That interface is amazing. The ability to adjust the amp settings by twisting the switches, the colorful touch screen showing the chain, everything. If they can fix that digital sound this would be a winner.
Live or in studio? I've heard that everything sounds great in the studio, but it just gets really fizzy and tinny live. It has to be seriously EQ'd live (dropping all the high end).
I think Fender should send one of those units with the FRFR Cab to me too. What the heck why not, every kid and his pet monkey globally is getting one. LOL
yeah i love that "I dont get anything from them" everyone says. No. Just a 1700 Dollar plus Box thingy you can sell afterwards XD. And even then all say "Too expensive"
I just “bought” one, and I am blown away, as I should be with a premium unit! I am at a point where I have to buy the best of these guitar boxes, as I’ve tried and own all the lesser costly ones. I don’t really hear this “digital harshness” he talks about. This thing is a tweakers dream!
If you're going to come in late to the game with a copycat that sounds more digital and inferior to what is on the market today, and you damn well better price it accordingly. This product, while it appears to be built solid, otherwise just doesn't match up with the competition. If they came in at the $600 point, holy shit everyone would buy one. To sell at the same premium that Helix and Kemper do? You better be able to match their tone, and this just doesn't.
Hi, With other modelers, you have to tweak the low cut to 80 hz and the hi cut to 8 Khz. That removes that hi noise on the mics or amps/cabs. (now I see you did that later in the video :D)
I saw another review on this unit where they split the chain, chose a bright cab on one side and deep cab on the other. then when the signal comes back together it automatically gives you a little mixer that lets you really balance your sound without having to eq much. I was amazed how much the sound improved. took all the digital harshnss away.
All the other demos I have heard have this issue. It is more pronounced with Rhett’s set up though. Make sure you are listening with good headphones. Just a hunch but I am thinking this might be designed very much to work with the FRFR cabs. Many of the other demos appear to be using the new FRFR cabs
Same with Helix and Boss.Building a preset from scratch is what it is about. The UI on here looks great. I usually lo-cut from 80 to 108 and hi-cut anything from 4.5kHz to 5-8kHz. It is entirely dependent on song.
Thanks for being so honest about the sound because it's nice to hear that a pro like yourself isn't crazy about it , especially because I feel the same way after hearing so many video demos. I've joined the digital realm however, I think that it is quite possible that many of us (me included) have forgotten what a real tube amp sounds like. lol. it's nice to see your selection of amps behind you. I'm in the market for a tube amp that has high headroom . if anyone has any suggestions let me know.- please no Mesa Boogie suggestions. Keep up the great work!!!
6:00 I saw another review on this unit where they split the chain, chose a bright cab on one side and deep cab on the other. then when the signal comes back together it automatically gives you a little mixer that lets you really balance your sound without having to eq much. I was amazed how much the sound improved. seemed like it took all the digital harshness away.
I listened but wasn’t watching. Did you try lowering the input gain? Are you possibly clipping the input stage slightly? Also could your headphones be giving you a hyped top end that the audience won’t hear through a PA in a busy mix? Last Q: could that sizzle be solved by plugging into the FRFR? Thx
Looks like you installed the v1.1.100 firmware, but you didn't do a factory reset which would have given you the latest factory presets that are all optimized and volume normalized.
With fender I always worry about longevity of support. The upper management at fender doesnt have my confidence to support things, especially software for an extended amount of time.
100% Fender support on their DSP products is deplorable. They roll-out new hardware rather than update existing. Their last floor modeler was abandoned in a year! They have been through four iterations of Mustang amps, abandoned the Fender FUSE software needed for the first two iterations, and they haven't updated the latest GTX version, which they still sell new, in almost 2 years!
@@joelanderson6777 Fender was smart to abandon the earlier efforts. They realized they had to compete with the big guys. When they came out with the Tone Master amps I realized they were on the right track. All that processing power for just one amp sound appealed to me. They took it to the next step with the TMP.
I became an Amp modeler guy 20 years ago and haven't looked back. I'm so impressed with how close these Amp modeling units imitate the real sound of the amps. Many gearheads can't tell the difference in blind sound tests. I have found for myself the best unit for myself for the money...The Line 6 POD HD500X ($400 brand new) but shamefully these units are no longer made because the more expensive Helix units are the rave. For me, I can get the sounds of thousands of dollars of amps and effects for a fraction of the price with Amp modelers plus taking up a fraction of the space needed on stage, transporting and storage. It's a win win for me!!
@@billybobhouse9559 great choice! Another benefit I forgot to mention is I believe that Line 6 still has additional amp model package downloads available on their website for really cheap. Maybe some of these used units for sale may already have additional amp models added? The advanced user manual and pilot manual are available online as free PDF files as well!
Frankly the best modeled amp sound I"ve heard , thanks to you Rhett , is the Neural DSP Imperial MK II plugin. So if you don't GIg and have a descent PC or Mac and a good interface , best headphone solution for sure
Mynoersonal experience with modellers take time to dial in to your specific needs and ears including your output set up . For the listeners/audience it all sounds just fine.
What I like about modeling is that every day is like entering an amp and pedal store and choosing a different one and spending hours playing, it's fun. It's like going to Disneyland every day hahaha. But when things get serious and you have concerts coming up, you have to work on the sounds, shape them and get what you need, and modeling is perfect for that. Modeling is another world, we are used to turning on an amp and having it sound with little effort but modeling is another concept, you can do many more things and it is lighter but it forces you to understand how sound works and not everyone is suitable for it.
I like your thoughts on the whole modelling thing. It's fun because it gives you instant access to dozens or hundreds of amps and effects. It's good to have choices like one day, I want a boogie tone, the next day I want a friedman, or a vox, etc. Flexibility is king for me. And I totally agree that it forces the user to understand how the unit works. It's cool if I can own 50+ amps. What's not cool is bringing them all to a gig with my humble hatchback 😅
The “digital fizz” is called aliasing. All digital saturation fx have aliasing aka foldback distortion. The only way to get rid of it is to hard cut the high end or run the audio at 192khz to push the nyquist frequency out of the audible range which takes a lot more cpu power.
I’ve watched you for years and learned you are a traditionalist. Stomp boxes and tube amps. To me, you came predisposed to not liking it from the outset and that never seemed to wane.
I generally find that on the Kemper, Helix, AX8 and others that the high cut in the speaker or output needs to be down around 6.5 khz to get rid of that fizz. All of the ones you looked at had full 20 khz high cut. That might work well for the new FRFR Fender cabs but I think you may have better results dropping the high cut way down. Most speakers aren't giving you anything above that range anyway.
Agreed. I drop the default Speaker Cab High Cut on my HX Stomp to about 5KHz, which is the Frequency Response of most real Speakers. This fixes a multitude of problems, and makes dialing in simpler, faster, and with better results. 😎
@@picksalot1 It's worth noting that the LPF on the Cab block in Line6 stuff is a different curve to the EQ block. It's much gentler, like a 6dB/Ocv. So 5kHz still lets some of the 8-10k stuff through. It just brings it under control.
@@NedJeffery Yes, I'm aware of that, and it makes EQing the Speaker much more natural. More Line 6 Helix Modeler users should take advantage of this powerful setting when they run into harsh, fizzy highs in their Presets.
I agree that there may be some fizz when Kemper profiles are tweaked, but when I A/B the recording of a real amp with a Kemper profile just made using the same signal-chain there is virtually no audible difference. It works the same whether is is a low or high gain signal. My hope is that the recently released liquid algorithms for modelling the behaviour of front-panel controls may improve things, but I haven't yet tested enough to judge.
Don’t have time to watch the whole thing, but should be way more aggressive on the EQ to see if anything you do helps. No dainty moves and sitting there shrugging - crank some knobs quickly to extremes, find the harshness quickly. If no extreme moves at any freq bands help, need something else. My guess is it’s aliasing distortion and you need to put high cuts in before drive is applied.
heres a tip any digital /daw derived preset look at the output level its often plus 7 and more db . set it to 0 and then play with the settings on the amp
Well done Rhett ! Finally someone speaks (focus on) about the sounds of this unit rather than "friendly user interface", "processing power", etc (or the most I heard was "sounds good..." ?!!!). Excellent review ! Regarding the price, I find it excessively expensive if you look at it as a most probably arm based micro computer. May be it's due to high quality components inside (as Fender's people said), the market, whatever. Again, chapeau for this one !
To me the crucial thing with amp modelers is the cab. In my experience any kind of harshness/digital sound usually comes from a "bad" cab-sim. A real cab does something to the sound after all the shaping and amplification of the amp/effects that only a cab can do. And digital cabs usually don't have that dialed in out of the box. I use a dedicated cab-sim unit (with IR) and using the lowpass filter there instead of directly in the signal chain for example is a big difference. But amp sims sounds best if they are played into a real cab and I feel that's how most people use it anyway...
