Why have Dean guitars seemed to have fallen so far out of the spotlight?

[Lord Voldemort]

When I was a kid, let's just say 2003-07, it seemed to me that Dean was everywhere and fairly highly regarded. My first $500+ guitar was a Dean Hardtail and it came highly recommended from the clerks at the guitar store and all over the web. A few years later I got an RC7 and again, everyone that I knew seemed stoked. While both guitars were very different, they both kicked ass.

Yesterday (about 10 years later) I picked up a Dean Exile and told a bunch of guitarists. They all were shocked and talked a ton of crap about Dean, but nothing that really clarified why they were bad, rather just general hate. I pushedback pretty hard though, I think I missed the boat when public opinion on Dean changed because I've always loved them.

Does anyone have any insight as to what happened? Why Rusty Cooley, Vinnie Moore, MAB, Dave Mustaine, Trivium and so on left? I couldn't find much online about any of it.

Am I old now? Is this it?

 

[STRHelvete]

Dean's "Cringe Era" happened. Dime was their poster child, they pumped out shitty guitars with his name on them because Pantera fans are both stupid and poor..and those guitars saturated the market. This was also the era where guitars got terrible graphics on them and Dean embraced the "sleazy biker rock star" image. Pot leaves, flames, Confederate flags, tribal tattoo graphics, strippers, etc was that company's image. They amassed a huge fanbase of rednecks and became the brand known for shitty Dime guitars and hee-haw fans. Having a Dean guitar was seen as embarrassing. I didn't dare touch one for years because of it. When I finally did start buying them I remember what my guitar tech said. He literally said when he saw me walking up with a Dean ML he thought "Oh god no, please not a Pantera fanboi" and was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't because he didn't want to deal with that kind of person. On top of that he was super surprised at how well built my MLs were and even tried to buy one of my Modifiers off me. He hadn't seen a good quality Dean since the really vintage (pre Dime "Cringe Era") ones. All the others he'd worked on had been the entry level pieces of shit because that's pretty much all you see.

The funny thing is even during that time they put out some good quality guitars but the only thing most ever saw was the entry level ones because those are the ones that were selling the most.

Endorsees come and go, but it's said that Dean wasn't paying like they should have so lots of their artists jumped ship. From what I understand, Evan their former CEO was a dick and ran Dean into some terrible places..he's even being sued by Dean for stealing hundreds of thousands from the company.

Now that they can no longer sell some of their most popular models due to being sued by Gibson, they're trying to recover but even that situation shows how badly the company was run. They KNEW Gibson was gonna take them to court and proceeded to do nothing to stop the problem until a judge put the hammer on them...and then they STILL fucked up and were pulled into court again for not complying fast enough. Dean guitars is now synonymous with bad decisions.


Oh and don't take my word for it. Got Facebook? Join some Dean Guitar fans groups and just look for yourself. Entry level guitars, people who live in dirty trailers, racists, rednecks, people who are clearly not too bright, etc. Even from personal experience the only guitarist I know who is a Dean fan is a beer shotgunning, constant weed consuming, Pantera clone baby redneck in all the worst ways. I know very successful people who collect Gibsons, Fenders, and all kinds of stuff..the only person I know who collects Deans...well...you know.

 

[ItWillDo]

[emotional rant]

Damn, who hurt you brother?

Same thing happened that happens to a lot of companies, they try to maximise profit by cutting costs in quality departments which is sustainable for a short while but afterward it kicks back twice as hard. Guitars like the RC7 (and even RC7X) were and are still absolutely killer for their pricepoints. But they churned out too many crappy Razorback derivatives. Not too mention the lawsuit ordeals and the DBZ-saga didn't help the company either so that's that.

 

[sleewell]

Lol have you looked at them?

 

[STRHelvete]

Damn, who hurt you brother?

Same thing happened that happens to a lot of companies, they try to maximise profit by cutting costs in quality departments which is sustainable for a short while but afterward it kicks back twice as hard. Guitars like the RC7 (and even RC7X) were and are still absolutely killer for their pricepoints. But they churned out too many crappy Razorback derivatives. Not too mention the lawsuit ordeals and the DBZ-saga didn't help the company either so that's that.

You do realize you just said exactly what I did, right?

I avoided Dean for a while before I tried one and it was the most comfortable guitar I'd ever played. When I got back into playing guitar I decided to go with what worked and drop my bias. All of my guitars are Dean MLs, now and I wouldn't trade them for anything. Being a new fan made me look into the company and check shit out for myself to see if it was as bad as everyone said..and that's what I found out. As it stands I'm not really a fan of the company but they're the only game in town for getting MLs how I want them. As a Dean player I end up hearing lots of opinions about the brand, moreso than I had before. None of the opinions were all that positive until they play the better Dean stuff. I even remember checking out some reviews of their Select series and either reviewers opted for the more "normal" shapes in the Select line or they got Caddys and stuff like that and mentioned a million times that they find the guitar shapes ugly, the headstock is huge and not their favorite but they were surprised at how good the guitars are. Dean just has a reputation. I hope that now that Dime is dropped from the roster and they're making higher quality guitars, they can right the ship and make a name as a good guitar company again.

