Fender Tone Master Pro....

Status
Not open for further replies.
I am so not interested in Fender's modeler. But the FRFR 1x12 cab - I might be. I will have to play it first. As I (and many others) said elsewhere, if FAS made a FRFR backline focused active cab (or combo) I am sure they would squash Fender's FR cab (and combos) too.

Fender was obviously going for a dumbed down interface (similar to Boss GX-100). The whole point of FAS Gear is the depth you get over very fine control of every aspect. Even if you don't want to dive deep - there is a preset for that. Even if the preset isn't perfect there is a forum for that with answers how to achieve exactly what you are going for.

But still some users are intimidated by the depth and breadth FAS provides. Are there ways the FAS stuff could be dumbed down (UI wise) for those uncomfortable with the power in the HW without losing any of the power for those of us willing to dive?

Sure! But I am confident that will be exactly the evolution of FAS UI's (both hardware and software). The dumbed down interfaces won't benefit me, But they will make the entry cost (learning curve wise) much less for many which will increase the value prop even more than it already is. Right now it is through the roof if you are willing to invest the time and effort to learn the gear.

My guess: Fender will most likely be playing catchup on the underlying tech that is most important to tone for a long time.
 
I will not be selling my FM9, as for those cabs they do look nice but I prefer my powercabs based on speaker type and design
Powercabs are coaxial Fender are woofer and tweeter sperate, I prefer coaxial design
But thats a string showing on Fender with the TMP and offering 2 FRFR options
 
Some nice perspective from someone who is not being paid to demo the unit.

Interesting Points:

- While the unit does use 8 cores, it seems as though it is only actively using 4 at a time; the other 4 are in reserve for the seamless preset switching and spillover

- Sounds are not as a good as Fractal, Helix, QC

- Amp/Effects variety are not as good as the above mentioned

- "You can't play UI" - A fair point and a great quote.

Enjoy.

 
TheRedDevil said:
Fender is more a guitar manufacturer
Click to expand...

Which is funny, because Leo never played guitar and started out repairing radios and then amps, and then made amps, and then eventually made guitars.

You're not wrong today. But, I do wonder why you say they have to fight for a future. Is it just because sales slowed down since the lockdowns ended and people actually have to get back to real life?
 
Because of more and more cheap but great chinese guitars flooding the market. After so many years of guitar playing I replaced mostly all of my guitars from Gibson and Fender with chinese ones (and I have much much more than in past), e.g. the SGs with maple neck are better then Gibsons. The rest is as good as the expensive ones. Additionally the old rocker generation dies and real guitar heros are missing. New generation players will mostly play modelers and chinese guitars, I think. Refer to
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wirtschaft/nach-der-gibson-pleite-gitarrenbauer-in-der-krise,Qqsshem translated from German in English:
"After the Gibson bankruptcy: guitar makers in crisis
The American musical instrument manufacturer Gibson is best known for its electric guitars. The company has now filed for bankruptcy. The Gibson bankruptcy is just a symptom of the crisis this industry is in. By Stephan Lina. For decades, rock music has stood for dynamism and hope, but the biggest stars of the genre are getting older - and with them the fans. This is a problem for electric guitar manufacturers. The industry thrives not least on idols who motivate young customers to pick up the guitar themselves.
More competition, lower demand
The numbers speak for themselves. Last year, only one million electric guitars were sold worldwide, a third less than ten years ago. In addition, the number of providers has grown. This means that more and more manufacturers are fighting for a shrinking market. This represents an existential threat, particularly for the rather high-priced US providers.
Beginning of an industry crisis?
According to industry experts, Gibson's bankruptcy could be the beginning of a whole wave. Competitor Fender is also heavily in debt; competitor Paul Reed Smith has already had to start a restructuring program. But it's not just the manufacturers who are affected. Guitar Center, the most important retailer in the US market, is struggling with shrinking sales and a growing mountain of debt.
"
P.S: I also replaced my tube amps and cabs with Fractal ... Things change.
 