This makes me think of the Boss literature. Boss explains the presets are built based on using a guitar amp speaker. If you use the Boss gear on studio monitors or FR/FR, they recommend high cut at 6k to get guitar amp sounds out of a monitor or FR/FR and kill the annoying highs that a guitar amp speaker doesn’t reproduce well.
@@bmoneybbypeople have crapped all over the Fractal, Kemper, Line6 and QC as well in different channels. Some "pro" players won't touch modelers unless they're just screwing around, but will absolutely only use analog gear to record. Same old story... can you tell the difference in a mix? And if you can, does it necessarily means one is better than the other? The facsimile that these are producing is without argument, just incredible. For anybody over 35, you have a grand appreciation for what these modelers can do having gone through the days of yore when just buying a good amp and cab would break the bank. Now everything is just right there! Amazing tech. Nit picking the first firmware release is kinda lame. I have no doubt that they'll up their game as time goes along. Amp, effects and functionality drops will happen. It seems to me that they're taking this pretty seriously by spitting out so many of these to influencers. Guaranteed they're watching feedback and putting a game plan together. I have faith in them. It just feels like they're going to follow through where some others just appear to be satisfied with their current market positions.
I've heard that type of fizz in every modeler I've tried. That in itself isn't a dealbreaker in most cases. It needs to be dealt with in the cab/IR blocks with mic, placement and LP filtering - like you did with the Deluxe. I haven't had good results with global EQ. I think it lies in the fact that in creating IRs, the "standard" is to use an ultra- clean amp that doesn't necessarily have the high end limited on the amp side in the same way a medium gain guitar amp does. In general, amps (real ones) are designed with a certain speaker in mind to compensate for the resonant/impedance bumps that every speaker will impart on the amp, and also shape the high freq response to work with the natural high roll-off of each speaker. You don't have those interactions taken into account in the modeling world. A second point is that when played isolated (not in a mix), modelers (before going through a backline or FRFR speaker) put us in a virtual listening position that a lot of players have never experienced before - your ear is now (virtually) positioned an inch from the speaker. Stuff can sound pretty gnarly there even when you put a real 57 on a real speaker. All that said, I'm still not a big fan of this unit, at least at this price. I'll stick with my Helix. I've learned how to deal with the fizzies on it. And yes, I've heard the same high artifacts on every review of this unit - although on the paid reviews, they don't talk about it much.
I go way back with the Modelers and have owned Digi Design 11 box, actually bought it twice as I could not believe how bad it was the first time. They are close to or have arrived in this technology. I owned Helix Rack, Kemper Power rack and just bought the Fender, I think they are getting better and better along with all the different software. Its a beautiful World
You know I bought a boss gt1 about 2 years ago and I use it going straight into a pa. Once I started to accept that it’s not an amp and really worked on developing the sound of the pre-amps in the unit, I really came to appreciate what the unit can do. The gt1 continues to serve me well. I think the secret to these units is to accept them for what they are and to spend time perfecting what they can do.
I know right! The price on this modeler stuff is getting out of range for a lot of people. They are pushing more and more people to the Neural Amp Modeler which is free and sounds pretty good in a DAW.
I just watched a John Nathan Cordy video comparing the Tone Master to the Helix, and he gets the same sound out of both modelers. I mean, the guy is a tone master himself (bad pun) but given the price difference, I'm happy to see I could get top level sounds out of a helix..
I just watched this whole thing. One question got asked SO many times and I think you might have missed it each time or were just not responding on purpose but...Did you do a factory reset after the firmware update? So many people people kept saying that fender said the factory reset was imperative!
The harshness, do you think it has anything to do with the fact that you have the Master on the unit @ 100%? Which controls the overall volume for the outputs. I tend to have mine set to 50-60%. No harshness like you are getting.
It's refreshing to see that not everyone is buying the hype. Need to see a lot more testing first. Btw, don't forget the Kemper among alternatives. It may be old, but it is still getting new features implemented. Fender tend to abandon stuff and I doubt there will be functional upgrades to the TMP arriving more than 10 years from now. Liquid profiling, Kempers take on modelling, was just released and if it works out it may remove some of the option-paralysis wrt the endless choice of profiles available. Maybe a handful good profiles combined with the liquid algorithms finally can provide a decent set of tones for a gigging musician.
This is a different beast. There is a micro sd card for further update. I doubt they will drop that. There is even deal being made with official fender artist for tone etc. The unit us powerfull enought that we can even see thing like a multitrack update, wich i suspect why there is a miro sd. So far there us already a nice update.
About time someone has the balls to be honest and upfront. In Anderton's review trashed the Helix with zero attempt to dial it in and proverbially sucked off Fender the whole time lol
I feel the QC suffers that same harsh distortion on top of the distortion. But in other demo / reviews of the tone master pro that ive seen i didnt think it was as big of an issue as it seem to be in your demo? I wonder if the pickups in the guitar are a little hot and if there is a trim / pad / meter on the tone master input to tell if its getting pushed a bit too much? There is in the QC
I had this issue with my eclipse and there is a -6 db pad option that works wonders! (There is no meter to tell you if you are clipping BUT your ears will do a good job of hearing when its not)
What you are hearing is called "aliasing" and is caused by floating point rounding errors in series being compounded. It is hard to EQ out. It 100% can be fixed with a firmware update to fix the mixing with some smoothing before mixing in the next effect. It is like pixelization in an image, which is visual aliasing. Once it is there it just gets worse the more of it that is mixed together. That is why just amp and one effect sounds ok, but the more effects make it worse and worse. More bits in the sampling fixes this as well. Fuzz is basically analogue aliasing on purpose, it makes the implicit aliasing in the system even more pronounced.
Aliasing is not created by rounding errors but by introducing frequencies above nyquist, which is exactly what happens when you model distortion (adding harmonics). The only real solution to this is to use oversampling, which costs a lot of DSP power. Cliff Chase from Fractal Audio wrote much about this. The reason their units have little to no digital sizzle is because they allocate so much of their DSP to the amp blocks oversampling. Besides, aliasing is a problem strictly relegated to the digital domain. There is no analog counterpart. Fuzz is just jargon for a certain type of analog distortion.
Im so glad you were honest about this unit, as it is. The basic ground work is IN PLACE..the OS, the visibilty of sounds (very WYSIWYG)...but certain things..quite far from ready. I hope Fender gets to work on an upgrade.
From what little I have heard from the Fender Tonemaster video's till now, Amps don't sound distantly different, they just some like it's one sound with different EQ's, whereas on something like the Helix the Amps sound distantly different , Helix also sounds more organic, for me Helix beats this for now.
For 400$ less you get a headrush pedal board with a bigger screen, bigger unit, wah pedal, reamp built in ect. As far as sound quality goes it sounds just as good as Kemper, helix ect imo.
Were you overdriving your audio interface? Other online reviews aren't experiencing the same audio distortions you did. Something is different with your setup...
That digital sound you are hearing is Aliasing. Honestly the only way to get around that is to have modellers running at very high sample rates. I've had surprisingly good results using things like Amplitube 5 but running at 192k.
most people struggle with it because they either cannot get the get the cabinet VIR to work in either favour or they run it at lower sample rates and deal with aliasing. Personally had amazing result using 3rd party IRs and just upping the sample rate @@69ssrscamaro4
After owning a plethora of these modelers since the DigiTech 21 legend pro rack mount system. Ive owned line 6 Helix floor the Kemper profiler amp several fractal units and this one is by far my favorite as a modeler. If you're somebody with a wall of boutique amps then this is probably not the unit for you. But if you're a gigging musician and you just want something that's easy to adjust on the fly and it sounds pretty damn good this is definitely the unit.
Don't know what's going on, but I've watched every English speaking YT video on the FTMP and hate to say it, but the tones you were getting were the worst by a large margin. Got one of these a few days ago and I'm running it into the amp in on the back of two Boss Katana MKII 100 watt 2/12 and it sounds great. I've got a QC, Helix, HeadRush Prime/Core to compare........Fender did a good job on these and in future updates will only get better. The QC with the boxes with squiggly lines in them or circles or squares. I can't remember which squiggly line was what......a tube screamer or a DS-1 or a Klon.......and the footswitches don't line up with what's going on up on the screen.
I'm waiting for a good non-biased A/B between TMP and Headrush Prime/Core because Prime/Core just does so much more and they are $400 and $700 less expensive respectively! It certainly seems TMP largely copied HR UI. And I have noticed NONE of these reviewers acknowledge that... they act like the TMP UI has never been done before!
I'm a big fan of the HeadRush Prime/Core. Would like to see the FTMP include a routing option similar to HR where you can see your entire effects chain without having to scroll left or right.
