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

[STRHelvete]

Maybe Dean should release a Grey Poupon guitar?

They should try sticking a guitar neck on a damn jar of mustard, it'd probably sell better than their current lineup

 

[jruivo26]

Only jumping on this thread now, but what's the deal with asian Deans recently?
I remember (being a Dimebag fanboy) browsing over lots of different Dean options (ML, Razorback, Stealth) at the Thomann website only a few months ago. And the prices ranged from 700 to 1100 euro or something like that.
Now the few I can find on Reverb are 1k, 2k, even 5k euros! Completely standard Korean/Chinese models. What the heck happened? I'm sure the fact of being out of production can't be the only thing responsible for this ridiculous price raise.

 

[BornToLooze]

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.

When the hell did Dean make Dragonball Z guitars?

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

When the hell did Dean make Dragonball Z guitars?

Oh yeah there was actually a brand called DBZ that Dean Zelinsky formed after leaving Dean the 2nd time lol. And then he partnered with Diamond amps and the company became Diamond DBZ. Then he left *that* comany and it just became Diamond Guitars.

 

[BornToLooze]

Oh yeah there was actually a brand called DBZ that Dean Zelinsky formed after leaving Dean the 2nd time lol. And then he partnered with Diamond amps and the company became Diamond DBZ. Then he left *that* comany and it just became Diamond Guitars.

Well that's dumb...I thought there was a chance I might actually be interested in a Dean for once.

 

[ItWillDo]

When the hell did Dean make Dragonball Z guitars?

It was basically a spin on existing Dean models & shapes, but worse.

 

[CanserDYI]

It was basically a spin on existing Dean models & shapes, but worse.

Every one of those guitars is worse than the last. Awful.

 

[Matt08642]

It was basically a spin on existing Dean models & shapes, but worse.

I don't even like Les Pauls, but it irks me when a company makes a lawsuit-dodging LP shape that looks like drawing an LP from memory.

 

[STRHelvete]

It was basically a spin on existing Dean models & shapes, but worse.

Those Vs and MLs..c'mon, seriously. How the fuck did he draw these up and think "yep....that's what I'm gonna sell"

 

[groverj3]

It was basically a spin on existing Dean models & shapes, but worse.

I completely forgot these existed, but I remember them now. Did anyone actually buy a DBZ?

If so, can you confirm its power level? Surely under 9000.

 

[sakeido]

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.

I'm so late to the party I shouldn't have bothered but fuckin hell that rant made me laugh so, so hard because it's 100% right. Hitching your wagon to a dead guy with pretty niche taste - not a great idea., especially when they were heavily into the Confederate stuff and that .. let's be charitable and call it a brand .. is about as toxic as it can get to a mass market these days, leading directly to the rest of your post. Trying to run a business while your CEO is stealing tons of money, probably pretty hard too.

But IMO Dean's biggest problem has always been just their horrific aesthetic. Even their conventional shapes are subtly warped in ways that make them so much uglier than the competition.

And I have pretty fond memories of the company... my first nice guitar was a Dean! A Dean Avalanche 7 string in a beautiful metallic flake pewter color. Love to have a car painted like it someday.

 

[v1nter]

Didn't last very long at all. Like I believe RIGHT as they released them, Heafy went back to using Gibsons and Corey with Jackson.

They actually started using them around the "The Crusade" album in 2006. If you go on youtube you can see them using various Razerbacks (including the infamous white / gold one) at Rock am Ring 2006 already. That was before the Razorback (V) was even launched, meaning they had custom shop models.

On the endorsement posters they are holding a ton of different made in USA and regular Korean import models. Dean was definitely targeting a younger audience to move units.

The signatures CBV (standard Dean V with pointy wings and some cutouts in red) and Rising Sun ML (plain white ML with red stripes) were announced in April 2008 as six string versions.
For the recording of the Shogun album they had these signatures as plain black V and white ML in 7 strings. Pretty much unheard of at the time to get something like this from Dean. The documentation of the album is on YT aswell and i posted the ML from a reverb listing already. Also i remember they had USA Hardtail models for the recordings.

The quality argument a lot of people made is BS since they used their 7 string Deans for Shogun songs a few years after still.
Also i can vouch for the Custom Shop quality around that time because my USA VMNT was made shortly after Dave Mustaine joined Dean. They had good quality guitars for sure.

