Fender Tone Master Pro: Episode IV - A New Hope

metropolis_4 said:
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?
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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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Tritium3H said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Tritium3H said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
ChordInversion said:
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.
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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.
 
mikah912 said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Jarick said:
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.
Click to expand...

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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I was really close to trading in some gear for a Tonemaster Deluxe Reverb over the last couple weeks but one fell through and the other I just punted on. I'm still very intrigued by it.

But hooked up the Fender TMP into the TM FR-12 and it's one hell of a nice sounding rig. Nice thing with this speaker cab is it kind of smooths over the rough edges of the cab block so you spend less time fussing with it. Running mono makes you look at building a rig differently too.
 
Last week when I was cruising GC’s site I saw they had a TMP at one of them and made a note to give it a shot when I got to the store, alas it wasn’t there when I went. I’ve still yet to see one in person, which is kind of strange as I have 3 GC’s within a 20 minute stretch I regularly hit up.
 
Being that this seems like the most used TMP tread, I thought it made the most sense to post my review here. I just finished spending over a month testing the Tone Master Pro next to my Fractal FM3. A month prior to my run with the TMP, I spent a month and a half with the Stadium XL next to my FM3. I thought I would type up my general impressions of the TMP compared to the FM3 and Stadium XL. Hopefully others will find this information helpful and Fender can use some of it to improve the TMP.

Pros:
  1. Synth: TMP has 3 polyphonic guitar synths and they sound and work very well with both single notes and chords. Tracking accuracy and speed is pretty impressive. Not sure how they compare to a dedicated guitar synth from Roland/Boss, but compared to Fractal, Helix, QC, etc. TMP is in a class of its own. IMO this is the TMP stand out feature early 2026. Hopefully Fender can add more classic presets to help users get started and better understand what can be done.
  2. UI: Overall I like the UI on the TMP. Sometimes it requires more steps than ideal and sometimes touches aren't registered on the first try, but overall very nice. The use of poo switches is dramatically better than on QC simply because of the scribble strips. I never grabbed the wrong knob by accident, plus they are really smooth and accurate. I find it strange they didn't use the same switches in place of the two big knobs adding two more foot switches and options.
  3. UI, iOS and computer apps all look the same. If you know how to use one, you can use them all. I found this to be a major positive.
  4. Bluetooth iOS apps
  5. Audio Interface is good enough to use and monitor plugins on your computer. Latency is very low, almost as good as my dedicated Thunderbolt audio interface. Much better than FM3 or Helix Stadium in my experience.
  6. Fuzzes: some of the fuzzes sound and feel pretty good compared to FM3 that doesn't have a variable impedance input.
  7. Signal to noise ratio seems very good and on par with Fractal and Stadium and better than the QC.
  8. Analog loops work well for adding drive/fuzz pedals.

Cons:
  1. Amp Tones and Feel: Amp tones and feel are very good overall, but sometimes not up to Fractal or Stadium Agoura quality in my opinion. Playing dynamics and guitar volume knob adjustments are behind Fractal and the new Helix Stadium amps in my experience. I actually found it surprising after reading all the praise of their Fender models in particular that they didn't clean up nearly as well with the guitar volume knob. If they did clean up the volume dropped a lot and they got thin and less pleasing to the ear.
  2. Drive/amp interaction: While the drives have a nice UI with most knobs and switches modeled similar to Helix, I did not find the resulting tones as good as my FM3 (fuzzes excluded). I found drives on the FM3 to be more dynamic, warmer, rounder and just a joy to play. TMP drives feel stiffer, strident, and less dynamic.
  3. Speaker Impedance Curves (SIC) with IR: Something is not right about SIC implementation with 3rd party IR. Changing SIC dramatically changes the sound, often in a bad way, compared to doing the same thing in Fractal device. I ended up only using the built in cabs because of this issue.
  4. CPU/DSP can run short pretty quickly when trying to use dual amps or cabs and some other CPU hungry effects. My understanding is half the CPU is reserved for seamless preset changes. I REALLY wish Fender would make seamless preset changes optional so I could use all the CPU for more complex kitchen sink presets. I find splitting complex presets into multiple presets to be clunky and hard to keep in sync compared to using scenes.
  5. Lack of Block Channels: Fractal style gappless channels are incredibly useful and allow limited CPU resources to go a lot further.
  6. Looper: The looper is actually pretty nice except it doesn't offer quantization, metronome, a threshold option to start recording and some other usability improvements found in other loopers. A few updates would move the looper into a pro.
  7. Effects: Some of the effects are really good, but overall I feel that Fractal, and lesser so Stadium, have better quality and options. But overall, what the TMP offers will be good enough for most users.
  8. No Profiling: I think they should add a NAM player block and librarian to quickly fill in some of the amp gaps and give users more options.
  9. No Scene Toggle Footswitch Option: Add scene toggle function similar to Fractals so users can for example toggle between scene 1 and 2 with a single footswitch. Stack the scene labels on the scribble strip with one being in white, the other black with colors reversing to show which is currently in use. Similar to how some scribble strips are currently used in the looper.
  10. No push and hold secondary footswitch functions
  11. Expand the push two buttons at once functions to include more than just the DAW tools most won't use.
  12. Lack of SPIDF.
  13. Routing: Not being able to drag and drop items to split the path seems very unintuitive and clunky.
  14. Volume balancing: It's a mess as is. Please add a volume balancing icon that pops up a window with meters with a suggested target, important volume controls, controls for saving, switching scenes, presets, etc.
  15. Compressors are very basic and poor overall.
  16. I really wished many of the effects, especially delays, had some more advanced controls or an advanced page. I really missed having a ratio option, ducking and some other controls.
Overall, there was a lot I liked about the TMP. But there were enough shortcomings that I still preferred using my FM3 even though its UI is not as intuitive or as much fun to use. Hopefully Fender will continue to rapidly improve the TMP, as it seems like there is a fair amount of untapped potential in the unit that could keep it more competitive.
 
