Fender Tone Master Pro: Episode IV - A New Hope

[SwirlyMaple]

Fender is more than capable of producing great products. Perhaps the TMP will evolve into one. I truly hope so.

I think it’ll get there. Right now it’s running the new-product-gauntlet that the others have already been through. That’s the time where anything that got swept under the development rug pops back up and says SURPRISE!

The thing that we’ll have to wait and see on is how quickly they can bring it up to parity with the Helix, FM9, and Quad Cortex. It can hang right now because it’s the new thing and people are curious, but the curiosity sales will taper off over the coming months, and then it will have to stand on its own merits.

 

[SwirlyMaple]

A little OT, but what the heck are SIC's? I'm pretty sure it's not the Standard Industrial Classification that I just googled...

Speaker impedance curves. It’s a bit of a sore spot for the TMP right now for a couple of reasons.

 

[MadMaxG79]

Speaker impedance curves. It’s a bit of a sore spot for the TMP right now for a couple of reasons.

Ah, I see. Thanks for getting me up to date

 

[Sedaxel]

I think it´ll be a great unit. In its current state, it isn´t.

I think it, even despite of the fanboys who actually are not helping at all being so pleasant with the device and so aggresive to the ones that point out the issues. At least, they have calmed down a little, since Leon shootout evidences and the aliasing thing vid. There was little they can say after all those pieces of truth appeared.

Development and improvment need detecting issues, talking about them, asking for fixes, etc. Fender must know what to fix, what to improve, what to let alone because it´s already great, etc. Critic users are the most valuable ones for Fender currently. And hopefully, the TMP will become a strong competitor. I wish it.

 

[fazer]

Speaker impedance curves. It’s a bit of a sore spot for the TMP right now for a couple of reasons.

I saw a post from one of the Fender staff members suggesting that they were looking a adding SIC’s to the IR block. I asked whether adding the fix there rather than to the amp block would mean using the TMP with 3rd party IR’s run in a DAW would never work correctly but received no answer.

 

[fretworn]

they were looking a adding SIC’s to the IR block

 

[yek]

I'm going to ask nicely that y'all cut out the cross-forum tribal crap in this thread. It's not good for you and it's not good for this place.

+1

 

[Frodebro]

I saw a post from one of the Fender staff members suggesting that they were looking a adding SIC’s to the IR block. I asked whether adding the fix there rather than to the amp block would mean using the TMP with 3rd party IR’s run in a DAW would never work correctly but received no answer.

They’re still dodging that question, which is a bit odd. Either they don’t want to dig into it deep enough to put it where it belongs, or else there is something hardware/resource related that makes it not possible to do.

 

[fazer]

They’re still dodging that question, which is a bit odd. Either they don’t want to dig into it deep enough to put it where it belongs, or else there is something hardware/resource related that makes it not possible to do.

I guess it may just mean I need to alter the way I use the TMP in conjunction with a DAW to get the best result.

 

[Frodebro]

I guess it may just mean I need to alter the way I use the TMP in conjunction with a DAW to get the best result.

I do hope they fix it, because I haven't written one off completely yet.

 

[fazer]

I do hope they fix it, because I haven't written one off completely yet.

Luckily there is already a lot to like about TMP (lucky for me - I own one) but there are odd issues the user base is finding along with the more major SIC issue. TMP is a new product and Fender seems committed to fixing the bugs but I’m not sure the SIC fix will turn out to be to everybody’s satisfaction.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I asked whether adding the fix there rather than to the amp block would mean using the TMP with 3rd party IR’s run in a DAW would never work correctly but received no answer.

I really hope this gets dealt with in a decent way, it’s how I use my FM-3 and Helix because it’s so much easier to organise my IR libraries on my computer and run any of my modellers (or real amps) into the same IR chain.

My own IR’s are about 20,000 files, and then I have other stuff I’ve paid for or libraries from friends too. No way I’m I dragging those into another ecosystem and controlling on a seperate unit.

and the same also works for the amp block, it just makes so much sense for the impedance behaviours to be associated with the amp.

But yeah, I’m not sure what else there is to add besides waiting to see how Fender update this. Hopefully they get it right

 

[fazer]

I really hope this gets dealt with in a decent way, it’s how I use my FM-3 and Helix because it’s so much easier to organise my IR libraries on my computer and run any of my modellers (or real amps) into the same IR chain.

My own IR’s are about 20,000 files, and then I have other stuff I’ve paid for or libraries from friends too. No way I’m I dragging those into another ecosystem and controlling on a seperate unit.

and the same also works for the amp block, it just makes so much sense for the impedance behaviours to be associated with the amp.

But yeah, I’m not sure what else there is to add besides waiting to see how Fender update this. Hopefully they get it right

I tend to use IR’s in my DAW as well which is why I asked the question. If the fix is not added to the amp block I can see anyone running more youtube ‘tests’ will be likely to continue finding the same differences that exist now.