Im halfway through and what I’m taking away is that there’s a quite a bit of EQ and other tweaking required to get a good initial tone. I suggest manufacturers start with a “guitar amp” global EQ default setting and allow the user to adjust to full frequency if desired. At $1700 this should sound great out of the box.
It does sound great out of the box. I adjust pretty much all the parameters for headphones, guitar amp or FRFR. The 4 years of R&D, taking the pioneers from Line 6 Helix and have them work at Fender for the Tone Master Pro cost money, the updates are coming at Xmas.
wonder if there is an issue with the pairing of this device with your interface...You also have to do a factory reset after the firmware update. I am going to listen to the majority of other independent reviewers who say that this modeller sounds great. Leon Todd for instance has made some great presets...
Good points and video. The fizz you talk about is present in all these devices. Some are more successful as having a nice top end but you still have to tame them. As for the highs I think the high cut at 11k is not enough. First of all it is far above the frequency range of the guitar to be able to do anything. I tend to favor cutting between 5k down to 3.15k depending on how much of that fizz is present. I prefer to do this by assigning a parametric eq after the preamp where I would also tame down the highs. This can be done in the global eq but I like working on each specific amp as there are some nuances that require specific attention.
The global volumen is at 100 % that's why you have that harsh digital sound. Also, maybe the ground of the electrical system is not good and filter that digital noise.
X vs Y axis mnemonic device: the Y axis has a single "tail" that points down as the graph Y axis runs up & down / north & south. The "X" axis has two tails on each side as the X axis runs right to left/ east to west.
I got one of these and I feel like we are the beta testers... Devices like this seem to follow the live service model which some people might really dislike, mixed feelings myself as I appreciate being able to get hands on and see the differences after the first firmware update which was very well implemented. I think it will be interesting to see where Fender is in one year with this product, once they have a few solid firmware updates I feel it will be a much better apples vs. apples comparison to other units such as the QC / HELIX / FM / HEADRUSH etc. but they all do something a little bit different so one you argue that its never a "fair" comparison and perhaps it comes down to the player themselves, like....what can you as a player get from these type of units that you might not get from an actual amp? For me testing this next to the real amps has been interesting, they are very close in terms of just the amps but the default mic choices for the cabinets were picked from a guy / gal who REALLY likes the Sm7 lol....
The digital fizz thing has been there since the start. It was the same discussions in the old Pod 2.0 chats nearly 20 years ago. I remember talking to Neil Diamond’s guitarist, Hadley Hockensmith, and he developed a passive filter box called a “Harmonic Converger” that basically lessened the troubled areas. He needed a modeler as ND demanded a quiet stage. He ended up becoming a Fractal endorsee. But yeah, it was literally the exact same conversation.
Not sure if I have posted this before (apologies if I have), but the Mission SP1-TMP (co branded and custom paint) unlocks things like volume control, wah and a lot of cool creativity/control. Fender also made it reeeeally easy to set up the expression and the toe switch. Control up to 5 parameters at once and use the toe switch to turn off one or all effects. Be great to see a video covering this :-)
I heard the main designer of the Helix jumped ship and designed this unit for Fender. I like the interface and it seems a little more professional (road worthy). It has a normal power cord because the unit has the power supply internal, not some cheap or bulky power adapter like some other units have. Sounds pretty awesome to me. I wish fractal would make a interface like this, But hopefully Fender will support this unit like the other modeling companies do their products. I still prefer my tube amps for the best tone (I own modelers for their convenience). My new Bad Cat amps sound killer.
Thanks for that info, I know this is a bit unrelated, but would you have heard where the designers from Digitech might have went after the company was sold. I’ve had an Rp355 for years, but now I’m looking for something similar in sound quality
Just saw the Part with the Vox. It is funny you say that it got a Little better after you adjusted the global EQ. But you haven`t engaged it. You have to select an Output where you apply the Global EQ. Good example for "hearing with your eyes" nothing changed. 😂.
Hey Rhett, great review. But what I would like to see is a blindfold comparison whether you can hear the difference between the real amps and the fender tone master pro.
I'd like to see A/B/C between a TMP Fender amp and the Tonemaster version of same amp and the actual original tube version. I expect TMP will be distant 3rd place.
dude ive been gigging with fender gtx 100. the fender tone app is SSOOOOO easy to use. This one is similar, and it's even better. If you think it's too expensive, dude, i can't recommend going with gtx 50/100 with the app first. It's pretty awesome. This tonemaster pro requires me to get a loan to get it and it better be worth it.
Just in terms of usability and sound quality and fx fildelity and routing, the Helix still takes the cake for me. Been using the same Helix LT since 2019 and have had 0 issues when it comes to dialing in the exact guitar sounds that are in my head. Also, the community support and Line 6 support and updates are truly unmatched!
I love that digital amps are getting hard to tell apart, but this old simpleton prefers a good tube amp with knobs and a few pedals. I don't want to have to take night classes to figure out how to use my amp. Seems like every 5 to 10 years the digital technology stops having technical support. Looking at you Fender G-DEC...
Try to cut 1.4k. I like this thing a lot. This thing is the solution for the Home studio Amp shelf. I dont know live, but in the studio is perfect for the majority of the earthlings...
27:48 fixes it by dialing in a high cut, says "that's better", immediately exits without saving and it reverts to the 15khz high cut and undoes the fix.
I find that presets are mainly just a starting point and people usually do not find presets "perfect" and need to make adjustments. The great thing is, the Tone Master Pro seems to have all the tools to tweak your way towards the heavily sound you seek. Then it's packaged in such a great form factor and the UI is far better than anything I've seen so far. The best part is Fender clearly isn't done with the firmware either. With that said, I don't find leveling negativity on a "preset" exactly a fair way to judge a modeller. You can't please everyone with a preset. That's more like judging a book by it's cover rather than the story written on the pages.
I have one of the newer Fender modeling amps and the presets were pretty awful. I was able to play around and in a very short time dial up some excellent sounds that I’m very happy with. I would happily do small gigs with it. It’s light as hell and I don’t have to worry about a power amp tube puking on me in the first set. I’m really considering this Tone Master Pro as well.
The only way to get rid of the harshness you're talking about is high cuts / choosing the right mic, like on any guitar micing situation. Presets are usually set with no high cuts or pretty faint ones, and we have to remember that a real cab has a certain frequency response, and cabs in modelers or any amp/cab simulating device are set full range initially. You HAVE to tweak them to make them respond like a proper cabinet. That is, IRs are a MAJOR part of great tone, like in real life. Compare 2 pretty similar amps blasting sound in the same cab : they'll sound pretty similar. Change the cab on one of the amp : they'll sound drastically different. Good IRS, well tweaked EQ can give you amazing results with ANY modeler.
Most of the Modelers have useable Cleansounds, but as soon as the sound is a little distorted, all of these modelers sound unnaturel. There is to much compression in the upper mids you cannot get rid of. I often tryed to use them for recording, but mostly I take an amp and a microfon and the sound I want is immediately there.
Any chance you'd be up for a follow up Quad Cortex video showing some of your presets? I agree the stock ones are a bit meh...but I get option paralysis when dialing in my own
I had a similar issue with distorting . I reinstalled the firmware and didn’t factory reset after. It sounds great now. Sadly I contacted fender support and will have to apologise when they get back to me.
From what I can see the build of it is excellent as is the size of the display to do and see your edits. It think it’s very new and updates will bring it up to speed. It’s funny because I just sold my QC last month because I still use my Kemper Stage far more. QC still not having the desktop editor was also a big reason I sold (and yes I know it's suppose to be out this month) and it’s really good and smart Fender came out with the editor right away with the product. For me unless something really blows away the Kemper (or ToneX as I have that as well) I’m just good where I am. QC was smart to drop the price asap once this was released. QC sounds excellent but Fender has a lot of money to throw at development so it will be interesting to see where it’s at 6 months to a year from now. Appreciate your honest review and look forward to you doing a follow up when you have more time to mess with it. 👍🏻
@@joelanderson6777 Yeah (didn't see that) that wouldn't cut it. I feel they need to get things ramped up and make sure all is well and anything that needs to be addressed would need to be asap especially within the first 6 months. I could see when things are good doing small bug fixes or other every 6 months after the fact.
I think Rhett is looking at this only in a preset mode way. I understand presets are important but TRUST me you are going to build your own. And they sound amazing
I'm considering a Tone Master and FR10 cab. I like the layout and relatively intuitive controls and touch screen. I'm old, I need simple to use. Hard to buy in on the first-generation run with most technology for me. I appreciate the review and insights. Thanks, Rhett
@@scottkidwell3601 I am too and I love mine .. it makes me focus on playing rather than trying to dial in sounds .. I just wanna jam not program a modeler and this does that. Can’t wait for all the future updates can’t wait to see what they add.
@@msvapehead they certainly need to add something because it doesn't have shit compared to other modelers in the same price bracket (especially in the tone department)
How is the tone compared to the Helix. I used the headrush and within days ordered another Helix. I really love the tonal possibilites and quality of it.
