Fender Tone Master Pro: Episode IV - A New Hope

To be honest, I haven’t been following Stadium so I’m not sure. I guess I assumed since Helix does it probably does as well?

In one of the demo videos from WT there was a pretty noticeable gap. That may have been due to a pre release firmware though. But they were even laughing and calling it out.
 
Perhaps some Fractal power user can correct me, if I am wrong, but I believe there are caveats/constraints in the Fractal AX3/FM9/FM3 ecosystem, if you “enable” gapless preset switching.

In other words, I believe there is some trade-offs, in which a full-blown “everything and the kitchen sink” grid/preset requires some forethought and planning if you want to achieve a gapless preset switch, while still maintaining delay and reverb spillover.
 
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Perhaps some Fractal power user can correct me, if I am wrong, but I believe there are caveats/constraints in the Fractal AX3/FM9/FM3 ecosystem, if you “enable” gapless preset switching.

In other words, I believe there is some trade-offs, in which a full-blown “everything and the kitchen sink” grid/preset requires some forethought and planning if you want to achieve a gapless preset switch, while still maintaining delay and reverb spillover.

I don’t honestly remember what the trade off is, if anything. Maybe a slight CPU hit, but I haven’t noticed any significant performance change.
 
Perhaps some Fractal power user can correct me, if I am wrong, but I believe there are caveats/constraints in the Fractal AX3/FM9/FM3 ecosystem, if you “enable” gapless preset switching.

In other words, I believe there is some trade-offs, in which a full-blown “everything and the kitchen sink” grid/preset requires some forethought and planning if you want to achieve a gapless preset switch, while still maintaining delay and reverb spillover.

It eats about 2% of CPU and you’ll have the best results if your delay and reverb types match in the two presets.
 
I'm finally doing it - throwing my TMP on Craigslist and Reverb in the next few days and parting ways with it. My FM9T may follow, with the plan to be to go to an AM4 and a Stadium. I might even sell my GT-1000CORE, as I have X-Crunch in the IR-2.
 
I'm finally doing it - throwing my TMP on Craigslist and Reverb in the next few days and parting ways with it. My FM9T may follow, with the plan to be to go to an AM4 and a Stadium. I might even sell my GT-1000CORE, as I have X-Crunch in the IR-2.

Good for you, man.

I know you'd been tossing back and forth, and waited through a couple of firmware updates to give Fender a chance to answer your concerns.

Great part of this gear thing is that nothing is forever if you don't want it to be. Maybe you circle back around in a few years when you find it has plenty of vintage Fenders and even lower resale value to get you a great deal.

I still think it's a pretty good piece of gear, but they have their work cut out if they wanna remain competitive at that price point.
 
I went test driving a used Deluxe Tone Master again today. Thinking about trading in my Orange Rocker 15 + 1x12 for it as I never use those. Probably wouldn't use the Deluxe TM either though but it's more practical. Super light weight, no noise or hum, sounds good at low volumes, just a real nice basic amp.

Also played a few other tube amps including a Super Sonic 22 and proper tube Deluxe Reverb. Both sounded nice but had tons of additional noise and hum. Not to mention the volume wasn't anywhere close to practical for home use.
 
Good for you, man.

I know you'd been tossing back and forth, and waited through a couple of firmware updates to give Fender a chance to answer your concerns.

Great part of this gear thing is that nothing is forever if you don't want it to be. Maybe you circle back around in a few years when you find it has plenty of vintage Fenders and even lower resale value to get you a great deal.

I still think it's a pretty good piece of gear, but they have their work cut out if they wanna remain competitive at that price point.
I also think it's pretty good. Great for some players. It's just not for me. I have different priorities from what Fender has shown so far, and I don't have any trouble learning a piece of gear.
 
I went test driving a used Deluxe Tone Master again today. Thinking about trading in my Orange Rocker 15 + 1x12 for it as I never use those. Probably wouldn't use the Deluxe TM either though but it's more practical. Super light weight, no noise or hum, sounds good at low volumes, just a real nice basic amp.

Also played a few other tube amps including a Super Sonic 22 and proper tube Deluxe Reverb. Both sounded nice but had tons of additional noise and hum. Not to mention the volume wasn't anywhere close to practical for home use.

My TMP actually led me down the path back to amps. I started realizing I always just used the Princeton TMP model for everything and I started to think it would make more sense to just have a Princeton TM amp and real pedals.

That way I could use the actual pedals I want (that sound better than the models) and I would have the option of using it like an amp instead of only having the direct option.

Which led to me thinking if I’m gonna go with an amp I might as well go with the kind of amps I like best, which happen to be tube (Vox, Matchless, Bad Cat, Dr Z, /13)
 
I’m watching the Umphreys McGee livestream, Jake has been using the tone master pro for a bit, initially I believe he was just going direct but visually it appears that he also has dual hot rod deluxes on stage? No mic on either so presumably just for stage volume

Seems like an odd shift for all the crazy boutique stuff he used to use. Historically he always used G&L guitars and was about to have an sig before they went under. I’m wondering if he signed some deal with fender because he’s been rocking a dope tele lately as well… entire signal chain all fender



edit: I think it’s actually a pair of the fender FRFRs
 
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