 

[SwirlyMaple]

I really hope this gets dealt with in a decent way, it’s how I use my FM-3 and Helix because it’s so much easier to organise my IR libraries on my computer and run any of my modellers (or real amps) into the same IR chain.

My own IR’s are about 20,000 files, and then I have other stuff I’ve paid for or libraries from friends too. No way I’m I dragging those into another ecosystem and controlling on a seperate unit.

and the same also works for the amp block, it just makes so much sense for the impedance behaviours to be associated with the amp.

But yeah, I’m not sure what else there is to add besides waiting to see how Fender update this. Hopefully they get it right

Yep. They also still haven’t clarified where the SIC modeling happens for the stock cabs, but the lack of any answer (except “that’s not how it works”) suggests to me that all of them do work the same as the IR implementation (a linear SIC curve, basically stacking a SIC IR on top of a cab IR). (And of course, Cliff says so too, who I’m quite inclined to trust. He knows a thing or two about making accurate models.)

It’s just not a great way of doing things for many reasons. Even if they let you pick SICs, applying them after the amp is never going to be as accurate as the Line 6, Fractal, and Neural competition.

 

[JiveTurkey]

A new nope

 

[timbuck3]

Yep. They also still haven’t clarified where the SIC modeling happens for the stock cabs, but the lack of any answer (except “that’s not how it works”) suggests to me that all of them do work the same as the IR implementation (a linear SIC curve, basically stacking a SIC IR on top of a cab IR). (And of course, Cliff says so too, who I’m quite inclined to trust. He knows a thing or two about making accurate models.)

It’s just not a great way of doing things for many reasons. Even if they let you pick SICs, applying them after the amp is never going to be as accurate as the Line 6, Fractal, and Neural competition.

fender is out of their league...Its obvious. Another zoom mentality move thinking they can jump in at 1700.00 and hang with the topdogs..sad

 

[MirrorProfiles]

applying them after the amp is never going to be as accurate as the Line 6, Fractal, and Neural competition.

You’d think it’s telling that all the other companies (plugins as well as HW) are handling it so the IR’s are free of power amp colouration. The same is true for Kemper and NAM and ToneX etc, it’s just become a defacto expectation for what sound comes from the amp, and what the cab is expected to do.

Changing it up means customers have to be aware that it’ll work differently and require a different approach for most use cases. Not ideal, but at least they’ll likely make sure to communicate it now that there has been some discussion.

 

[SwirlyMaple]

fender is out of their league...Its obvious. Another zoom mentality move thinking they can jump in at 1700.00 and hang with the topdogs..sad

I think they’ll get there eventually. It’s still very early days for the TMP, and not too late for some of the rough edges at launch to get cleaned up. Updating the power amp models to handle SICs internally could very well be part of that.

But would it happen if not for all of our groveling and Cliff shining a spotlight on it? Maybe not. All of us complainers keeping the frying pan at a low simmer help the problem areas get improved. The best companies are the ones who incorporate that feedback (just look at how well Line 6 has done this!), and I think Fender deserves a chance to show us what they’re made of here.

 

[jellodog]

fender is out of their league...Its obvious.

 

[DrewJD82]

I think they’ll get there eventually. It’s still very early days for the TMP, and not too late for some of the rough edges at launch to get cleaned up. Updating the power amp models to handle SICs internally could very well be part of that.

But would it happen if not for all of our groveling and Cliff shining a spotlight on it? Maybe not. All of us complainers keeping the frying pan at a low simmer help the problem areas get improved. The best companies are the ones who incorporate that feedback (just look at how well Line 6 has done this!), and I think Fender deserves a chance to show us what they’re made of here.

Yeah, I'm not quite feeling the hate for Fender as much as others with this. I don't expect every modeler to work the same way, some companies are just going to do their own thing and/or change it up as they move along. While I haven't seen one in person yet, by all accounts there was some effort in building a pretty robust unit and that doesn't appear to be something they'd invest time into if they thought it could possibly be abandoned in a short amount of time. Not like they can reuse the touchscreens on Strats or Twins.

There's a few things I give them props for that are a pretty big difference when it comes to another 'recently' launched modeler-

Fender didn't hype the shit out of this for over a year before shipping it.
I don't believe it's advertising anything it can't do?
Their reps have been in communication daily with customers and the general forum members. Certainly times when they haven't had to.
It doesn't appear customers are needing to 'just plug some shit into it' to make it stop making noise, provide effects that weren't included or switch the fucking footswitches because WTF.

Bonus points for rolling out a cab solution at the same time that seems many people are digging outside of just TMP users.

Overall, it doesn't matter to me if they make it as accurate as a Fractal or Line 6 unit, as long as they're catering to their larger customer base's requests and concerns, sell a reliable unit, it's all good in the hood.