Last edited:
TheRedDevil said:
Because of more and more cheap but great chinese guitars flooding the market. After so many years of guitar playing I replaced mostly all of my guitars from Gibson and Fender with chinese ones (and I have much much more than in past), e.g. the SGs with maple neck are better then Gibsons. The rest is as good as the expensive ones. Additionally the old rocker generation dies and real guitar heros are missing. New generation players will mostly play modelers and chinese guitars, I think. Refer to
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wirtschaft/nach-der-gibson-pleite-gitarrenbauer-in-der-krise,Qqsshem translated from German in English:
"After the Gibson bankruptcy: guitar makers in crisis
The American musical instrument manufacturer Gibson is best known for its electric guitars. The company has now filed for bankruptcy. The Gibson bankruptcy is just a symptom of the crisis this industry is in. By Stephan Lina. For decades, rock music has stood for dynamism and hope, but the biggest stars of the genre are getting older - and with them the fans. This is a problem for electric guitar manufacturers. The industry thrives not least on idols who motivate young customers to pick up the guitar themselves.
More competition, lower demand
The numbers speak for themselves. Last year, only one million electric guitars were sold worldwide, a third less than ten years ago. In addition, the number of providers has grown. This means that more and more manufacturers are fighting for a shrinking market. This represents an existential threat, particularly for the rather high-priced US providers.
Beginning of an industry crisis?
According to industry experts, Gibson's bankruptcy could be the beginning of a whole wave. Competitor Fender is also heavily in debt; competitor Paul Reed Smith has already had to start a restructuring program. But it's not just the manufacturers who are affected. Guitar Center, the most important retailer in the US market, is struggling with shrinking sales and a growing mountain of debt.
"
P.S: I also replaced my tube amps and cabs with Fractal ... Things change.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the translation.👍

Edit:
That article is from 2018. Things did change…we had a huge global incident and guitar sales, both the big guys and Asian had a huge boom. Now we’re in a sales slump or more of a reality adjustment as @marsonic mentioned. I get your point, but it is hard to always predict what’s down the road. I do think it may be closer to your idea than what I experienced since the 1960’s when I was born. Hopefully we humans figure a way to make things modern, but also exciting and hopeful.
 
Last edited:
Mine was delivered today. Honestly I love it. It's not in depth as the fractal, but the UI is much better, very intuitive, and user friendly. The sounds are pretty damn good too. I honestly think the EVH models sound better than the Fractal versions of them. I've played it for about an hour and am throughly impressed.
 
Got the FR12 in today and so far pretty happy. It sounds great, goes really loud and looks like a real cabinet. Gonna take it for a ride during rehearsal this evening and give an update.
For reference: I also have the Line6 Powercab 112, Laney IRT and my own rebuild Fender Supersonic Cabinet with 2 FX12-200 (driven by a SD Powerstage 200). The only one I have used live on stage is the Fender Supersonic cabinet, as the other 2 didn't do well enough during rehearsal (for me that is).
 
It is now fairly obvious that new modelers are not going after Fractal units (if they are) based on Fractals user interface. From a certain point of view that is Fractals Achilles heel. But at the same time, the in depth parameters can give you better results if studied and experimented with enough. Still think that my FM9 Turbo 'can' sound better than other modelers I have used but the interface at first was somewhat daunting. I still own an HX Stomp for my looping pedal board and enjoy the ease of use for that application. We still do not know what processing power the new Fender TMP modeler has but its audio interfaces on the back seem to be on par with an FM9 in most respects. However the TMP user interface is going to grab a few sales and who knows what the unit is actually capable of. Players who are already dedicated fractal users may not care about any of this but to new players (and sales) going into the modeler world the TMP with Fenders name on this will probably mean something except for possibly the price. Really want to see and hear reviews on the new FRFR amp/cabs that Fender also released along with the modeler.
 
Maurice van Wijk said:
Got the FR12 in today and so far pretty happy. It sounds great, goes really loud and looks like a real cabinet. Gonna take it for a ride during rehearsal this evening and give an update.
For reference: I also have the Line6 Powercab 112, Laney IRT and my own rebuild Fender Supersonic Cabinet with 2 FX12-200 (driven by a SD Powerstage 200). The only one I have used live on stage is the Fender Supersonic cabinet, as the other 2 didn't do well enough during rehearsal (for me that is).
Click to expand...