Hello First of all, thank you for another excellent review. I am interested in the following. Since I have a Mustang GTX 100 and am a studio producer, is it worth buying Tone Master Pro just for sounds? Does Tone master really have that much better presets and sounds if I record directly in DAW from XLR or USB? Thank you.
You guys are very fortunate in the USA , the fender unit is 2350 in Australia and the FM9 and QC are 3200-3300 with zero availability If either of those units were in the same ball park in price here I’d jump on it In fact the tone master pro is 500 less than a helix floor
I could be wrong, but presets on these things are always supposed to be jump off points. Depending on the guitar you plug into it and what you're hearing it through, any preset is going to sound different. But I think most importantly, in addition to being a jumpoff point, presets are meant to run the range of what the unit is capable of, no matter how weird. For people who aren't sure where to start, it's very helpful.
The factory presets on a lot of modelers suffer from someone (probably in the marketing department past retirement age) demanding more WOW factor for folks trying them out in the store at lower volume
@@PowerPlantSpots That might be true, but it was always that way I think. When I got my first multi effects units in the late 1990s, some of the presets were useable and some were these weird bizarre sounds that you would never use, but served to show the depth of the capabilities in the unit.
I’ve never met a digital modeler that didn’t profit from some hardcore high-cutting. Roll that down mercilessly. Sometimes I can go all the way down to 5 or 6k. That sounds extreme but let your ears lead you. Rolling off those high end gremlins helps a lot!
Next update for Tone Master Pro: Please include a Ducking Delay as on the Boss DD-200. It's my favorite delay. You can do it. Supersonic 22 amp head is great too. Also the '64 Custom Deluxe Reverb. MTG: LA Tube Distortion. '57 Custom Champ. Champ 25SE. Mesa Boogie Triple Crown Head. Roland Blues Cube Hot and Roland Blues Cube Hot British EL84 Modified. Mesa Boogie Fillmore 50. Boss Nextone Special. Try 10 minutes of two track like RC-500 Looper. Boss OC-5. Boss OD-200 Metal preset.
Interesting, but not enough to make me replace my Helix Floor. I'll get the Helix 2 or whatever the replacement is, eventually. In the future, my current Helix will sound and work the same as it does now (plus any future updates). The HX ecosystem is another plus; in addition to my Floor, I use Helix Native, and HX-Effects with my tube amps and my Catalyst-100. Everything just works, and sounds great.
You should check with Pete Thorn to see if he knows anything about that harshness problem. I've had similar problems with my Two Notes. I narrowed it down to the cab IRs, and Pete's cab IRs don't seem to have that problem. If anything, upload one of his IRs into the Tone Master Pro and see if that harshness goes away. I have a hunch there's something up with the presence frequencies, like you mentioned -- it seems to be inaudible in a live setting.
For a fraction of the price you can plug into a Blues Junior- with a couple of pedals ( wampler pinnacle and boss delay in my case) and achieve some very good tones without all the faff or digital harshness.
Agreed, but that is not a realistic comparison. I am not an advocate for the tones that I am hearing out of this, but if we expand our comparison to modelers that get it right (Kemper and Helix) then there is no comparison at all. While you can get good tones out of either, the digital options offer a ton of extra value. They are more portable, have a wider flexibility in tone, make recording much easier, make live performances far more reproducible and reliable, and in the long run will save you money over massive pedal boards. It's just kind of silly to compare an analog amp to a good digital solution.
Sorry- but having used the blues jr with 2 pedals ( including a tuner) for many function band gigs I fail to see how a digital solution for a problem I don’t have being better. Also, my rig is way more portable than I think k you realise- the blues jr being a small combo amp dies not require a second cab for monitoring, making it just a compact as anything else. Moreover the amp sounds a lot nicer to my ear- I expect in part because it’s not trying to be something else- it just is. Not being silly, just honest about what I can hear.
@@richyoung7345 No doubt you can make it work, and 90% of the time, you probably don't need the diversity of a large pedalboard or a range of presets. I will say that it is nice to be able to plug in direct to a PA or mixer. It's a godsend for recording, and it just simplifies everything. However, if you are playing small gigs and just need the sound, the Blues Jr. can deliver. There's no denying it's a great amp at a great price point, and a really convenient size. One complaint I've had is that it doesn't filter dirty power in any way, so you can pick up buzz pretty easy with it. But yeah... And while I do think tubes aren't as unreliable as some people think, it's true that you have a higher chance of a failure in that domain. It doesn't sound like a modeler is for you. You are happy with your sound, and you aren't looking for much beyond that sound. (Which is perfectly fine!) I like a diversity of music, and so when I'm at home, I found my self switching between my Princeton, AC30, DSL30C and my 6505MH. I also have a pedalboard which is way too complicated and too large to take with me. That entire pile of gear has literally collected dust for the past 5 years since I got a Kemper. I get all of that and more in a piece of kit that weighs 10 pounds. /shrug
Glad that you highlighted the issues with the driven sounds. Most other demos have not addressed that but I think most of the stock overdriven sounds are kinda awful. I have to wonder if custom IRS would help
What really needs to be invented is a box that can be put over a real amplifier and cabinet that will totally block all sound escaping it, but will allow a microphone or two to pass through a port for recording or just listening with headphones. That way people can have the ideal amp and speaker combinations that can be recorded without disturbing neighbors or people in other rooms. That would be worth $1700.
I picked one of these up on launch day. Some of the factory presets sound great but I haven’t been able to dial out the harsh frequencies. Using third party IRs helped, but I’m on the verge of returning it. They have a long way to go to catch up with the other units. I had an Axe FX 3 and the Fender is not even in the same league but costs almost as much.
The only thing I see going for this is the build quality and touch screen. Otherwise it is a knock-off helix with inferior tone. I'd return it. Maybe one day, some of these problems will get fixed with the firmware update. I don't want to hold my breath to find out though.
That interface is amazing. The ability to adjust the amp settings by twisting the switches, the colorful touch screen showing the chain, everything. If they can fix that digital sound this would be a winner.
I run mine through a tweed champ and it smooths out everything. Desk top toy…it’s getting me to play more and that’s what gear is all about.
I have it and love it. I don’t have that harsh fuzzy issue. Mine sounds really good
Same here mine sounds fantastic
No issue with me also..it might be simply the mic choice/position....
@@algorithm007ifyIt also might be bias. It seems like he went into this video with his mind already made up.
Live or in studio? I've heard that everything sounds great in the studio, but it just gets really fizzy and tinny live. It has to be seriously EQ'd live (dropping all the high end).
@@davelanciani-dimaensionx I used mine live last night and it sounded great. No harsh sounds
I think Fender should send one of those units with the FRFR Cab to me too. What the heck why not, every kid and his pet monkey globally is getting one. LOL
Their marketing does seem a bit desperate and from what I can tell so far they'll have a hard time justifying the price tag.
yeah i love that "I dont get anything from them" everyone says. No. Just a 1700 Dollar plus Box thingy you can sell afterwards XD. And even then all say "Too expensive"
I just “bought” one, and I am blown away, as I should be with a premium unit! I am at a point where I have to buy the best of these guitar boxes, as I’ve tried and own all the lesser costly ones. I don’t really hear this “digital harshness” he talks about. This thing is a tweakers dream!
The victory has defeated You... Fender destroy himself, they don't put love in their products :/... it's a shame
If you're going to come in late to the game with a copycat that sounds more digital and inferior to what is on the market today, and you damn well better price it accordingly. This product, while it appears to be built solid, otherwise just doesn't match up with the competition. If they came in at the $600 point, holy shit everyone would buy one. To sell at the same premium that Helix and Kemper do? You better be able to match their tone, and this just doesn't.
Hi, With other modelers, you have to tweak the low cut to 80 hz and the hi cut to 8 Khz. That removes that hi noise on the mics or amps/cabs. (now I see you did that later in the video :D)
I saw another review on this unit where they split the chain, chose a bright cab on one side and deep cab on the other. then when the signal comes back together it automatically gives you a little mixer that lets you really balance your sound without having to eq much. I was amazed how much the sound improved. took all the digital harshnss away.
Very true this in the Helix
Ive watched multiple people review this and none of them had this harshness issue. Ill be buying one soon.
Cain't hide money...
I am loving it you will like it
All the other demos I have heard have this issue. It is more pronounced with Rhett’s set up though. Make sure you are listening with good headphones.
Just a hunch but I am thinking this might be designed very much to work with the FRFR cabs. Many of the other demos appear to be using the new FRFR cabs
Go for it I love mine as well .. if its good enough for EVH its good enough for me 🤘
@@msvapehead- EVH… huh?
Same with Helix and Boss.Building a preset from scratch is what it is about.
The UI on here looks great.
