about half price. If you can find what you want there, not a bad deal. In my case, I want a traditional trem, and pickups not offered by Fender. So....I may as well buy an Eric Johnson and do the minor mods I might want on a Strat, and probably save a little dough...

OTOH, there were a couple of Teles that I could see getting

 

This is pretty much the answer in one sentence. Personalized details for a premium price.

G&L does much the same with their Option Order approach. You can either get a US built Fullerton model the way they build it or an Option Order model of the same guitar built to your specs.

 

Fun Stuff

 

No vintage type six-screw bridge for a strat as an option?

 

I’m thinking on designing up a nice hard tail on the Mod Shop for my birthday this year.