FENDER TONE MASTER PRO
Fender’s big entry into the digital modelling floorboard arena offers stunning amp and effects models and double the processing power of its nearest rivals
It’s been about four years since Fender sprang a surprise on us with the introduction of the all-digital Tone Master amplifier range, which leveraged high-powered digital processing, Class D power and lightweight speakers to recreate some of its best-loved 1960s black-panel amplifiers. These had no menus, no presets and no effects other than the reverb and tremolo the original amps came with.
With dwindling and increasingly variable valve supply putting pressure on volume manufacturers, the Tone Master amps make a lot of sense, delivering authentic classic tones with the consistency, reliability and portability that valves struggle to compete with. They also set many of us wondering what kind of product might result if the Tone Master’s prodigious digital capability was unleashed. Now we have the answer with Fender’s latest surprise –the Tone Master Pro, a stunning broadside into the professional modelling floorboard market.
The Tone Master Pro is a good-looking and substantial piece of kit, with a solid alloy top surrounding a seven-inch full ‐colour touchscreen display, with two large knobs either side. Behind the screen lurk no less than eight cores of processing power, double that of the Tone Master amps and the immediate competition. The knob on the left is the Navigation control, which turns to browse presets and can be pushed to switch between Normal and Gig views – the latter being a high-visibility display of the current preset. The knob on the right is a global master volume, which can be pushed to display the Tone Master Pro’s output mixer.
Below the screen are 10 footswitches, which also double as rotary encoders. Each switch has a dynamic illuminated ‘scribble strip’ above it as well as a colour coded illuminated surround, which provides at-a-glance info for which preset or effect is active. The two switches on the far left govern bank up/down changes, while the two on the far right operate tap tempo/tuner and the footswitch mode, toggling between effect and foo
