page_title: Fender Musical Instruments Corporation
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Fender Musical Instruments Corporation / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: Diagrams of Leo Fender's lap steel guitar design from 1944 patent application, emphasizing the design of the guitar pickup.
context_page_description: Fender Musical Instruments Corporation is an American manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers. Fender produces acoustic guitars, bass amplifiers and public address equipment, but is best known for its solid-body electric guitars and bass guitars, particularly the Stratocaster, Telecaster, Precision Bass, and the Jazz Bass. The company was founded in Fullerton, California, by Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender in 1946. Its headquarters are in Scottsdale, Arizona.
  FMIC is a privately held corporation, with Andy Mooney serving as the Chief Executive Officer. The company filed for an initial public offering in March 2012, but this was withdrawn five months later. In addition to its Scottsdale headquarters, Fender has manufacturing facilities in Corona, California and Ensenada, Baja California.
  As of July 10, 2012, the majority shareholders of Fender were the private equity firm of Weston Presidio, Japanese music distributors Yamano Music and Kanda Shokai, and Servco Pacific. In December 2012, TPG Growth and Servco Pacific took control of the company after acquiring the shares held by Weston Presidio.
context_section_description: The company began as Fender's Radio Service in late 1938 in Fullerton, California. As a qualified electronics technician, Fender had repaired radios, phonographs, home audio amplifiers, public address systems and musical instrument amplifiers, all designs based on research developed and released to the public domain by Western Electric in the 1930s using vacuum tubes for amplification. The business also sidelined in carrying records for sale and the rental of company-designed PA systems. Leo became intrigued by design flaws in contemporary musical instrument amplifiers and began building amplifiers based on his own designs or modifications to designs.
  By the early 1940s, Leo Fender had entered into a partnership with Clayton Orr "Doc" Kauffman, and they formed the K & F Manufacturing Corp to design, manufacture, and market electric instruments and amplifiers. Production began in 1945 with Hawaiian lap steel guitars (incorporating a patented pickup) and amplifiers, sold as sets. By the end of the year, Fender became convinced that manufacturing was more profitable than repair, and decided to concentrate on that business instead. Kauffman remained unconvinced, and he and Fender amicably parted ways by early 1946. At that point, Fender renamed the company the Fender Electric Instrument Company. The service shop remained open until 1951, although Leo Fender did not personally supervise it after 1947.
  Leo Fender's lap steel guitar made in 1946 for Noel Boggs was probably the very first product of the new company, bearing an early presentation of the cursive "big F" Fender logo.
  In the late 1940s, Fender began to experiment with more conventional guitar designs.Early Broadcasters were plagued with issues; while Fender boasted the strength of the instrument's one-piece maple neck, early adopters lamented its tendency to bow in humid weather.Fender's reluctant addition of a metal truss rod into the necks of his guitars allowed for the much needed ability to fine-tune the instrument to the musician's specific needs.With the design of the Telecaster finalized, mass production began in 1950. The Telecaster's bolted-on neck allowed for the instrument's body and neck to be milled and finished separately, and for the final assembling to be done quickly and cheaply by unskilled workers.
  In 1959, Fender released the Jazzmaster guitar. Like the Stratocaster before it, the Jazzmaster was a radical departure from previous guitar designs. The offset body, vibrato system and innovative electronics were designed to capture the Jazz guitar market which until then was dominated by acoustic guitars. Fender even promoted the Jazzmaster as a premium successor to the Stratocaster, an accolade it never fully achieved. Despite being shunned by the Jazz community, the guitar found a home in the growing surf rock music scene, one that would go on to influence the Jazzmaster's successor, the Jaguar in 1962.
caption: Diagram of Leo Fender's lap steel guitar from 1944 patent application.
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