csb1966 - Posted - 12/27/2023:  09:48:50

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but I found little on the search. Has anyone actually played a Fender PR-180e? If so, what are your impressions? Seems like you're getting too much for the price (which makes me somewhat skeptical), but I haven't been able to get my hands on one to find out,

Edited by - csb1966 on 12/27/2023 09:50:09

Lounge Primate - Posted - 12/27/2023:  10:25:00

I don’t know anything about that Fender model, but this link below by Tony Polecastro, of Bozeman, Montana, goes into a bunch of guitars in that price realm, in both round and squarenecks. Tony plays both round and squareneck guitars, and is very talented. Its an interesting comparison of models and tones.
youtu.be/nx3-OixUedk?feature=shared

csb1966 - Posted - 12/27/2023:  10:32:42

Thank you! I've actually seen this, and it's very informative. I play organ/piano professionally and save guitar work primarily for songwriting and recording. With that, I want to start burnishing some slide and resonator skills for the studio.

I've been researching a lot, and I think I've got a pretty good handle on some really good models for my purposes. It just seems strange that there is an almost deafening silence with regard to this Fender model. Seems like it has some good features, but the videos out there don't showcase it well, and nobody talks about it. That should tell me something, but I'm still curious.

Lounge Primate - Posted - 12/27/2023:  11:26:22

Yeh, the only youtube demo I could find of the Fender left me unimpressed…..but you can’t always judge "tone" very well by a youtube recording, if ever.

Edited by - Lounge Primate on 12/27/2023 11:26:48

tomkatb - Posted - 12/28/2023:  10:42:40

When purchasing my first resonator guitar i looked at one of the Fender fr50 I believe.

Even not knowing how to play at all the guitar did not sound good. The music shop had it in the window for years and really wanted me to buy it.

The word on the street was that Fender made great electric guitars but, most of their acoustics were so so. 6-7 years ago.

My understanding is that most Chinese guitars come from the same factory. Not a great amount of differences.

I have several of the $500 guitars that were hot rodded by a local Luthier.

I think Gretsch has their own factory.

Because there are so few of these guitars sold It is hard for most folks to recommend one. There are few places to go and play several. The right word might be any.

MarkinSonoma - Posted - 12/28/2023:  11:06:01

I played one of these about a year ago - I just fretted it, no bottleneck slide since I didn't have one with me, and I'm not much of a bottleneck  player anyway since I'm a lapstyle dobro player.

It reminded me a lot of the Gretsch Bobtail, which comes in both roundneck and squareneck along with having the Fishman Nashville pickup onboard. It would have been nice to A/B the Fender vs. the Gretsch, but the shop didn't have a Gretsch on the sales floor.

Interesting factoid the not everyone knows: Though the Gretsch family still owns the brand, manufacturing, sales, and distribution is handled by Fender. I believe the arrangement was made in the early 2000's.

So there is a very good chance that this newish Fender model is made in the same factory in China as the Gretsch resonators which have been around for ballpark a dozen years.

 A decent guitar, but the real value is if you need to plug in. For $549 you get the Fishman Nashville pickup, which on its own as an aftermarket item is currently selling for $230, and for the average person lacking experience it can be a pain in the a$$ to install.

No doubt the long arm of Fender with their buying power gets a great deal on the Nashville by purchasing in large quantities.

Though there is more than one way to go about sound "shaping" the Nashville because on its own plugged into an amp you hear the dreaded piezo pickp "quack," most of us who play Nashville equipped reso guitars use the Fishman Aura Jerry Douglas pedal, or the Fishman Aura Spectrum DI. Inflation has upped the price of either unit to $430 - yikes. They can be found used - I just saw a Douglas pedal online for $265. 

MarkinSonoma - Posted - 12/28/2023:  11:32:15

I watched this Fender promo video for the - ahem - "Bluegrass Series" awhile back and I'm somewhat amazed by how wrong they got this thing. And I like Fender as a company - I have a really nice Tele and a Jazz bass,  along with a Fender logo baseball cap, sweatshirt, and a few t-shirts. My wife and I took the tour and went through the museum at Fender HQ in Southern California a number of years ago and we really enjoyed it.

But a roundneck resonator played with a bottleneck slide or fretted is not what we use in bluegrass music, and when was the last time you saw an actual bluegrass band and the banjo player was on an open back banjo? At least they got it right with the mandolin.

Edited by - MarkinSonoma on 12/28/2023 11:34:06

csb1966 - Posted - 12/28/2023:  12:15:32

csb1966 - Posted - 12/28/2023:  12:30:00

Was a little curious about that open-backed banjo myself!

I knew about the Gretsch/Fender connection but I hadn't considered the possibility of using the same factory, though. Interesting point.

Given that, along with the apparently decent construction of the instrument, I wonder if a cone swap (Beard or Replogle) might add some cojones to the tone? Couldn't hurt, I suppose, but I'm not convinced I want to buy one and find out!

MarkinSonoma - Posted - 12/28/2023:  13:20:55

There is little doubt that a quality U.S. made cone will improve the sound. Over the years, a few American reso  luthiers have stated that the cone is probably responsible for at least 50% of the tone on a  spider bridge reso guitar. And a Beard or Replogle spider would likely help as well. You just have to be careful about  getting your foot in the door in limiting the guitar buying budget and then throwing a bunch of money at it in upgrades. Then if you end up selling it down the line to upgrade to a higher end guitar it's pretty rare to recover the money you dump into it. We've seen this with used imported  reso guitar sales time and again. 

 

Some of the price difference between the Fender and more expensive Gretsch surely has to do with the cone. Not much is said about it on the Fender site other than it is a spun cone, and likely a Chinese job.  

Gretsch puts some effort into the following spiel: 

"The heart of each richly resounding guitar is the new Gretsch Ampli-Sonic resonator cone, hand-spun in Eastern Europe from nearly 99-percent pure aluminum for fantastic volume and sonic projection."

Edited by - MarkinSonoma on 12/28/2023 13:22:39