I usually lo-cut from 80 to 108 and hi-cut anything from 4.5kHz to 5-8kHz. It is entirely dependent on song.
If you can’t get great tones with this. It’s you. Best by far of the offerings
Thanks for being so honest about the sound because it's nice to hear that a pro like yourself isn't crazy about it , especially because I feel the same way after hearing so many video demos. I've joined the digital realm however, I think that it is quite possible that many of us (me included) have forgotten what a real tube amp sounds like. lol. it's nice to see your selection of amps behind you. I'm in the market for a tube amp that has high headroom . if anyone has any suggestions let me know.- please no Mesa Boogie suggestions. Keep up the great work!!!
Bugera v22 or v55 . Fantastic good sounding amps and cheap too.
You are the first one that mentioned the top end harshness. Yes!!!
it's just cab/mic selection. it's not rocket science..Some amps actually sound harsh with the SM57!
6:00 I saw another review on this unit where they split the chain, chose a bright cab on one side and deep cab on the other. then when the signal comes back together it automatically gives you a little mixer that lets you really balance your sound without having to eq much. I was amazed how much the sound improved. seemed like it took all the digital harshness away.
Is it possible to use 2 Amps?
I listened but wasn’t watching. Did you try lowering the input gain? Are you possibly clipping the input stage slightly? Also could your headphones be giving you a hyped top end that the audience won’t hear through a PA in a busy mix? Last Q: could that sizzle be solved by plugging into the FRFR? Thx
Looks like you installed the v1.1.100 firmware, but you didn't do a factory reset which would have given you the latest factory presets that are all optimized and volume normalized.
Is the high end fizziness better with that update?
With fender I always worry about longevity of support. The upper management at fender doesnt have my confidence to support things, especially software for an extended amount of time.
100% Fender support on their DSP products is deplorable. They roll-out new hardware rather than update existing. Their last floor modeler was abandoned in a year! They have been through four iterations of Mustang amps, abandoned the Fender FUSE software needed for the first two iterations, and they haven't updated the latest GTX version, which they still sell new, in almost 2 years!
@@joelanderson6777 Fender was smart to abandon the earlier efforts. They realized they had to compete with the big guys. When they came out with the Tone Master amps I realized they were on the right track. All that processing power for just one amp sound appealed to me. They took it to the next step with the TMP.
I became an Amp modeler guy 20 years ago and haven't looked back. I'm so impressed with how close these Amp modeling units imitate the real sound of the amps. Many gearheads can't tell the difference in blind sound tests. I have found for myself the best unit for myself for the money...The Line 6 POD HD500X ($400 brand new) but shamefully these units are no longer made because the more expensive Helix units are the rave. For me, I can get the sounds of thousands of dollars of amps and effects for a fraction of the price with Amp modelers plus taking up a fraction of the space needed on stage, transporting and storage. It's a win win for me!!
I've got a dt25 amp. I'm thinking of picking up a used pod hd500x to use with it.
@@billybobhouse9559 great choice! Another benefit I forgot to mention is I believe that Line 6 still has additional amp model package downloads available on their website for really cheap. Maybe some of these used units for sale may already have additional amp models added? The advanced user manual and pilot manual are available online as free PDF files as well!
Frankly the best modeled amp sound I"ve heard , thanks to you Rhett , is the Neural DSP Imperial MK II plugin. So if you don't GIg and have a descent PC or Mac and a good interface , best headphone solution for sure
+1 on this, it’s fantastic
Mynoersonal experience with modellers take time to dial in to your specific needs and ears including your output set up . For the listeners/audience it all sounds just fine.
What I like about modeling is that every day is like entering an amp and pedal store and choosing a different one and spending hours playing, it's fun.
It's like going to Disneyland every day hahaha.
But when things get serious and you have concerts coming up, you have to work on the sounds, shape them and get what you need, and modeling is perfect for that. Modeling is another world, we are used to turning on an amp and having it sound with little effort but modeling is another concept, you can do many more things and it is lighter but it forces you to understand how sound works and not everyone is suitable for it.
I like your thoughts on the whole modelling thing. It's fun because it gives you instant access to dozens or hundreds of amps and effects. It's good to have choices like one day, I want a boogie tone, the next day I want a friedman, or a vox, etc. Flexibility is king for me. And I totally agree that it forces the user to understand how the unit works. It's cool if I can own 50+ amps. What's not cool is bringing them all to a gig with my humble hatchback 😅
The “digital fizz” is called aliasing. All digital saturation fx have aliasing aka foldback distortion. The only way to get rid of it is to hard cut the high end or run the audio at 192khz to push the nyquist frequency out of the audible range which takes a lot more cpu power.
I’ve watched you for years and learned you are a traditionalist. Stomp boxes and tube amps. To me, you came predisposed to not liking it from the outset and that never seemed to wane.
I generally find that on the Kemper, Helix, AX8 and others that the high cut in the speaker or output needs to be down around 6.5 khz to get rid of that fizz. All of the ones you looked at had full 20 khz high cut. That might work well for the new FRFR Fender cabs but I think you may have better results dropping the high cut way down. Most speakers aren't giving you anything above that range anyway.
Agreed. I drop the default Speaker Cab High Cut on my HX Stomp to about 5KHz, which is the Frequency Response of most real Speakers. This fixes a multitude of problems, and makes dialing in simpler, faster, and with better results. 😎
@@picksalot1 It's worth noting that the LPF on the Cab block in Line6 stuff is a different curve to the EQ block. It's much gentler, like a 6dB/Ocv. So 5kHz still lets some of the 8-10k stuff through. It just brings it under control.
@@NedJeffery Yes, I'm aware of that, and it makes EQing the Speaker much more natural. More Line 6 Helix Modeler users should take advantage of this powerful setting when they run into harsh, fizzy highs in their Presets.
I agree that there may be some fizz when Kemper profiles are tweaked, but when I A/B the recording of a real amp with a Kemper profile just made using the same signal-chain there is virtually no audible difference. It works the same whether is is a low or high gain signal. My hope is that the recently released liquid algorithms for modelling the behaviour of front-panel controls may improve things, but I haven't yet tested enough to judge.
Good point on the Hi Cut , the first thing I do with my multi effects units is turn the Hi Cut and Lo Cut off . It greatly improves the tone .
Don’t have time to watch the whole thing, but should be way more aggressive on the EQ to see if anything you do helps. No dainty moves and sitting there shrugging - crank some knobs quickly to extremes, find the harshness quickly. If no extreme moves at any freq bands help, need something else.
My guess is it’s aliasing distortion and you need to put high cuts in before drive is applied.
heres a tip any digital /daw derived preset look at the output level its often plus 7 and more db . set it to 0 and then play with the settings on the amp
Gain staging (in and out) and EQ are critical for modelers. Not sure why he didn't throw a 10 band eq at the end of the chain and fiddle around a bit.
@@56breverhe did. There's a global output EQ he twiddled somewhere.
Well done Rhett ! Finally someone speaks (focus on) about the sounds of this unit rather than "friendly user interface", "processing power", etc (or the most I heard was "sounds good..." ?!!!). Excellent review ! Regarding the price, I find it excessively expensive if you look at it as a most probably arm based micro computer. May be it's due to high quality components inside (as Fender's people said), the market, whatever. Again, chapeau for this one !
To me the crucial thing with amp modelers is the cab. In my experience any kind of harshness/digital sound usually comes from a "bad" cab-sim. A real cab does something to the sound after all the shaping and amplification of the amp/effects that only a cab can do. And digital cabs usually don't have that dialed in out of the box. I use a dedicated cab-sim unit (with IR) and using the lowpass filter there instead of directly in the signal chain for example is a big difference.
But amp sims sounds best if they are played into a real cab and I feel that's how most people use it anyway...
This makes me think of the Boss literature. Boss explains the presets are built based on using a guitar amp speaker. If you use the Boss gear on studio monitors or FR/FR, they recommend high cut at 6k to get guitar amp sounds out of a monitor or FR/FR and kill the annoying highs that a guitar amp speaker doesn’t reproduce well.
Ya, not a good start. They sent this unit to all these people who aren't very good at using it haha. It's coming across like it sounds shetty.
@@bmoneybbypeople have crapped all over the Fractal, Kemper, Line6 and QC as well in different channels. Some "pro" players won't touch modelers unless they're just screwing around, but will absolutely only use analog gear to record. Same old story... can you tell the difference in a mix? And if you can, does it necessarily means one is better than the other?
The facsimile that these are producing is without argument, just incredible.
For anybody over 35, you have a grand appreciation for what these modelers can do having gone through the days of yore when just buying a good amp and cab would break the bank. Now everything is just right there! Amazing tech. Nit picking the first firmware release is kinda lame. I have no doubt that they'll up their game as time goes along. Amp, effects and functionality drops will happen. It seems to me that they're taking this pretty seriously by spitting out so many of these to influencers. Guaranteed they're watching feedback and putting a game plan together. I have faith in them. It just feels like they're going to follow through where some others just appear to be satisfied with their current market positions.