I'm curious to hear what you think.

TheRedDevil said:
Guitar Center, the most important retailer in the US market
Click to expand...

Well...I'm no high-level business man, but....GC probably is in some danger...because they suck. And they have been at least since that article was published. They treat their employees like dirt and generally don't feel like the nice place to go try stuff that they used to be. But, if Sam Ash can hold on as long as they have, GC has a while yet. At least for my local one, Sam Ash is everything wrong with GC but even worse (maybe it's better for the employees - but I don't see how).

Also bankruptcy doesn't necessarily mean a business is doomed. It means that they don't want to pay their debts at the current terms and are looking for a way out. Sometimes, it happens just because of interest rates.

Filing for bankruptcy in 2018 just to refinance their debts made some kind of sense. The federal funds rates were going up for the first time in a decade, and if they'd been rolling over old debt long enough...they could have just done that to prevent having to do it later when rates were even higher...like they are now. It really depends when the last time they were debt free was, and I don't have that information.

If they file for Bankruptcy before the federal funds rate comes back down (from ~5x what they were in 2018)...that's when you can believe they're in serious trouble.

Nsurround said:
new players (and sales) going into the modeler world the TMP with Fenders name on this will probably mean something
Click to expand...

It certainly will. I don't like the sounds in the demos so far. If I had to guess, I think they might be cutting corners on oversampling and avoiding IMDs. It doesn't sound like the worst aliasing/imd that I've heard, but there's something fatiguing in the higher gain sounds that really turns me off.

Also...when I pulled out my FM3 board to try the FR-12, the employee almost gasped and said that he'd never seen a Fractal in person. He said that they always had Line 6, Kemper, Boss, and Headrush in stock and that he wasn't sold on those.

It wasn't the same as pulling out a dumble or a vintage guitar...people weren't fawning over it or anything, but it wasn't far off from someone who's only played budget guitars realizing that your LP is a Gibson instead of an Epiphone or something.

There is a cachet to the fractals that the other modelers haven't managed to capture.

Or maybe I'm just a fanboy. Whatever.
 
marsonic said:
I'm curious to hear what you think.



Well...I'm no high-level business man, but....GC probably is in some danger...because they suck. And they have been at least since that article was published. They treat their employees like dirt and generally don't feel like the nice place to go try stuff that they used to be. But, if Sam Ash can hold on as long as they have, GC has a while yet. At least for my local one, Sam Ash is everything wrong with GC but even worse (maybe it's better for the employees - but I don't see how).

Also bankruptcy doesn't necessarily mean a business is doomed. It means that they don't want to pay their debts at the current terms and are looking for a way out. Sometimes, it happens just because of interest rates.

Filing for bankruptcy in 2018 just to refinance their debts made some kind of sense. The federal funds rates were going up for the first time in a decade, and if they'd been rolling over old debt long enough...they could have just done that to prevent having to do it later when rates were even higher...like they are now. It really depends when the last time they were debt free was, and I don't have that information.

If they file for Bankruptcy before the federal funds rate comes back down (from ~5x what they were in 2018)...that's when you can believe they're in serious trouble.



It certainly will. I don't like the sounds in the demos so far. If I had to guess, I think they might be cutting corners on oversampling and avoiding IMDs. It doesn't sound like the worst aliasing/imd that I've heard, but there's something fatiguing in the higher gain sounds that really turns me off.

Also...when I pulled out my FM3 board to try the FR-12, the employee almost gasped and said that he'd never seen a Fractal in person. He said that they always had Line 6, Kemper, Boss, and Headrush in stock and that he wasn't sold on those.

It wasn't the same as pulling out a dumble or a vintage guitar...people weren't fawning over it or anything, but it wasn't far off from someone who's only played budget guitars realizing that your LP is a Gibson instead of an Epiphone or something.

There is a cachet to the fractals that the other modelers haven't managed to capture.

