Clones and copies?

Sascha Franck said:
Ok, so why are several top players using their guitars? I guess they all have no clue, right? Unlike you, permanentely touring with top artists...
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The one has nothing to do with the other.
You could say this about any company that outsource their built.
Look at Strandberg.
If you want what they offer at a ok price although ludicrous for anything Indonesia there’s all that’s to it.

And generally we have no clue what’s behind the curtain. It’s been a long time since guys like Jimi whose take was I pay full pop and you can use my name and likeness but if you fail me we’re done…to Marshall.

The flip side I dealt with so many A level Fusion guys when working in MI and when it came to guitars their requirement literally was I’ll endorse anything that’s in the ballpark as long as they run a half page ad with me in it for at least 6 month.

So yeah, who uses what is a matter of well marketing. And it goes both ways.

Those guys know what it takes and what they want and what they’re willing to give.
Which is always been the second question when guys where tire kicking for endorsements.
What did you want and what does the company get.
And if they couldn’t answer that in a sensible way there was no point to continue the conversation.

And that was only after the first question…will I find you an all music.
So let’s not equate business with quality otherwise it’ll be over a billion served really fast.
 
Ripping off other people’s work is a dick move. And giving those companies a pass because the clone is cheap is a dick move too, as it is still ripping off somebody else’s work. I’m looking at you, Joyo owners. And Behringer as a company is one big dripping donkey dick.
 
paisleywookiee said:
As long as it's disclosed where it's actually made, and isn't ripping off someone else's designs, I don't see the issue.
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No issue with that. It’s kinda like Strandberg, ordinarily I’d never get an Indonesian guitar for that money.
Thing with D-berg is that they were made in Korea and they really Giacomo Turra’d that shit letting folks believe it was made in Germany. Which is not cool.
 
Ed DeGenaro said:
No issue with that. It’s kinda like Strandberg, ordinarily I’d never get an Indonesian guitar for that money.
Thing with D-berg is that they were made in Korea and they really Giacomo Turra’d that shit letting folks believe it was made in Germany. Which is not cool.
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Yeah that's definitely bullshit, if they alluded to them being German-made when they're not. Same goes for fucking Zager guitars.
 
Ed DeGenaro said:
No issue with that. It’s kinda like Strandberg, ordinarily I’d never get an Indonesian guitar for that money.
Thing with D-berg is that they were made in Korea and they really Giacomo Turra’d that shit letting folks believe it was made in Germany. Which is not cool.
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So, where exactly did it say "Made In Germany" on a korean-made guitar?
 
Here we go Duesenberg when they actually were made in Germany…just about 40 years ago…

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Sascha Franck said:
Where was it marketed as being made in Germany?
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They do heavily imply it to be fair. I'm on the duesenberg site now and there's a lot of little things that imply they make guitars and one very small section where they state they design them and assemble them from parts made for them.

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I really like the look of Duesenberg and have no problems buying a guitar made in Croatia or anywhere else that's built properly. It'd be nice if duesenberg were a bit more honest and open about where their parts are made.
 
Frodebro said:
In the 1980s.
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And they were made in Germany back then.
Then they outsourced some processes (body, neck, painting) to Korea, later on to Croatia. But from all I know, it never said "Made In Germany" on any of those guitars. And most of them defenitely were assembled in Germany. So, no different than what pretty much all companies do.
Sure, if they were trying to tell you the guitars were actually made in Germany, that'd be fraud. But again, from all I know, that didn't happen. All that happens is that people knew Duesenberg was a german company. Just as they know that Fender is a US-american company.

I absolutely fail to see the problem - and yes, I'm aware that people are raising these issues ever since around 2010 or so, but Duesenberg never lied or whatever. And their guitars and other hardware always remained to be high standard (unlike the nonsense Mr. Eagle wants you to believe).
 
SillyOctpuss said:
They do heavily imply it to be fair. I'm on the duesenberg site now and there's a lot of little things that imply they make guitars and one very small section where they state they design them and assemble them from parts made for them.
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Does, say, Fender claim anything different? Don't they have "american guitar making tradition" plastered all over the place, regardless of where the guitars are actually made?
 
Sascha Franck said:
Does, say, Fender claim anything different? Don't they have "american guitar making tradition" plastered all over the place, regardless of where the guitars are actually made?
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Fender brand every single instrument with made in America, made in Mexico, made in Japan, made in china etc.

Look, I like duesenberg and I'm not attacking them. But I am struggling to see how anyone could honestly look at their own website and not think they're implying the guitars are made in Germany when they clearly aren't.
 
Chocol8 said:
Because that IS what happened and it WAS the consumers who drove it. American manufacturers didn't all start making record profits, many of them went out of business!

Look at what things used to cost and what they cost now in inflation adjusted dollars. Companies HAD to reduce costs because selling prices came DOWN with foreign competition. When TV's were made in the US, a single TV was a major purchase for a household, now people have 5 cheap imported ones in their house.

An American made guitar was also a major purchase, $250 for a Strat in 1954 which is $3,000 adjusted for inflation. A Les Paul was more. Now you can buy an import Strat for less than $250 in 2025 dollars, or less than $20 in 1954 dollars. How does Fender compete with that? They have to make their low end guitars overseas AND they had to cut costs on their MIA guitars. Only the custom shop stuff is priced equivalent to a production guitar in the past. So yeah, it didn't turn in to bigger profits, it turned into lower selling prices.

As for your last statement, that is also not true. The middle class consumer buys way more crap than they did when things were made in the US. Middle class homes have two car garages and families have 2+ cars, multiple TV's multiple cell phones, multiple computers, a collection of guitars, pedals and amps. That's not how my parents and grand parents grew up! One car, one phone with the line shared with the neighbors, one TV or none, one guitar if you saved up for it.
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You’re conflating US companies being outcompete by Japanese companies in the 80s (in price and quality) with US companies choosing to outsource. Two fairly different issues.

Of course the consumer is going to choose the cheapest option between two similar products. Economics 101. The problem with blaming the consumer on the outsourcing model is that once it’s down to consumer level, my choice is “I buy as an individual choose to place myself in a disadvantage position within my society by making a drop in the bucket choice that probably won’t effect anything.” Where when the outsourcing bandwagon was first starting, the choices by those in powers were “we’d like to advantage ourselves by moving our production outside the US”. The choices being made were consequential, not drop-in-the bucket in nature.choices could have been made from the start to make sure the consumers saw the true price of the outsourced products, but they weren’t, and consumers do what consumers do.

All of this is basic human nature. There are outliers on the selfish asshole side for sure. But we are all fairly complicit at this point regardless of where we stand on the “power to actually do anything” scale. So trying to find blame, or moralize choices isn’t super helpful from either side. We just need some clear eyed people to sit down and start trying to solve the problem, because it was always a bit of a pyramid scheme…

Edit to add: maybe you are also talking about Chinese companies directly competing in US. Same applies - decisions were made a seeming lifetime ago to allow those imports in without accurate cost being reflected to consumers. That’s where effective large scale decision making needs to happen; not an individual consumer standing in Target in between sports practice drop-off/pick-up trying to make a decision on an individual purchase.
 
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Frodebro said:
But it’s very common knowledge that Fender manufacturers their guitars in both Mexico and America.
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And it seems to be common knowledge that Duesenberg guitars are partially made in Croatia. Otherwise we wouldn't be discussing about it.


SillyOctpuss said:
But I am struggling to see how anyone could honestly look at their own website and not think they're implying the guitars are made in Germany when they clearly aren't.
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This very video is posted straight on Duesenberg's startpage:



No idea how anyone would think they're entirely made in Germany when the video takes you to Varazdin (Croatia) 1 minute in.
 
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