I've heard that type of fizz in every modeler I've tried. That in itself isn't a dealbreaker in most cases. It needs to be dealt with in the cab/IR blocks with mic, placement and LP filtering - like you did with the Deluxe. I haven't had good results with global EQ. I think it lies in the fact that in creating IRs, the "standard" is to use an ultra- clean amp that doesn't necessarily have the high end limited on the amp side in the same way a medium gain guitar amp does. In general, amps (real ones) are designed with a certain speaker in mind to compensate for the resonant/impedance bumps that every speaker will impart on the amp, and also shape the high freq response to work with the natural high roll-off of each speaker. You don't have those interactions taken into account in the modeling world.
A second point is that when played isolated (not in a mix), modelers (before going through a backline or FRFR speaker) put us in a virtual listening position that a lot of players have never experienced before - your ear is now (virtually) positioned an inch from the speaker. Stuff can sound pretty gnarly there even when you put a real 57 on a real speaker. All that said, I'm still not a big fan of this unit, at least at this price. I'll stick with my Helix. I've learned how to deal with the fizzies on it. And yes, I've heard the same high artifacts on every review of this unit - although on the paid reviews, they don't talk about it much.
I go way back with the Modelers and have owned Digi Design 11 box, actually bought it twice as I could not believe how bad it was the first time. They are close to or have arrived in this technology. I owned Helix Rack, Kemper Power rack and just bought the Fender, I think they are getting better and better along with all the different software. Its a beautiful World
At 13:11, I believe you need to activate the outputs on the global eq (bottom right). Your adjustment was not coming through the audio.
You know I bought a boss gt1 about 2 years ago and I use it going straight into a pa. Once I started to accept that it’s not an amp and really worked on developing the sound of the pre-amps in the unit, I really came to appreciate what the unit can do. The gt1 continues to serve me well. I think the secret to these units is to accept them for what they are and to spend time perfecting what they can do.
Bingo!
A $200 strat is $2000, so a $300 modeler is $1700. Sounds about right. You go get'em Fender!!!! Can't wait for the Squier version ;)
I know right! The price on this modeler stuff is getting out of range for a lot of people. They are pushing more and more people to the Neural Amp Modeler which is free and sounds pretty good in a DAW.
I just watched a John Nathan Cordy video comparing the Tone Master to the Helix, and he gets the same sound out of both modelers.
I mean, the guy is a tone master himself (bad pun) but given the price difference, I'm happy to see I could get top level sounds out of a helix..
I just watched this whole thing. One question got asked SO many times and I think you might have missed it each time or were just not responding on purpose but...Did you do a factory reset after the firmware update? So many people people kept saying that fender said the factory reset was imperative!
The harshness, do you think it has anything to do with the fact that you have the Master on the unit @ 100%?
Which controls the overall volume for the outputs. I tend to have mine set to 50-60%. No harshness like you are getting.
It's refreshing to see that not everyone is buying the hype. Need to see a lot more testing first. Btw, don't forget the Kemper among alternatives. It may be old, but it is still getting new features implemented. Fender tend to abandon stuff and I doubt there will be functional upgrades to the TMP arriving more than 10 years from now. Liquid profiling, Kempers take on modelling, was just released and if it works out it may remove some of the option-paralysis wrt the endless choice of profiles available. Maybe a handful good profiles combined with the liquid algorithms finally can provide a decent set of tones for a gigging musician.
This is a different beast.
There is a micro sd card for further update.
I doubt they will drop that.
There is even deal being made with official fender artist for tone etc.
The unit us powerfull enought that we can even see thing like a multitrack update, wich i suspect why there is a miro sd.
So far there us already a nice update.
About time someone has the balls to be honest and upfront. In Anderton's review trashed the Helix with zero attempt to dial it in and proverbially sucked off Fender the whole time lol
Keep in mind this is fenders first firmware version of this unit, as the other top modelers have several updated firmware versions.
Thank you! You are the first reviewer to mention the digital artifacts ai heard right away on every preset
🤣
Aw, I liked the shimmer 🙂 Great video, Rhett, hours of fun and inspiration could be had playing with that gear 👍🎸🔊🎵🎶
I feel the QC suffers that same harsh distortion on top of the distortion. But in other demo / reviews of the tone master pro that ive seen i didnt think it was as big of an issue as it seem to be in your demo? I wonder if the pickups in the guitar are a little hot and if there is a trim / pad / meter on the tone master input to tell if its getting pushed a bit too much? There is in the QC
I had this issue with my eclipse and there is a -6 db pad option that works wonders! (There is no meter to tell you if you are clipping BUT your ears will do a good job of hearing when its not)
What you are hearing is called "aliasing" and is caused by floating point rounding errors in series being compounded. It is hard to EQ out. It 100% can be fixed with a firmware update to fix the mixing with some smoothing before mixing in the next effect. It is like pixelization in an image, which is visual aliasing. Once it is there it just gets worse the more of it that is mixed together. That is why just amp and one effect sounds ok, but the more effects make it worse and worse. More bits in the sampling fixes this as well. Fuzz is basically analogue aliasing on purpose, it makes the implicit aliasing in the system even more pronounced.
Aliasing is not created by rounding errors but by introducing frequencies above nyquist, which is exactly what happens when you model distortion (adding harmonics). The only real solution to this is to use oversampling, which costs a lot of DSP power. Cliff Chase from Fractal Audio wrote much about this. The reason their units have little to no digital sizzle is because they allocate so much of their DSP to the amp blocks oversampling.
Besides, aliasing is a problem strictly relegated to the digital domain. There is no analog counterpart. Fuzz is just jargon for a certain type of analog distortion.
Did you ever play it through the cab? There’s a reason the Tonemaster amps sound good. They’re moving actual air.
Agreed. This sounds fantastic through my FR12. Totally worth the cost in my opinion.
Im so glad you were honest about this unit, as it is. The basic ground work is IN PLACE..the OS, the visibilty of sounds (very WYSIWYG)...but certain things..quite far from ready. I hope Fender gets to work on an upgrade.
From what little I have heard from the Fender Tonemaster video's till now, Amps don't sound distantly different, they just some like it's one sound with different EQ's, whereas on something like the Helix the Amps sound distantly different , Helix also sounds more organic, for me Helix beats this for now.
Sounds very much like youve got dogital clipping in the chainup front - was the guitar inout too hot?
For 400$ less you get a headrush pedal board with a bigger screen, bigger unit, wah pedal, reamp built in ect. As far as sound quality goes it sounds just as good as Kemper, helix ect imo.
Were you overdriving your audio interface? Other online reviews aren't experiencing the same audio distortions you did. Something is different with your setup...
That digital sound you are hearing is Aliasing. Honestly the only way to get around that is to have modellers running at very high sample rates. I've had surprisingly good results using things like Amplitube 5 but running at 192k.
I have Amplitude 5 as well and the Fender licensed amps sound really good.
most people struggle with it because they either cannot get the get the cabinet VIR to work in either favour or they run it at lower sample rates and deal with aliasing. Personally had amazing result using 3rd party IRs and just upping the sample rate
@@69ssrscamaro4
After owning a plethora of these modelers since the DigiTech 21 legend pro rack mount system. Ive owned line 6 Helix floor the Kemper profiler amp several fractal units and this one is by far my favorite as a modeler. If you're somebody with a wall of boutique amps then this is probably not the unit for you. But if you're a gigging musician and you just want something that's easy to adjust on the fly and it sounds pretty damn good this is definitely the unit.
I been LOVING the TMP.
Don't know what's going on, but I've watched every English speaking YT video on the FTMP and hate to say it, but the tones you were getting were the worst by a large margin. Got one of these a few days ago and I'm running it into the amp in on the back of two Boss Katana MKII 100 watt 2/12 and it sounds great. I've got a QC, Helix, HeadRush Prime/Core to compare........Fender did a good job on these and in future updates will only get better. The QC with the boxes with squiggly lines in them or circles or squares. I can't remember which squiggly line was what......a tube screamer or a DS-1 or a Klon.......and the footswitches don't line up with what's going on up on the screen.
I'm waiting for a good non-biased A/B between TMP and Headrush Prime/Core because Prime/Core just does so much more and they are $400 and $700 less expensive respectively! It certainly seems TMP largely copied HR UI. And I have noticed NONE of these reviewers acknowledge that... they act like the TMP UI has never been done before!
I'm a big fan of the HeadRush Prime/Core. Would like to see the FTMP include a routing option similar to HR where you can see your entire effects chain without having to scroll left or right.
