fender factory tour corona california

Fender Guitar Visitor Center

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Fender Guitar Visitor Center - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

Fender Guitar Visitor Center

Top ways to experience nearby attractions

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Fender Guitar Visitor Center - All You MUST Know Before You Go (2024)

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Corona, California : Fender Guitar Factory Tour (Closed)

Where the legendary guitars manufactured. See exhibits and artifacts, and tour the "dream factory" to watch guitars and basses are made. Tours ended in 2020.

Fender Visitor Center

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The Fender Visitor Center has closed for now. We love having a place for our customers to visit and tour our facility, and we thank everyone who has come to experience the Visitor Center and Fender factory tour with us. We plan to reopen as soon as we create a new Fender Experience.

An incredible tour of the inside of the Fender guitar factory. This location has been open since 1998 (they started out in Fullerton, CA) and manufactures about 400 guitars a day. Tours are open to the public and are about an hour long. A guide leads groups through the factory and explains step by step how guitars are manufactured. It is fascinating to see guitars start out as simple blocks of wood and slowly become musical instruments.

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Fender Guitar Visitor Center

Top ways to experience nearby attractions

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

FENDER GUITAR VISITOR CENTER: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)

7 Fantastic Factory Tours You Can Only Take In Southern California

Natasha Kayes

I was born and raised in sunny Southern California and will never tire of the West Coast, although I spent several years living in Southeast Asia, about as far from California as you can get. Wherever I am in the world, I love straying from the beaten path, experiencing local life, and discovering hidden gems - camera in hand. The beach is my happy place and when I am not there (or writing), you will usually find me baking, watching movies, and cuddling my pugs. I have traveled around the country and around the world, and it never, ever gets old. Being able to combine my passion for travel and my love of writing is nothing short of a dream.

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From bread to candy and vehicles to musical instruments, there are so many things produced in Southern California. It is one thing to enjoy a high-quality finished product, but even better to see firsthand the work and skill that goes into making it. Get a sort of backstage pass with these seven factory tours in Southern California and see how some wonderful products come together.

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Have you had the chance to take any of these awesome tours in Southern California? Share your tour experiences with us in the comments. If you love tours, check out these other amazing tours you can take in SoCal .

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Made in California: Fender an instrument of change in guitar industry

Fender guitars, amplifiers and basses have always been made in California (except for the low priced Squier line) even though the company moved its corporate headquarters to Arizona.

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Deep inside a cavernous factory in Corona, some legendary rock names gather nonchalantly along a wall.

There’s Eric Clapton next to Jeff Beck, with Mark Knopfler only inches away — not the actual musicians, but the bespoke guitar necks that those performers prefer bolted to their Fender Stratocasters.

Since 1946, the company founded by Leo Fender has catered to the famous and talented, and those who want to emulate them. These days, executives at Fender Musical Instruments Corp. are looking to build on that legacy as they move beyond echoes of an aborted initial public offering, ownership shifts and management changes.

Fender counts itself as a leading maker and distributor of electric guitars, basses, amplifiers and other instruments and accessories, selling about $700 million a year under names that include Fender and Squier.

This year, the company has been busy celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Stratocaster by releasing several limited editions and a variety of other new products. Fender also recently unloaded the Guild acoustic guitar brand for an undisclosed amount and is beefing up international sales, particularly in China.

The company has just added a “design your own” guitar feature to the Fender website. That effort has created waves in music circles for its embrace of the direct-to-consumer sales model, which cuts out the company’s traditional dealers.

Fender’s instruments “have always been modular in construction, which has always made them ideal for individual personalization,” said Justin Norvell, Fender’s vice president of product marketing. The design-your-own initiative “also provides us with valuable marketing data as to what options, colors, etc. consumers are looking for in a Fender instrument,” he said.

Like a good guitar riff, Fender has had its ups and downs.

Fender’s first guitars were mocked at trade shows for their solid wood bodies and the way the necks joined the bodies with bolts and screws rather than glue.

“Leo Fender started out as a radio repairman,” Norvell said. “It was all about being serviceable and utilitarian. He said if he had $100 to make something he would spend $99 making it work and $1 making it pretty.”

Fender has been credited with design and manufacturing innovations that revolutionized the world of electric guitars and basses. The Stratocaster body introduced a curvy ergonomic design for ease of playing and incorporated tonal advances suggested by musicians.

Although corporate headquarters is in Scottsdale, Ariz., the company has chosen to keep Southern California the manufacturing center for its best guitars: Fenders with prices usually between $500 and $2,500 apiece, although custom instruments crafted by master artisans can be much more expensive. The Corona factory employs between 300 and 400 people depending on demand, Norvell said.

“We’re still making our instruments in California because it’s our heritage,” Norvell said. “It’s the Beach Boys. It’s surf music. It’s our legacy.”

The company’s Squier guitars, which cost from $99 to $399, are made at a company factory in Ensenada, Mexico.

With his health declining, Leo Fender sold the business in 1965 to CBS, which provided uneven backing over the years. In 1985, management and private investors bought the company.

The ownership shuffled again in late 2012 after an initial public offering that never got off the ground. Currently Fender is controlled by majority shareholders Servco Pacific Inc. of Honolulu and equities investor TPG Growth of San Francisco.

Income and revenue took a hit during the recession, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of the proposed stock sale in 2012. The IPO was pulled in 2012 amid criticism of the valuation; the company blamed poor market conditions.

The economic downturn wasn’t the only market problem. Fender and other guitar manufacturers have had to contend with the rise of so-called EDM, or electronic dance music, with a synthesized sound that downplays or eliminates guitars.