 

[v1nter]

Only jumping on this thread now, but what's the deal with asian Deans recently?
I remember (being a Dimebag fanboy) browsing over lots of different Dean options (ML, Razorback, Stealth) at the Thomann website only a few months ago. And the prices ranged from 700 to 1100 euro or something like that.
Now the few I can find on Reverb are 1k, 2k, even 5k euros! Completely standard Korean/Chinese models. What the heck happened? I'm sure the fact of being out of production can't be the only thing responsible for this ridiculous price raise.

Dimebag is (for better or worse) not a Dean artist anymore. After problems with the previous Dean CEO the Dime estate decided to move forward with their own brand of guitars which are not announced yet.

For regular guitars its lawsuit problems. The shipments towards Europe are pretty much non existant since Covid and the Gibson thing.
I havent even seen models like the Vengeance, Zero or even more important - Exile being sold here in germany.

High reverb prices are because =
Standard models are made in China since a few years now. Korea is (similar to other brands) not really used anymore except for higher end models, and thats why they are sought after.
Models like the Far Beyond Driven or Dimeslime wont be sold anymore + inflation.

Pick the reason you like the most. Its a shitshow regardless.

 

[STRHelvete]

Dimebag is (for better or worse) not a Dean artist anymore. After problems with the previous Dean CEO the Dime estate decided to move forward with their own brand of guitars which are not announced yet.

For regular guitars its lawsuit problems. The shipments towards Europe are pretty much non existant since Covid and the Gibson thing.
I havent even seen models like the Vengeance, Zero or even more important - Exile being sold here in germany.

High reverb prices are because =
Standard models are made in China since a few years now. Korea is (similar to other brands) not really used anymore except for higher end models, and thats why they are sought after.
Models like the Far Beyond Driven or Dimeslime wont be sold anymore + inflation.

Pick the reason you like the most. Its a shitshow regardless.

Their current guitars, at least the good ones, are made in Indonesia. That being said I don't think a guitars place of origin is indicative of its quality.
So I'd really like to pose the OPs question to this Dean guitars group I'm in to hear their opinions. Part of me thinks they won't even acknowledge the public mindset of Dean. I'd like to hear their ideas on what Dean can do to get its shit together if anything.

 

[Lord Voldemort]

I completely forgot these existed, but I remember them now. Did anyone actually buy a DBZ?

If so, can you confirm its power level? Surely under 9000.

I owned a Bird of Prey (the crazy X model) and a Barchetta (the closest thing to a super strat up in that line up) and honestly, they kicked ass. The Bird of Prey had a sharp V neck profile, which is super unusual but I loved it. EMGs, Floyd 1000, Grover Tuners and a pretty solid deep Flame Maple veneer, I loved that thing. I got it on clearance at Best Buy in something like 2011 for about $249. Liked it so much that I got the Barchetta.

I really liked them both, sold the Bird of Prey for like $700 a few years later like some kind of savvy entrepreneur, but the price on them had only gone up so at the time that was still a great deal. My cat broke the Barchetta Gibson Les Paul style, I still have the body in my closet to ward off intruders.

As I said, Dean was my first 'expensive' brand as a kid so I have a real soft spot for anything Dean. I just got that Exile last week and I feel like I'm a kid again.

 

[Wiltonauer]

A local dealer was carrying Dean when I really started buying guitars about 20-25 years ago. Most of the models they had were entry-level and embarrassingly bad. Bad enough to make a beginner pick a different hobby, I’d wager. Bad enough to make me think, “Wow! Do these clowns even care what anyone thinks of their guitars?”

By the time The Adoration of the Dimebag was reaching fever pitch, I definitely saw them as the guitar company of a certain demographic, not to mention I considered most of their designs wholly unappealing.

I knew Z wasn’t involved with them anymore, but that didn’t really impact my perception. He’d spoken publicly about wanting to get back into it at a premium level, but then a couple more printed interviews convinced me that I didn’t care.

About the only Dean design I ever thought was cool was the Cadillac, and I’ve played some Korean ones that were pretty good.

But:

Rusty Cooley? Not a fan, don’t care.

Vinnie Moore? Not for a second do I think it really matters what guitar a player like Vinnie Moore uses.

Dave Mustaine? Oh, he left ESP and found yet another company to make Flying Vs and King Vs for him? Big woop.