Fender is sending it to you at no cost and is sending us the bill... What a world !
yes, and Rhett can't even dial a preset or has a crappy setup with his interface...all others made this thing sound superb.
yes you got it Rhett, x is horizontal, y is vertical 👍
Im halfway through and what I’m taking away is that there’s a quite a bit of EQ and other tweaking required to get a good initial tone. I suggest manufacturers start with a “guitar amp” global EQ default setting and allow the user to adjust to full frequency if desired. At $1700 this should sound great out of the box.
It does sound great out of the box. I adjust pretty much all the parameters for headphones, guitar amp or FRFR. The 4 years of R&D, taking the pioneers from Line 6 Helix and have them work at Fender for the Tone Master Pro cost money, the updates are coming at Xmas.
wonder if there is an issue with the pairing of this device with your interface...You also have to do a factory reset after the firmware update. I am going to listen to the majority of other independent reviewers who say that this modeller sounds great. Leon Todd for instance has made some great presets...
I ran my AxeFx ii through an old analog mixer and it makes a hell lot of difference.
Capture ? "just grab a sound and go" that's the ticket
I like the Fender Tone Master Pro and the HX Stomp. I hooked the Ibanez QX527PB to TMP I forgot all about single coil noise.
Good points and video. The fizz you talk about is present in all these devices. Some are more successful as having a nice top end but you still have to tame them.
As for the highs I think the high cut at 11k is not enough. First of all it is far above the frequency range of the guitar to be able to do anything.
I tend to favor cutting between 5k down to 3.15k depending on how much of that fizz is present. I prefer to do this by assigning a parametric eq after the preamp where I would also tame down the highs. This can be done in the global eq but I like working on each specific amp as there are some nuances that require specific attention.
The global volumen is at 100 % that's why you have that harsh digital sound. Also, maybe the ground of the electrical system is not good and filter that digital noise.
X vs Y axis mnemonic device: the Y axis has a single "tail" that points down as the graph Y axis runs up & down / north & south. The "X" axis has two tails on each side as the X axis runs right to left/ east to west.
I got one of these and I feel like we are the beta testers... Devices like this seem to follow the live service model which some people might really dislike, mixed feelings myself as I appreciate being able to get hands on and see the differences after the first firmware update which was very well implemented. I think it will be interesting to see where Fender is in one year with this product, once they have a few solid firmware updates I feel it will be a much better apples vs. apples comparison to other units such as the QC / HELIX / FM / HEADRUSH etc. but they all do something a little bit different so one you argue that its never a "fair" comparison and perhaps it comes down to the player themselves, like....what can you as a player get from these type of units that you might not get from an actual amp? For me testing this next to the real amps has been interesting, they are very close in terms of just the amps but the default mic choices for the cabinets were picked from a guy / gal who REALLY likes the Sm7 lol....
The digital fizz thing has been there since the start. It was the same discussions in the old Pod 2.0 chats nearly 20 years ago. I remember talking to Neil Diamond’s guitarist, Hadley Hockensmith, and he developed a passive filter box called a “Harmonic Converger” that basically lessened the troubled areas. He needed a modeler as ND demanded a quiet stage. He ended up becoming a Fractal endorsee.
But yeah, it was literally the exact same conversation.
Not sure if I have posted this before (apologies if I have), but the Mission SP1-TMP (co branded and custom paint) unlocks things like volume control, wah and a lot of cool creativity/control. Fender also made it reeeeally easy to set up the expression and the toe switch. Control up to 5 parameters at once and use the toe switch to turn off one or all effects. Be great to see a video covering this :-)
At $175, it better play the guitar for me. That price is ridiculous
With Fender, it might pay to wait a couple years and see if this is a line that they will continue with support and updates....?
I heard the main designer of the Helix jumped ship and designed this unit for Fender. I like the interface and it seems a little more professional (road worthy). It has a normal power cord because the unit has the power supply internal, not some cheap or bulky power adapter like some other units have. Sounds pretty awesome to me. I wish fractal would make a interface like this, But hopefully Fender will support this unit like the other modeling companies do their products. I still prefer my tube amps for the best tone (I own modelers for their convenience). My new Bad Cat amps sound killer.
Thanks for that info, I know this is a bit unrelated, but would you have heard where the designers from Digitech might have went after the company was sold. I’ve had an Rp355 for years, but now I’m looking for something similar in sound quality
I think I had heard at one point a couple of the guys went to work at Line6(Yamaha). Don't take this info as 100% correct. @@HenryMusic255
Just saw the Part with the Vox. It is funny you say that it got a Little better after you adjusted the global EQ. But you haven`t engaged it. You have to select an Output where you apply the Global EQ. Good example for "hearing with your eyes" nothing changed. 😂.
Hey Rhett, great review. But what I would like to see is a blindfold comparison whether you can hear the difference between the real amps and the fender tone master pro.
I'd like to see A/B/C between a TMP Fender amp and the Tonemaster version of same amp and the actual original tube version. I expect TMP will be distant 3rd place.
it was not a great review....Others did way better in terms of going in depth..and got much better sounds.
Yes but run the Sun studios program ( Excelsior amp) into your favorite tube amps and speakers and it's amazing
dude ive been gigging with fender gtx 100. the fender tone app is SSOOOOO easy to use. This one is similar, and it's even better. If you think it's too expensive, dude, i can't recommend going with gtx 50/100 with the app first. It's pretty awesome. This tonemaster pro requires me to get a loan to get it and it better be worth it.
Just in terms of usability and sound quality and fx fildelity and routing, the Helix still takes the cake for me. Been using the same Helix LT since 2019 and have had 0 issues when it comes to dialing in the exact guitar sounds that are in my head. Also, the community support and Line 6 support and updates are truly unmatched!
Community is biggest factor for me personally. It applies to a lot of industries too.
I appreciate your honest opinion on this!!!
I love that digital amps are getting hard to tell apart, but this old simpleton prefers a good tube amp with knobs and a few pedals. I don't want to have to take night classes to figure out how to use my amp. Seems like every 5 to 10 years the digital technology stops having technical support. Looking at you Fender G-DEC...
Thank you for your honesty and your integrity Rhett
As always you make it sound good- better than some of the other testers
Did you update firmware AND reset it?
Try to cut 1.4k. I like this thing a lot. This thing is the solution for the Home studio Amp shelf. I dont know live, but in the studio is perfect for the majority of the earthlings...
27:48 fixes it by dialing in a high cut, says "that's better", immediately exits without saving and it reverts to the 15khz high cut and undoes the fix.
I find that presets are mainly just a starting point and people usually do not find presets "perfect" and need to make adjustments. The great thing is, the Tone Master Pro seems to have all the tools to tweak your way towards the heavily sound you seek. Then it's packaged in such a great form factor and the UI is far better than anything I've seen so far. The best part is Fender clearly isn't done with the firmware either.
With that said, I don't find leveling negativity on a "preset" exactly a fair way to judge a modeller. You can't please everyone with a preset. That's more like judging a book by it's cover rather than the story written on the pages.
I have one of the newer Fender modeling amps and the presets were pretty awful. I was able to play around and in a very short time dial up some excellent sounds that I’m very happy with. I would happily do small gigs with it. It’s light as hell and I don’t have to worry about a power amp tube puking on me in the first set. I’m really considering this Tone Master Pro as well.
Did you do the update? That is supposed to improve the sound
he said "its the latest firmware"
@@Gloomshimmer thanks - must have missed that
9:38 Yeah, he has.
Edit: Sorry. My comments hadn't updated, and I didn’t see it was already answered...
@@fen3184 you are supposed to factory reset after the update though...
The only way to get rid of the harshness you're talking about is high cuts / choosing the right mic, like on any guitar micing situation.
Presets are usually set with no high cuts or pretty faint ones, and we have to remember that a real cab has a certain frequency response, and cabs in modelers or any amp/cab simulating device are set full range initially. You HAVE to tweak them to make them respond like a proper cabinet.
That is, IRs are a MAJOR part of great tone, like in real life.
Compare 2 pretty similar amps blasting sound in the same cab : they'll sound pretty similar.
Change the cab on one of the amp : they'll sound drastically different.
Good IRS, well tweaked EQ can give you amazing results with ANY modeler.
Most of the Modelers have useable Cleansounds, but as soon as the sound is a little distorted, all of these modelers sound unnaturel. There is to much compression in the upper mids you cannot get rid of. I often tryed to use them for recording, but mostly I take an amp and a microfon and the sound I want is immediately there.
Any chance you'd be up for a follow up Quad Cortex video showing some of your presets? I agree the stock ones are a bit meh...but I get option paralysis when dialing in my own
I have to say that I am listening to this through my studio monitors and the sound you talking about is not coming through.
I had a similar issue with distorting . I reinstalled the firmware and didn’t factory reset after. It sounds great now. Sadly I contacted fender support and will have to apologise when they get back to me.
