Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Discussion of newer designs, copies and reissue offset-waist instruments.
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Mechanical Birds
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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by Mechanical Birds » Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:42 pm

Genuinely don’t understand the brand designations Fender chooses to use a lot of the time. This is a glaring example - what alternate reality is this from? The one where Fender does cool stuff that people get excited about?

Classic Player Is a really weird one and so was Vintage Modified, at least with the offsets because they weren’t modified and were a straight faithful recreation.

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by jfine » Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:39 pm

This is great news! I've wanted an Electric XII since I first played
one in'65. As a teenager I couldn'd afford one, and by the time .i could, they were gone. Someone was asking on here what the price of the reissues are vs. vintage '60s ones...originals in Sunburst were $359, the case was an extra $50 and custom colors were an extra 10%. As late as the mid`80s they were still around $500 (USA), currently they run about $5000 on the vintage market in the USA. Too rich for my budget! I`ve been trying to get Fender to do a reissue for years, and now they`ve announced one! Coming out in July `19 from what I`ve heard. About time, Fender! I hope they`ll keep them around for a while.

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by higgsblossom » Tue Jan 29, 2019 12:20 am

Originals in sunburst were $359 - that would be approx. $2800 in 2019, according to http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflati ... amount=349.
"500€? That's the price of a J Mascis Jazzmaster!"

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by JPCordingley » Thu Jan 31, 2019 10:39 pm

Oh man! Fender are toying with me! I know for many here, under a grand makes a guitar affordable. For me, I’ve never spent more than £450 - this is double that! I’ll have to wait for the Squier (if it happens) or until one shows up for less than £500 used. I’ve trained myself to be happy with the guitars I’ve got lately, but this has caused a relapse of GAS.

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by akpasta » Fri Feb 01, 2019 3:29 pm

I was googling around today and I noticed some reverb stores are listing expected ship date as early as May and that the listings for these have disappeared from the guitar center and musicians friend sites. I wonder what’s afoot. Perhaps they got so many orders fender is rushing them I hope??

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by Mike S » Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:11 am

I wish I could have one but because of the orientation issue, I've got no skin in the game currently.
My two questions about re-releasing the Electric XII:
1. Why remove the series/parallel switching?
2. If Eastwood can design a Jazzmaster-based 12-string floating vibrato, why not Fender?

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by Gonkulator » Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:50 am

Mike S wrote:
Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:11 am
I wish I could have one but because of the orientation issue, I've got no skin in the game currently.
My two questions about re-releasing the Electric XII:
1. Why remove the series/parallel switching?
2. If Eastwood can design a Jazzmaster-based 12-string floating vibrato, why not Fender?
Because most people these days aren't purists and don't know/care about series/parallel. Those that do will buy an original or mod it. Plus production costs, this is a sub $1k guitar, it's easier to wire up a 3 way switch than the old style.

Eastwood didn't design a 12-string JM based vibrato, they took an existing import style and just drilled an extra set of holes, if that.

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by Embenny » Sat Feb 02, 2019 10:00 am

Mike S wrote:
Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:11 am
I wish I could have one but because of the orientation issue, I've got no skin in the game currently.
My two questions about re-releasing the Electric XII:
1. Why remove the series/parallel switching?
2. If Eastwood can design a Jazzmaster-based 12-string floating vibrato, why not Fender?
Well, keep in mind that nobody has actually heard this new model or its pickups.

The original pickups were sort of famously underwound, at least on the bridge pickup. When you have a very thin, low output bridge pickup, series wiring makes a lot of sense tonally.

If these pickups are hotter and thicker sounding, which I suspect they will be, then series wiring might just sound like a crazy honky, dark, muddy mess. Have you ever heard two high output pickups wired in series together? It's not pretty. Especially on a guitar that is likely to be played on the lower gain side of the spectrum, like a XII.

It's better to piss off the purist minority complaining about the lack of series wiring and rotary switch, than to piss everybody off by having 1 of the 4 available pickup settings sound like crap.
The artist formerly known as mbene085.

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by akpasta » Sat Feb 02, 2019 10:23 am

Gonkulator wrote:
Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:50 am
Mike S wrote:
Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:11 am
I wish I could have one but because of the orientation issue, I've got no skin in the game currently.
My two questions about re-releasing the Electric XII:
1. Why remove the series/parallel switching?
2. If Eastwood can design a Jazzmaster-based 12-string floating vibrato, why not Fender?
Because most people these days aren't purists and don't know/care about series/parallel. Those that do will buy an original or mod it. Plus production costs, this is a sub $1k guitar, it's easier to wire up a 3 way switch than the old style.

Eastwood didn't design a 12-string JM based vibrato, they took an existing import style and just drilled an extra set of holes, if that.
Oh man. Major plus one on the prev comment about pickups and wiring.

As for tremolo. That is always a iffy idea on a 12. No thanks.

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by akpasta » Sat Feb 02, 2019 12:51 pm

The reverb store that said they ship in May write me this.

“We are a Fender dealer and our order lists an expected ship date of "late May" and our rep confirmed that. This is of course still and estimate but we are expecting to see these before June.”

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by JPCordingley » Sun Feb 03, 2019 12:42 pm

Oh man! My GAS for this has just reached its peak. I’ve just been to see Thurston Moore and his band play and there were 2 Fender XIIs being played with a third guitarist playing some kind of Gretsch 12 string. The bass was a VI, so we’re talking 42 strings between a five piece band! Utterly mesmerising!

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by andreuthegiant » Mon Feb 04, 2019 1:27 pm

Thurston 2x XII + VI https://youtu.be/8Yzz22M_kjE

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by rank » Mon Feb 04, 2019 3:25 pm

andreuthegiant wrote:
Mon Feb 04, 2019 1:27 pm
Thurston 2x XII + VI https://youtu.be/8Yzz22M_kjE
I really enjoyed that. As someone with a newly built XII, excuse me as I have some recording to do...
We are merely moving shadows.

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by JPCordingley » Tue Feb 05, 2019 12:54 am

andreuthegiant wrote:
Mon Feb 04, 2019 1:27 pm
Thurston 2x XII + VI https://youtu.be/8Yzz22M_kjE
That's the same piece they performed the other day. If you look down to the bottom right, there’s another lady on guitar, which you can’t see very well, but she was playing a Gretsch 12 string. So damned good!

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Re: Fender Alternate Reality Electric XII 12-String

Post by higgsblossom » Tue Feb 05, 2019 1:40 am

Ok, now I definitely need one of those guitars...

One question to the more experienced 12string-players around: I like my guitars in open tunings, my Jaguar is tuned DADAAD. Will something like that sound good on an Electric XII?
"500€? That's the price of a J Mascis Jazzmaster!"

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