Fender Swinger

The Swinger (also: Music Lander or Arrow ) is an electric guitar that was made ​​in 1969 by the U.S. company Fender.

History

After the company's founder Leo Fender sold his company in 1965 to the media group CBS, tried to increase the new manager, sales and profits. One way was to process excess parts from surplus production to new models. The Swinger, which was unofficially referred to as Music Lander or Arrow, the body of the hapless bass guitar Fender Bass V was combined with excess necks and other parts of the entry-level models Mustang and Music master. To give a unique appearance to the model, the body received an arcuate cutout, while the head plate was pointed arrow-shaped. Invisible under the pickguard was in the body next to the oval cutout for the single coil pickups another unused milling, which was originally intended for the pickup of the Fender Bass V.

Little is known about production times and quantities, especially as the swingers of CBS was only advertised cautious in their appearance. As an affordable entry guitar she received little attention among musicians, whereas collectors have discovered the Swinger as rare oddity in the Fender program.

Construction

The swinger follows the basic design principle of the Fender company: At a massive ash body, a maple neck is screwed. The tuning machines are located in a line on the upper side of the asymmetrical headstock. The only pickup is mounted on an existing plastic pickguard, which is located under the strings on the body. The neck of the swinger has a rosewood fingerboard, in which only 21 frets are embedded because of the short scale length of 22.5 inches. The pointed headstock was rarely printed with the model name, Swingers, most of the instruments showed only the Fender logo.

The electronics consists of a single single-coil pickups from the Music Master - production, which is managed by a volume and tone controls of a Mustang.

The Fender Swinger in music

As an affordable entry instrument with short neck and because of the individual pickup only limited palette of sounds played only a few professional musicians Swingers Live or in the studio. The instrument was inter alia used by Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads band at concerts and in the film Stop Making Sense. Some of the swingers by musicians of the alternative rock such as Ben Kweller will be used.