 

[CanserDYI]

I mean I'm sure there are nice dean's but come on, look at them. They look like a meth fuelled 4th grader got a hold of a tribal tattoo book, designed some stuff and said "you know what? This would look great wrapped on something $200 would buy any day of the week. Let's call up Dean."

 

[STRHelvete]

So Dean held a contest, apparently for people to come up with a new shape and Dean apparently would pick the winner and make the guitar.



So what won?



What shape was so good that it beat all the others?



What shape caught Dean's eye and they thought "THIS is what we want to bring into the world and put our name on it!"

...this....
Oh but what is it called you asked? The Defyant. You can't make this shit up.

 

[Manurack]

Their blue burl top finishes... 🤮🤮🤮

Also, the company probably shit the bed once Kerry King was endorsed by em

 

[CanserDYI]

All this being said, I genuinely find @STRHelvete's MLs sexy as fuck, I will admit.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Their blue burl top finishes... 🤮🤮🤮

Also, the company probably shit the bed once Kerry King was endorsed by em

They do burl tops? :O
I thought their only finish options were imitations of traditional Gibson finishes (black, white, honey burst, cherry sunburst etc.) and tacky wraps of artwork that doesn't belong on a guitar.

 

[Surveyor 777]

Don't really have any insights, but just my own personal take. For me, Dean basically made different-shaped guitars. I was not interested in any of those shapes. Don't want an ML, don't want a Razorback, don't want a Cadillac, etc. So just not interested and never have been. I own superstrats and that's the shape I like.

But last year I saw they had/have the MD24's. Just a nice superstrat shape. Saw one used and bought it. Pretty nice - nothing mind-blowing but nice.

So for me it's the odd-shapes aren't appealing.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

I had somehow never seen a Dean super-strat until I googled the Exile just now. When someone mentions Dean guitars, I automatically think of the Razorback, "not Flying V" and "not Explorer" models, and the Dave Mustaine, Kerry King & Dimebag derivatives of these.

I've always been under the impression that Dean was huge amongst metal guitarists in the US (at least until recent years), but never really took off in the UK (Jackson & Ibanez dominated that market).

 

[Neon_Knight_]

So for me it's the odd-shapes aren't appealing.

You like the wrap finishes though right?

 

[manu80]

I like the fact that they're different and edgy (and yeah the graphic bordello was too much), but I don't think i fit the description above. Their Korean line is pretty good (i had a cadillac and a razorback that were flawless). Their usa are just awesome. Friend of mine has a Z usa and it's way bett rthan a gibson. Thing is that in France they're not easily available (pretty sure they have as for now no Importer here anymore) but the cadi, the Nile Sanders V are interesting

 

[CanserDYI]

You like the wrap finishes though right?

All three of those guitars are sins against humanity.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I started playing guitar right around that time (2003) and I remember even as an impressionable middle schooler thinking how stupid most Deans looked .
It definitely didn't help that they basically flooded the market with tacky and shitty entry level guitars either. The korean made stuff was pretty good from what I remember, but all the cheaper crap soured me on their designs. I haven't gotten to try a USA yet, but by most accounts their custom shop does great work (lately).

Matt and Corey from Trivium left Dean due to the shitty build quality of their ML 7s, and generally bad support. I think it was Matt's Rising Sun ML 7 that straight up fell off a stand at a show and snapped the headstock.

 

[TheBloodstained]

I must admint that I've been secretly GAS'ing for a Dime-o-flame for quite some time. Have been close to buying one on a few occasions, but I doubt that it'll ever happen. Being exclusively a bedroom musician and doing a fair bit of demo recording means that I've been gravitating towards super strats the last couple of years for practical reasons. Mainly that it's easier to sit with a super strat in a comfy chair in front of the computer.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Over the years it seemed like Dean had some... Less than stellar management going on. Only a step above Krank amps.

Although as Im typing this I see @STRHelvete already covered this lol.

So yeah. Course correcting way way too late after years and years of horrible marketing + shitty management.

One thing that always got me was they had one of the first mass produced fanned fret guitars on the market too. But they fucked it up with eDgY gRApHiCs.

 

[xzacx]

The only Dean I've had any interest in for like the past decade is that black Karl Sanders V, but I look for them regularly now. It might be a piece of crap, but it's a fully scalloped V with no controls, and it just doesn't get much cooler than that. Even if it took a ton of cash to get it playing right, I think I'd be worth it for what it is. It's too bad I didn't have that attitude when they were readily available for cheap.

 

[sleewell]

guitar brand embraces the flag of a few states who wanted to violently form their own country so that they could own people and (maybe this is worse) they also insist on using the most offensive looking headstock known to man.



also that guitar brand: hey why don't you guys like us?