 

[Mathemagician]

I don't think he wants to. Besides he's teaming up with Dime's ex girlfriend to start pumping out more Dime guitars. Dear god please never let him bring that shit back to Dean.

Dean might finally have a shot in being reputable again without Dime nonsense. Let that circus stay over there with Zelinsky

Oooh new Dimes? Well, the 8 fans still buying them will be happy.

just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Yes. Yes it does. Just ask Yngwie. This is one of the times where I’ll say just go all-in on dumb. Make it a monument to man’s hubris.

I remember when they said "Hey..let's modernize the ML! We'll give it bevels and make it thinner and lighter! The kids want Fender scale? Give em that! They want 24 frets? Got it! It's sleek, it's new, it's modern! This will be the ML that catches the new generation!"





And then they made this
View attachment 122870

I actually own one of these though since I wanted a Modifier and it's the only one they made that didn't have a trem. I HATED the graphic but after a while I got over it. It's unique. Don't love the graphic or anything but I'm okay with it. Again, Cringe Era Dean but the guitar is surprisingly well made.

Oh and this is the series 2 headstock which is the 2nd biggest iteration. Kids didn't like the headstock so they put the 2nd biggest they had instead of the series 3 or even a 6 in line style. Oh Dean...you so crazy

I can smell the Busch light from here. And there’s also someone with earrings that say “bitch”.

Thats the Matt Heafy signature (made in Korean version), he has japanese roots so that paint job kinda made sense.

Since it was brought up here aswell - im still not buying the argument that they left Dean because of quality. The guitars they recorded Shogun (their best album, after that it went downhill but thats another discussion) with were specially made USA models. Like this one = https://reverb.com/ca/item/17198219-dean-matt-heafy-custom-7-2008-faded-white
Should be one the first 7 string MLs made maybe ever ? Im not quite sure on that, but i would defend the quality of these guitars for sure.

They openly shit on the quality of the models they had. In multiple interviews over the years when asked. They’ve never been shy about how they only went to Dean b/c they weren’t getting the offer from Gibson/Jackson they wanted.

I wanted a backup to my Modifier but couldn't find one for years. I've had that tribal for a while and I have NEVER seen another one pop up for sale...so then I got the red one. My guitar tech still tries to buy it off me View attachment 122882

Ok guys. I think I am close to a breakthrough on the headstock. See my scientific genius:



(It cut off the tuners which would also make it look a bit more balanced)

Why didn't they go with these? That "not a Floyd but looks like a Floyd" thing is just weird.

View attachment 123350

I keep coming back to look at this like “I want one”.

Kahlers must be making a comeback. Josh from Toxik got an sig Dean not long ago and he made sure to have a Kahler on there. I tend to associate Kahlers with Slayer so I guess the thrash connection in my brain makes sense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Dean bought all the Kahlers in America just to sign Kerry King. They put them on every model they have just to make the bulk order worthwhile.

 

[v1nter]

So I'd really like to pose the OPs question to this Dean guitars group I'm in to hear their opinions. Part of me thinks they won't even acknowledge the public mindset of Dean. I'd like to hear their ideas on what Dean can do to get its shit together if anything.

Exactly why im here aswell. As i briefly mentioned, Vengeance, Zero and Exile should be a good starting point.

Which leads me to this =

Ok guys. I think I am close to a breakthrough on the headstock. See my scientific genius:

For the love of god, leave the ML as is. Maybe make some more Modifiers but thats it.

As I said, Dean was my first 'expensive' brand as a kid so I have a real soft spot for anything Dean. I just got that Exile last week and I feel like I'm a kid again.

The poplar burl Exile is so sick man. Im trying to find one too or even better both the 6 and 7 version.

 

[Mathemagician]

I’m close, I can feel it.

 

[STRHelvete]

I’m close, I can feel it.

Yeaaah..leave the V headstock alone on the MLs. There are models out there similar to this, however, for those who hate the V headstock.

Personally I love the V headstock. My only complaint on the MLs I have is they have the smaller Series 3 headstocks and I'd prefer the bigger Series 2 ones.
Maybe if the re-release the Modifier, they can put a reverse straight 6 headstock on it, give it stainless steel frets and Fishmans..then maybe people will enjoy them, and they can leave the regular MLs alone.