Fender Studio Is A Brilliant Example of Both Community Building and Corporate Acumen

Fender’s managed to walk a narrow line between being “cool” and being a successful corporate entity.

I’ll be honest, I’m not usually a big fan of big corporations creeping into the creative process. However, there’s really no easy way for a musical instrument company to grow to the size of a corporation without also being closely intwined in the creative process of songwriting and performance. Few do it better than Fender, and while they’re not perfect, their recent release of Fender Studio warrants some discussion.

What’s Fender Studio?

For those who don’t know by now, Fender has launched a free app called Fender Studio that makes recording music at home very easy. It’s like GarageBand, but not limited to Mac users only, in fact it’s built for PC, Mac, and even your phone. I discussed some of the specs and first impressions I got from Fender Studio on Ultimate-Guitar.com. It’s free to sign up, and once you register you get access to more free pedal and guitar amp voicings on the app.

The whole schtick of Fender Studio is that is designed for folks who are intimidated by most DAWs and more advanced software. And here’s the thing, I freaking love that. It’s a natural follow up to their Fender Play lessons webpage, and a great way to make guitar playing and songwriting more accessible for younger players.

It’s About Keeping People Playing The Guitar

Fender has worked this angle in the past, with Fender Play, trying capitalize on new players entering the marketplace. The more new players who stick with the instrument creates new clients for Fender, it’s not rocket science. In many ways, it’s the opposite of the business approach that Gibson has doubled down on, where the target audience is older clientele with deeper pockets. Guitar has a noticeably steep failure rate, with a study published by Fender stating that as many as 90% of the people who pick up the guitar quit.

Fender’s approach to try and lower that number is, at least in part, Fender Studio. There’s many things that can frustrate a young player, including trying to record your song ideas or at-home practice. By creating a free, easy to use option (based on the PreSonus One suite), there’s likely one less frustrating roadblock in the way. And maybe you’ll eventually get some PreSonus One sales out of it too.

But let’s be direct here, this is a business decision, just like their movement into both lessons, guitar pedals, and digital amp spaces. When the guitar community begins to move in one direction, Fender does a good job pivoting and following them. Admittedly, their pedal efforts have fallen relatively flat relative to the other more successful endeavors. But I admire their willingness to not rest on their laurels as a legacy brand. When Gibson has sort of dug in to the old way of doing things, Fender’s been more flexible. Overall, Fender Studio has been pretty fun and certainly easy to use in my limited experience so far. It’s nice to see a brand dedicate so much time and space to community building, even if the motivation is still to make money.