Alright, where to even start with this thing? How about we start with its name, this is the Tone Master Pro, and it even has that little R in the circle which means that the name is a registered trademark or something like that. Registered by whom you say? Fender of course, and they were nice enough to send me this bad boy to trial.
I’m not much of a “multi-effects pedal” kinda guy, but that’s ok because this isn’t really a multi-effects pedal even though it kind of looks like one. It’s technically a guitar processor, that looks like a pedal but could also be called a modeller. Same, same but different, yeah?
Well, yeah it’s got a shit tonne of buttons and a shit tonne of holes on the back and I honestly don’t even know what they are all for. Anyway, I plug it in and get stuck straight into the factory presets, all 95 of them. There is everything, including an EVH 5150 III at slot 2 which honestly sounds better than any 5150 I’ve ever heard live, but that’s just because half y’all don’t know how to dial ‘em in. I could list the 94 other presets, but that would take way too long and ain’t nobody got time for that.
You could literally buy this pedal, just use the presets, and you’d have more killer tones and effects than you’ll probably ever use on-stage, in the studio or in your mom’s basement. Plus, you get 409 spare slots to try and make some good ones yourself. That’s 504 total available preset spaces in case you lost count.
Let’s get down to the technical stuff now shall we, but first, just let me update the firmware quickly (very quickly) so that whoever ends up with this demo version has the most up-to-date version. That’s if I decide to send it back, it could be a keeper. I wonder how sweet a deal Fender will do me on this one, I guess that’ll depend on how good this review is won’t it?
I jump into Footswitch mode which suddenly changes the individual button displays to show the selection of pedals sitting within the preset. In this mode, I can now just hit the individual assigned switches to activate or bypass the individual effects, just like having an analogue pedal board at my feet. I click through Fender Large Plate Reverb, Digital Delay, Greenbox, Phaser 90, and Flanger. By the time I get to the end of that selection on top of the EVH5150 I’ve got one of the best Solo tones that I have ever heard.
In case you haven’t already had a look at this pedal, I’ll let you all know that is also comes with a 7” Colour Touch Screen that displays your pedal chain settings, including actual pictures of the pedals and your chosen amp. Cool thing is, when you touch them, the pedal then zooms in, and you can see the controls on the pedals or amp. You can also then touch the pedal dials and switches to adjust them. What is even cooler, is that each control then displays on the foot switches on the board, and those switches then become dials to give you that realistic feel when adjusting them. I was absolutely amazed at this feature when I figured it out.
Please hold while I get lost in this thing for an hour or two …
The first challenge I set for this pedal was to try and create my clean tone. My clean tone usually consists of Marshall Regenerator chorus, Marshall Echo Head delay (w/tap tempo) into a Mode Four Marshall on the Clean channel with a touch of reverb. Yeah, shoot me, I’m a Marshall guy. Maybe one day Fender will get me onto an EVH 5150 III unless I manage to hold onto this pedal of course.
I was very quickly able to recreate that tone without access to any of those particular pedals or that specific amp. I should note, I could have gone and grabbed those pedals and set them up through a loop in the back to add to my effects chain but hey, that’s just another cool feature of the Tone Master Pro because actually get four separate Loop Channels which can be added into your preset effects chains and activated or bypassed as required.
Just like Kirk Hammet, I also have a penchant for the overuse of a Wah, but unfortunately although there is a filter and pitch section in the effects which gives you the option for several Volume, Wah and Pitch shifters you can’t utilise them without an external pedal.
That’s where the Mission Engineering SP1-TMP Expression Pedal steps in and gives you real-time control of these parameters. Maybe Fender can send me one of those too and I can hold onto this for a little longer. I did manage to figure out that I could dial in the wah the position which allowed me to sweep through the Wah while picking a single note. I chose the Dime Wah of course, and yeah, it sounded like a Dime Wah as much as I could tell picking one note. It also has adjustable range and Q settings which are handy to dial in exactly what you need.
I could sit here all weekend and test the 100+ Tone Master quality Amp & Effect Models, but I do need to finish this review at some point, so let’s go through other specs which I haven’t had a chance to play around with yet. I don’t even really know what this means, but I didn’t notice when going into the cabinet settings that I could change the position of the Mic, and the type of mic as well adding Low Cut and High cut filters which apparently give you the option of over 6000 Fender-captured Impulse Responses. Most of you won’t even hear the subtle changes that these options give you but for anyone with a studio trained ear, you know very well just how important this is.
If given the chance to test this out live I could run through the Innovative Song & Setlist Modes which enables you to set up a bank for each song with all your different changes required for that song, and then to take it further you can set up a set list to bank all of those in your et list order as needed. In other words, you don’t have to think about it or worry about changing pedal settings or making chain adjustments.
Alright, so here is everything I’ve missed so far:
3rd Party IR support
60 second Stereo Looper
Instrument and XLR mic inputs
True preset spillover of delay and reverb tails for seamless preset changes
Compatible with Tone Master Pro Control desktop app for editing, sharing and downloading presets
Bluetooth wireless connection for streaming audio from a mobile device
Stereo 1/4″ Headphone output jack for silent practice
Lightweight, under 9 lbs.
I’d explain all those bits and pieces in detail too, but we’d be here all day, so let’s just do this very quickly. The stereo looper is fun, if you can count, and have good enough rhythm to get your loops spot on, and I don’t, but it was still fun just making some noise. I talked about all the holes in the back which includes the Instrument and XLR jacks which I’m pretty sure allow you to run a vocal line while your guitar is plugged in as well which is handy for all of you budding soloists. Not to mention the Bluetooth connection which allows you to run your backing tracks from your chosen device. It also comes with a headphone jack, so you can practice in silence without disturbing the neighbours … or the kids.
Oh yeah, and it’s bloody lightweight, it practically weighs nothing … no more than 4kg. I might try and play with the Tone Master Pro Control Desktop App on Sunday instead of going to church. With the ease of using the pedal, I’m not sure how much more helpful this will be though. It might just be better for those who have never actually used real pedals and are already living in the digital modelling age.
Is that enough? I think that’s enough, but like I said earlier I need to finish this review at some point even though I could keep fiddling around with this thing for days, and I will.
I’d very heavily suggest going to check out the Fender Tone Master Pro at your local retailer and giving it a quick trial. Have your cash or plastic ready though because you’ll probably decide pretty quickly that you need to take one home and put it through its paces!