AZG said:
Being that this seems like the most used TMP tread, I thought it made the most sense to post my review here. I just finished spending over a month testing the Tone Master Pro next to my Fractal FM3. A month prior to my run with the TMP, I spent a month and a half with the Stadium XL next to my FM3. I thought I would type up my general impressions of the TMP compared to the FM3 and Stadium XL. Hopefully others will find this information helpful and Fender can use some of it to improve the TMP.

Pros:
  1. Synth: TMP has 3 polyphonic guitar synths and they sound and work very well with both single notes and chords. Tracking accuracy and speed is pretty impressive. Not sure how they compare to a dedicated guitar synth from Roland/Boss, but compared to Fractal, Helix, QC, etc. TMP is in a class of its own. IMO this is the TMP stand out feature early 2026. Hopefully Fender can add more classic presets to help users get started and better understand what can be done.
  2. UI: Overall I like the UI on the TMP. Sometimes it requires more steps than ideal and sometimes touches aren't registered on the first try, but overall very nice. The use of poo switches is dramatically better than on QC simply because of the scribble strips. I never grabbed the wrong knob by accident, plus they are really smooth and accurate. I find it strange they didn't use the same switches in place of the two big knobs adding two more foot switches and options.
  3. UI, iOS and computer apps all look the same. If you know how to use one, you can use them all. I found this to be a major positive.
  4. Bluetooth iOS apps
  5. Audio Interface is good enough to use and monitor plugins on your computer. Latency is very low, almost as good as my dedicated Thunderbolt audio interface. Much better than FM3 or Helix Stadium in my experience.
  6. Fuzzes: some of the fuzzes sound and feel pretty good compared to FM3 that doesn't have a variable impedance input.
  7. Signal to noise ratio seems very good and on par with Fractal and Stadium and better than the QC.
  8. Analog loops work well for adding drive/fuzz pedals.

Cons:
  1. Amp Tones and Feel: Amp tones and feel are very good overall, but sometimes not up to Fractal or Stadium Agoura quality in my opinion. Playing dynamics and guitar volume knob adjustments are behind Fractal and the new Helix Stadium amps in my experience. I actually found it surprising after reading all the praise of their Fender models in particular that they didn't clean up nearly as well with the guitar volume knob. If they did clean up the volume dropped a lot and they got thin and less pleasing to the ear.
  2. Drive/amp interaction: While the drives have a nice UI with most knobs and switches modeled similar to Helix, I did not find the resulting tones as good as my FM3 (fuzzes excluded). I found drives on the FM3 to be more dynamic, warmer, rounder and just a joy to play. TMP drives feel stiffer, strident, and less dynamic.
  3. Speaker Impedance Curves (SIC) with IR: Something is not right about SIC implementation with 3rd party IR. Changing SIC dramatically changes the sound, often in a bad way, compared to doing the same thing in Fractal device. I ended up only using the built in cabs because of this issue.
  4. CPU/DSP can run short pretty quickly when trying to use dual amps or cabs and some other CPU hungry effects. My understanding is half the CPU is reserved for seamless preset changes. I REALLY wish Fender would make seamless preset changes optional so I could use all the CPU for more complex kitchen sink presets. I find splitting complex presets into multiple presets to be clunky and hard to keep in sync compared to using scenes.
  5. Lack of Block Channels: Fractal style gappless channels are incredibly useful and allow limited CPU resources to go a lot further.
  6. Looper: The looper is actually pretty nice except it doesn't offer quantization, metronome, a threshold option to start recording and some other usability improvements found in other loopers. A few updates would move the looper into a pro.
  7. Effects: Some of the effects are really good, but overall I feel that Fractal, and lesser so Stadium, have better quality and options. But overall, what the TMP offers will be good enough for most users.
  8. No Profiling: I think they should add a NAM player block and librarian to quickly fill in some of the amp gaps and give users more options.
  9. No Scene Toggle Footswitch Option: Add scene toggle function similar to Fractals so users can for example toggle between scene 1 and 2 with a single footswitch. Stack the scene labels on the scribble strip with one being in white, the other black with colors reversing to show which is currently in use. Similar to how some scribble strips are currently used in the looper.
  10. No push and hold secondary footswitch functions
  11. Expand the push two buttons at once functions to include more than just the DAW tools most won't use.
  12. Lack of SPIDF.
  13. Routing: Not being able to drag and drop items to split the path seems very unintuitive and clunky.
  14. Volume balancing: It's a mess as is. Please add a volume balancing icon that pops up a window with meters with a suggested target, important volume controls, controls for saving, switching scenes, presets, etc.
  15. Compressors are very basic and poor overall.
  16. I really wished many of the effects, especially delays, had some more advanced controls or an advanced page. I really missed having a ratio option, ducking and some other controls.
Overall, there was a lot I liked about the TMP. But there were enough shortcomings that I still preferred using my FM3 even though its UI is not as intuitive or as much fun to use. Hopefully Fender will continue to rapidly improve the TMP, as it seems like there is a fair amount of untapped potential in the unit that could keep it more competitive.
Click to expand...
I had mine for about a year and a half before selling it recently. I don't agree with every point made, and I'd call this a very balanced, informative review. It's not the right modeler for me, but it's right for many others, and has some standout capabilities as well as some noteworthy places in which it doesn't quite measure up to the top units just yet.
 
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