Changing tastes are reflected in industry sales. U.S. music stores sold $376 million worth of electric guitars and basses last year, down 31% since 2008, according to MI SalesTrak, a New York research firm.

In rating Fender debt last year, Moody’s Investors Service noted risks that included the company’s relatively small size in a competitive industry, “modest operating performance,” heavy debt level and significant sales through the troubled Guitar Center chain. On the positive side, Moody’s said, Fender has well-known brand names, good geographic distribution and a leading market share in guitars.

The company’s latest challenge involves finding a permanent chief executive to replace Larry Thomas, who retired in May. Scott Gilbertson, Fender’s interim chief operating officer since October 2013, is serving as interim chief.

For such a rock ‘n’ roll fixture, Fender maintains a surprisingly low profile in Corona. Its 176,000-square-foot factory operates in a nondescript building in a neighborhood of similar low-rise facilities.

The interior is filled with the sounds and smells of wood being cut, shaped and painted. Famous clients wander through from time to time. A flashy visitors center lets fans see how the instruments evolved and how they can be customized.

A typical Fender takes a month to complete. Usually made from North American alder or maple, each instrument involves 140 hand shaping and smoothing processes, which Norvell said gives Fenders a unique feel.

Singer-songwriter Nils Lofgren, a longtime guitarist with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street band, said he owns more than 50 Fender guitars and amplifiers.

“I love their sound, precision and reliability,” Lofgren said in an email exchange. “I’m extremely aggressive with my guitars and amps, and the Fenders, the Stratocaster especially, handles the aggression with ease and never requires holding back. Yet, they also work well with delicate, cleaner playing.”

Green Day bass player Mike Dirnt put it more simply: “A Fender is the most comfortable guitar to play in rock ‘n’ roll.”

Clapton was Fender’s first signature artist, Norvell said, and the company was willing to make whatever interested him. Once, he wanted a green guitar that mimicked the color of a 7 Up can. Another time he wanted the same shade of blue as his Mercedes.

To build replicas of famous guitars for limited-edition series, Norvell said, the company does forensic examinations involving laser scans, disassembly and caliper measurements.

The Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix painted before his famous 1967 Monterey Pop Festival performance was difficult to duplicate because Hendrix set it on fire onstage. The few pieces that were left were scattered among collectors. Fender artisans pored over old photographs and archival film footage for their copy.

That kind of attention to detail is “something we’re always thinking about,” Norvell said. “We might be building the guitar that is used to play the next ‘Purple Haze.’”

[email protected]

Twitter: @RonWLATimes

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Ronald D. White was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times from 1993 to 2024. His work on the Business desk included leadership profiles, innovations in manufacturing, retail and business trends. White did stints as a reporter for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot and as a reporter and then as a staff writer, assistant editor and editorial writer for the Washington Post before joining The Times.

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How Fender Guitars are made in a California factory

Following is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: In the span of over 70 years, Fender has become a household name to musicians all around the world. Here's how they make their iconic electric guitars.

The process starts with wood selection. Typically, the bodies are composed of ash or alder, but could be made with others, such as maple, rosewood, ebony, or mahogany, depending on the specific model. Certain models come from a single block of wood. For others, two or three blocks are glued together before cutting. An additional piece of wood is glued on top of the neck portion. This will eventually serve as the fret board.

Specialized cutting machines cut the shape of the body and neck with extreme precision. Throughout the process, the guitar goes through a series of critical rest periods in order to ensure the wood doesn't split.

Ed Magee: Wood is an organic material, so, you know, one of the big lessons is you've got to respect the wood, and then you have to cut with precision, and just managing the wood, you know, from the process of tree to guitar and staying at guitar.

Narrator: To create the frets, wire is cut by a machine and then pressed into place on the neck by a technician.

Next, the cut parts go through a series of sanding. This process is done with a blend of handwork and automation.

Magee: If you take a look at a lot of the work in the factory around grinding and polishing, I mean, there's a lot of hands and a lot of shoulders and a lot of leaning into the processing equipment. So, what we try and do is really balance, and look for innovative ways to make it safer for the employees to work more comfortably but also maintain the craftsmanship aspect of guitar manufacturing.

Narrator: Once the bare wood has been properly sanded, it's off to get coated in lacquer and paint, the process of which the company considers to be a trade secret. However, some of the color selections can be linked to the early days of the company.

Magee: The guitar is reflective of the culture of the time, right? So, you know, in the early '50s, we were just taking cues from the colors and, quite honestly, a lot of the paints and paint materials. The original materials are very similar to what the automotive industry used.

Narrator: The parts go through a process of building up layers of paint, then eventually get buffed and polished to reveal the final finish. Throughout this stage, the sections are hung to set and rest above the factory floor, for anywhere between three and 11 days, depending on the type of paint.

Once the neck is attached to the body, the guitars head to final assembly, where it receives its strings and electrical components.

The pickup is a series of electromagnets that convert the sound waves of the string into an electrical signal, which can then be played through an amplifier or modified with effect pedals, similar to how a microphone senses signals from our vocal cords.

Magee: The guitar is a tool for telling stories, and I think what Leo did was he listened to artists, right? So, then what he was doing was, you know, he was looking at different ways to create different instruments for artists to, you know, to kind of expand their sonic palate.

Narrator: Fender continues to innovate with new models, like their Acoustasonic series, and their ever-growing artist signature series.

Magee: You know, when you walk into the custom shop, you see some of the guitar heroes. Everyone from, you know, Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Ray Vaughan. But it's not just those guys. You know, we want to make sure that we are serving all of the folks who are, you know, are buskers and emerging songwriters, and just across the board with great instruments, great quality, and let them do what they do best.

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