Or maybe I'm just a fanboy. Whatever.
Click to expand...
As far as the current amp sounds etc of the TMP not sure we should be surprised that they may not be as far along as the more aged modelers. It may take some time to get things in order after its been in the real world. Fender obviously will do fender best and the Brit stuff may come along with newer firmware. Just have to wait and see. I still think that the their user interface is far more intuitive and much better suited for most players going into the modeler world. Modelers are never going to give the same experience to the player in the room with a real tube amp as many others have posted before. But with an interface that simulates the real amp and real knobs to tweak plus the versatility there is certainly going to be a growing number of players going that route. I think Fractals interface is now a sales killer but their units capability and sound are still on par or above all the others. (Mostly above.)
 
But I can't understand, that you really like the user interface of the Fender. Yes, it looks fancy but I also don't like to work with tablet at the office. To be productive I need a mouse, a large screen and a keyboard. That's why I like Fractal too. The user interface of Fractal is easy to use, if you take time to learn - it's really productive. The Axe III editor is great and gives you all possibilities. I don't want a touch screen on a floor board, I want knobs and keys and all together easy to reach. For a touch screen the screen is too small. Players eyes getting older and there is not enough space to design presets with large fingers. Reliablity is another topic. This is a kids toy but not an professional tool. Do you really need great images of the amps? Yes, it helps to select the right one but for configuration it's useless.
 
Last edited:
SASouth said:
Judging by my past experience with Fender’s long term support of their other digital modeling devices (Cyber Twin, Mustang Amp v1 & v2, Fuse) I predict that this product will be quickly abandoned and will no longer receive long needed fixes and it’s corresponding software will totally disappear from their website with no mention that it ever existed. Even if this device is moderately successfully it will quickly be replaced with a new version that is totally incompatible with this original version requiring a new purchase and downloads.
Click to expand...
All other talk aside, this would be a major concern if I were inclined to buy one. They really don't have a good track record in this type thing.
 
Maurice van Wijk said:
Got the FR12 in today and so far pretty happy. It sounds great, goes really loud and looks like a real cabinet. Gonna take it for a ride during rehearsal this evening and give an update.
For reference: I also have the Line6 Powercab 112, Laney IRT and my own rebuild Fender Supersonic Cabinet with 2 FX12-200 (driven by a SD Powerstage 200). The only one I have used live on stage is the Fender Supersonic cabinet, as the other 2 didn't do well enough during rehearsal (for me that is).
Click to expand...
Hey Maurice, what is your best guess to the tone control settings to be "neutral"? Twelve o'clock, or maxed?
Thanks! (getting mine on Monday...)
 
TheRedDevil said:
I don't want a touch screen on a floor board
Click to expand...

Personally, I don't want a touch screen anywhere.

You have to cover up the thing you're manipulating and the feedback you get. It's a fundamental flaw in their design that only goes away when you know where all the controls are without looking at them (e.g., my computer keyboard has only blank keycaps because they look cooler than printed ones when I'm not using it...I haven't looked at the legends for 25 years).

The only reason touchscreens became normal is because the iPhone was leaps and bounds more capable than the devices that came before it and the necessity of phones being (almost) small enough to fit in a pocket precludes the use of something like a mouse.

Since then, it's just been design inertia and laziness at developing something better.

ETA: yes, I accept touch screens on phones like everyone else. But, I still kind of hate it. Tablets haven't been worth buying for me...my wife keeps giving me her old ones when she gets a new one...and then after 6 months of me not using it, it won't hold a charge and gets recycled. IMHO, smart phones would still have physical keyboards like blackberries did, except that they're almost entirely focused on wasting time and "consuming content" rather than being things people actually do things with.

Henry said:
Hey Maurice, what is your best guess to the tone control settings to be "neutral"? Twelve o'clock, or maxed?
Click to expand...

They're actually marked. TMB = noon is +/- 0 (range of +/- 6dB); high cut, CCW is no cut.

https://media.guitarcenter.com/is/image/MMGS7/M05115000001000-03-2000x2000.jpg
 
fcs101 said:
All other talk aside, this would be a major concern if I were inclined to buy one. They really don't have a good track record in this type thing.
Click to expand...
I get it, but I think they may be following a better path than selling tone master replicas, cyber twins, etc.
Put the Fender franchise in a floor modeller, perfect it, sell modellers, tube amps and FR cabs…move on.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom