Fender vs. Gibson: What did they get right in their designs?

What Fender got right was the ergonomic design of the Stratocaster. And the sound of the Strat's neck pickup.

The overall best sounding guitar I have ever heard was my late brother's Gibson SG. I should have asked him to let me play it.

They both sound great through a Marshall.

One point each.

And two points Marshall.

Peegoo 🏁... I guess you've never had pumpernickel with real maple syrup... from Quebec. LOL.

Gibsons have headstock troubles, and (vintage) Fenders have that 7.25" fretboard radius.

That's what I think they got wrong.

"Exclude all non functional decorative elements and the subjectivity of pickups, just focus on design essentials..."

That is the secret to perfect engineering--when an item has everything it needs to satisfy the requirement, and it has nothing that is unnecessary to satisfy the requirement. When people ask me what I think the best guitar design is, I always say, "the Telecaster. It has everything ya need, and nothing ya don't." It could be argued that the headstock decal serves no functional purpose, but Fender is in business to sell guitars, so brand identity is definitely a necessary feature to keep the company solvent.

I remember years ago in school reading the ultimate guidance for engineering and design: build the prototype, and then start taking features away until it begins to fail to meet the requirement.

It is human nature to overbuild, and that increases initial production cost and long-term maintenance cost.


Okay, I'll mention a few things about Fender and Gibson.   Based on what I know about guitars, I think each company has goofed in two ways.

Fender: the vibrato bridge for the Stratocaster; in an otherwise ingenious concept, the screw threads that mate the bar to the block are really poor design given the materials and how they are used by the consumer. The parts quickly wear and get sloppy, and sometimes the flexure of the arm in the block causes the bar to fatigue and break.

The other cheap-out is the jack cup for the Telecaster. This idea came directly from the lap steels and should've been updated because lap steels are stationary instruments; they're played sitting down. A guitar is worn and often played standing. All that movement can cause the jack cup to loosen in its mounting and fall out. I've had the jacks puke their guts out while playing onstage, even with the cable buried behind the strap.


The two things Gibson does badly...first, the headstock design on many of their guitars: the neck is already weakest right behind the nut due to very little wood there, an angle in the structure, and grain runout thanks to one-piece necks. If that isn't enough, they remove even more wood by routing a huge pocket in the center of all that so the truss rod wrench can fit over the adjusting nut. Goofy! When you pop open the truss rod plate on a Gibson and peek in there to view the ghastly small cross section of wood under the nut, it is no surprise headstock breaks are common.

The second thing has been Gibson forgetting the customer demographic; they've focused too hard on staying 'cutting edge' in order to satisfy management board and shareholders' desires to remain competitive in a highly competitive market.  This approach is right out of all the management textbooks: "evolve or die."  This has led the company down some paths that went nowhere and resulted in big losses. It began in the late 50s with the Explorer and Flying V; they just didn't sell, so Gibson stopped making them after tooling up. Not too much later, the same thing happened with the Les Paul/SG and Firebird. These efforts were Gibson's attempt to fit 'modern' design into their stodgy old 1950s product line.  Compounding the problem was their only pitch man--Les Paul--had pretty much fallen out of public view because he was no longer in the charts. Gibson needed to compete with Fender, who was putting out futuristic guitars that were selling well (primarily the Stratocaster and Telecaster), and who had several high-profile endorsers in the music charts. It didn't start looking up for Gibson until they again began producing the carved-top Les Paul well into in the 1960s.

Their more recent adventures also bear out this flawed approach--too much 'technology' incorporated in their products, corporate overdiversifiation, far too many different models of guitar, and strong-arm tactics and threats to the very dealers upon which they rely to move their products!  Insane.  It's no wonder the ship just about sank a year ago.  They're doing better now, but they still have not learned from their mistakes of the past because they continue to make some of the same ones.  The "evolve or die" philosophy applies to 99.9% of all products and services companies.  But (my opinion) not guitars...because guitars are not only an elastic commodity, they are also icons of culture and nostalgia that need to remain largely consistent in order to remain relevant with the consumer base.  Gibson, give me a call.  I can make you the great company you once were 



Okay I'm done ranting 

Many of us learned on those and learned quite a lot then went with the flow in later years.

I hate those vintage tuners.

I love vintage tuners.

See, that is one of the reasons I like them. I generally have no issue retightening/reinstalling them, and since most of my Fender/Fenderlike guitars have the trussrod adjustment at the heel, I do that often. The unwound strings can be hinky, but I find it's a feel thing.

Maybe it's because you're left handed. (kidding, I'm a southpaw myself that plays righty). 

I guess it comes down to what one has become accustomed. I've had vintage tuners on a couple of guitars and never liked them.

I did have Sperzels on a couple of guitars and liked them.

For Fender, I would say the ability to swap out parts, neck, quickly modify. Plus, the artist driven features like arm contour, belly cut. Also, the 6 inline tuners that don't have to angle towards the tuners at the nut. And...the vintage tuners are great, and locking if you wrap around one of the crescents

I can think of two other manufacturing/design principles that gave Fender an edge. One is the constant form vs. function debate. Slide on decals, no binding through the first decade plus of the company's existence, car paints, using available woods not recognized as "tone woods" at the time, they were all choices based on what got the job done and did it well, without considering certain design elements as necessary simply by default or precedent.

The other is the concept of value added processes. This goes to every Lean/Six Sigma seminar you've ever had to sit through. Figure out what are the elements that your customer is willing to pay for, and focus your energies on those elements, and seek to reduce/eliminate/make more efficient the other elements.