From what I can see the build of it is excellent as is the size of the display to do and see your edits. It think it’s very new and updates will bring it up to speed. It’s funny because I just sold my QC last month because I still use my Kemper Stage far more. QC still not having the desktop editor was also a big reason I sold (and yes I know it's suppose to be out this month) and it’s really good and smart Fender came out with the editor right away with the product. For me unless something really blows away the Kemper (or ToneX as I have that as well) I’m just good where I am. QC was smart to drop the price asap once this was released. QC sounds excellent but Fender has a lot of money to throw at development so it will be interesting to see where it’s at 6 months to a year from now. Appreciate your honest review and look forward to you doing a follow up when you have more time to mess with it. 👍🏻
Fender anticipates firmware updates "every six months." That's not going to cut it! And they haven't updated their Mustang GTX in almost 2 years!
@@joelanderson6777 Yeah (didn't see that) that wouldn't cut it. I feel they need to get things ramped up and make sure all is well and anything that needs to be addressed would need to be asap especially within the first 6 months. I could see when things are good doing small bug fixes or other every 6 months after the fact.
Are headphones, or speakers the better way to fine tune effects? Advice?
you want good studio monitors, and as much volume as you can reasonably get away with
@@dustinthiessen thanks! 😊 🎸
I think Rhett is looking at this only in a preset mode way. I understand presets are important but TRUST me you are going to build your own. And they sound amazing
"The amp itself actually isn't that bad" isn't a real motivator for spending $1700 IMHO.
I'm considering a Tone Master and FR10 cab. I like the layout and relatively intuitive controls and touch screen. I'm old, I need simple to use.
Hard to buy in on the first-generation run with most technology for me.
I appreciate the review and insights.
Thanks, Rhett
I've been saying since the day it was leaked that it's a modeler aimed straight at boomers...
...Voila.
@@judaspriestly88i think you mean Gen X we are the kids from the 80’s Van Halen was in their prime.
@msvapehead - thanks... yeah, I'm GenX.
@@scottkidwell3601 I am too and I love mine .. it makes me focus on playing rather than trying to dial in sounds .. I just wanna jam not program a modeler and this does that. Can’t wait for all the future updates can’t wait to see what they add.
@@msvapehead they certainly need to add something because it doesn't have shit compared to other modelers in the same price bracket (especially in the tone department)
How is the tone compared to the Helix. I used the headrush and within days ordered another Helix. I really love the tonal possibilites and quality of it.
Hello
First of all, thank you for another excellent review.
I am interested in the following. Since I have a Mustang GTX 100 and am a studio producer, is it worth buying Tone Master Pro just for sounds? Does Tone master really have that much better presets and sounds if I record directly in DAW from XLR or USB?
Thank you.
You guys are very fortunate in the USA , the fender unit is 2350 in Australia and the FM9 and QC are 3200-3300 with zero availability
If either of those units were in the same ball park in price here I’d jump on it
In fact the tone master pro is 500 less than a helix floor
I could be wrong, but presets on these things are always supposed to be jump off points. Depending on the guitar you plug into it and what you're hearing it through, any preset is going to sound different. But I think most importantly, in addition to being a jumpoff point, presets are meant to run the range of what the unit is capable of, no matter how weird. For people who aren't sure where to start, it's very helpful.
The factory presets on a lot of modelers suffer from someone (probably in the marketing department past retirement age) demanding more WOW factor for folks trying them out in the store at lower volume
@@PowerPlantSpots That might be true, but it was always that way I think. When I got my first multi effects units in the late 1990s, some of the presets were useable and some were these weird bizarre sounds that you would never use, but served to show the depth of the capabilities in the unit.
Just watched Andertons, they had no such problems... It sounded phenomenal
Yes, it might just be the mic choice/position...
@@algorithm007ify they went by defaults, comparing to helix, kemper...
Andertons is a shop, they must sell.....
I’ve never met a digital modeler that didn’t profit from some hardcore high-cutting. Roll that down mercilessly. Sometimes I can go all the way down to 5 or 6k. That sounds extreme but let your ears lead you. Rolling off those high end gremlins helps a lot!
Next update for Tone Master Pro: Please include a Ducking Delay as on the Boss DD-200. It's my favorite delay. You can do it. Supersonic 22 amp head is great too. Also the '64 Custom Deluxe Reverb. MTG: LA Tube Distortion. '57 Custom Champ. Champ 25SE. Mesa Boogie Triple Crown Head. Roland Blues Cube Hot and Roland Blues Cube Hot British EL84 Modified. Mesa Boogie Fillmore 50. Boss Nextone Special. Try 10 minutes of two track like RC-500 Looper. Boss OC-5. Boss OD-200 Metal preset.
Interesting, but not enough to make me replace my Helix Floor.
I'll get the Helix 2 or whatever the replacement is, eventually. In the future, my current Helix will sound and work the same as it does now (plus any future updates).
The HX ecosystem is another plus; in addition to my Floor, I use Helix Native, and HX-Effects with my tube amps and my Catalyst-100. Everything just works, and sounds great.
You should check with Pete Thorn to see if he knows anything about that harshness problem. I've had similar problems with my Two Notes. I narrowed it down to the cab IRs, and Pete's cab IRs don't seem to have that problem. If anything, upload one of his IRs into the Tone Master Pro and see if that harshness goes away. I have a hunch there's something up with the presence frequencies, like you mentioned -- it seems to be inaudible in a live setting.
For a fraction of the price you can plug into a Blues Junior- with a couple of pedals ( wampler pinnacle and boss delay in my case) and achieve some very good tones without all the faff or digital harshness.
Agreed, but that is not a realistic comparison. I am not an advocate for the tones that I am hearing out of this, but if we expand our comparison to modelers that get it right (Kemper and Helix) then there is no comparison at all. While you can get good tones out of either, the digital options offer a ton of extra value. They are more portable, have a wider flexibility in tone, make recording much easier, make live performances far more reproducible and reliable, and in the long run will save you money over massive pedal boards. It's just kind of silly to compare an analog amp to a good digital solution.
Sorry- but having used the blues jr with 2 pedals ( including a tuner) for many function band gigs I fail to see how a digital solution for a problem I don’t have being better. Also, my rig is way more portable than I think k you realise- the blues jr being a small combo amp dies not require a second cab for monitoring, making it just a compact as anything else. Moreover the amp sounds a lot nicer to my ear- I expect in part because it’s not trying to be something else- it just is. Not being silly, just honest about what I can hear.
@@richyoung7345 No doubt you can make it work, and 90% of the time, you probably don't need the diversity of a large pedalboard or a range of presets.
I will say that it is nice to be able to plug in direct to a PA or mixer. It's a godsend for recording, and it just simplifies everything.
However, if you are playing small gigs and just need the sound, the Blues Jr. can deliver. There's no denying it's a great amp at a great price point, and a really convenient size. One complaint I've had is that it doesn't filter dirty power in any way, so you can pick up buzz pretty easy with it. But yeah... And while I do think tubes aren't as unreliable as some people think, it's true that you have a higher chance of a failure in that domain.
It doesn't sound like a modeler is for you. You are happy with your sound, and you aren't looking for much beyond that sound. (Which is perfectly fine!) I like a diversity of music, and so when I'm at home, I found my self switching between my Princeton, AC30, DSL30C and my 6505MH. I also have a pedalboard which is way too complicated and too large to take with me. That entire pile of gear has literally collected dust for the past 5 years since I got a Kemper. I get all of that and more in a piece of kit that weighs 10 pounds. /shrug
Glad that you highlighted the issues with the driven sounds. Most other demos have not addressed that but I think most of the stock overdriven sounds are kinda awful. I have to wonder if custom IRS would help
On most of the stock presets Fender used the same mic on all the cabs, it is not typical of what most people would use.
What really needs to be invented is a box that can be put over a real amplifier and cabinet that will totally block all sound escaping it, but will allow a microphone or two to pass through a port for recording or just listening with headphones. That way people can have the ideal amp and speaker combinations that can be recorded without disturbing neighbors or people in other rooms. That would be worth $1700.
I picked one of these up on launch day. Some of the factory presets sound great but I haven’t been able to dial out the harsh frequencies. Using third party IRs helped, but I’m on the verge of returning it. They have a long way to go to catch up with the other units. I had an Axe FX 3 and the Fender is not even in the same league but costs almost as much.
The only thing I see going for this is the build quality and touch screen. Otherwise it is a knock-off helix with inferior tone. I'd return it. Maybe one day, some of these problems will get fixed with the firmware update. I don't want to hold my breath to find out though.
@@Dartheomusthe TMP blew the Helix away in another video. Helix is old and in serious need of a refresh.
@@70mcnevin I'm still a Kemper user. It's arguably older yet, but still damned good.
@@70mcnevinwhich vid? The Anderton’s one where they slapped a mono effect on the end of the signal chain and complained it sounded 2 dimensional?