It’s expensive, (just under £1500 at the moment) but you do get a fair amount for the money in terms of useful features like the colour touch screen, multiple colour switch status LEDs, programmable scribble strips, 4/3 programmable external effects loops (two pre A/D loops, and one stereo or two mono fx loops that can be positioned anywhere in the digital signal chain) and two sets of outputs that can be independently set for dual mono or stereo outputs.
Sound-wise, it’s certainly up there with the Helix (the only unit I’ve done a direct comparison with). You wouldn’t want to ditch your Helix for one because they sound very similar, though the Fender does have a couple of slightly more accurate models. It’s certainly more compact than a Helix and the tops of the foot switches rotate and double as knobs, which help make the most of the real estate.
It’s one of those units where the basic operation is very simple to understand using the touch screen. For a deeper understanding, you need to refer to the manual, which for me isn’t that good. There’s a lot where some simple cross referencing would make it so much more informative. E.g. the connections diagram just shows a line from the outputs to a FRFR cab. Nothing about whether to use the left or right output if you have just one cab. A ‘see page 30’ style note would take you to the global settings page and the software switch for 2x mono or 1 x stereo output(s).
There is no info that I can find about how stereo signal paths from FX units run. You only get a basic line linking the amps and FX modules on the screen display (and editing software) and it's not clear how it treats say a stereo effect running into what would normally be a mono effect.
There are a number of set signal paths you can chose from when creating your own presets, so you can have parallel amps and parallel FX paths, but probably not quite as flexible as say the Helix software currently is (though that's had many years of development now), but I am still finding my way around.
As well as the guitar input (which has selectable input impedances to mimic vintage FX units or a studio rack unit being the first in the chain), there is also a mic/line input on a combi jack, with phantom power available. You can have a fully separate parallel signal path for the mic/line input, so you can have say an acoustic guitar going through the instrument input and its own FX chain and a vocal mic through the parallel path with its own set of FX. You can then mix the outputs or send the guitar to one output and the mic to another. Remember that there are two sets of stereo outputs availble, so you can have stereo vocal and stereo guitar outputs if you so wish.
With the USB port connected to a computer, it can also act as a basic audio interface (there's an ASIO driver for windows).
But the USB port can also be used to connect to the editing software package, mimicking the touch screen graphical, but which also allows saving and loading of all the settings/presets on the unit, firmware updates, the loading of individual presets to and from the Fender cloud, and the loading of third party IRs.
The presets are the usual mixture of decent and over-effected patches. I found that a lot sounded very muffled, mainly down to the mic position chosen. Most are to the side of the cone, and a few inches back. At least it encourages you to dive in and try out more central positions and different mics.
For live sounds through a FRFR cab, I suggest switching to the Earthwork’s M32 flat response measurement mic impulses, so you don’t add a more nuanced mic’s frequency response to the basic amp and speaker sound. I’d generally leave the other mic choices for when recording.
There's a wide, if not yet comprehensive, range of effects and a similarly wide range of amp types, though heavily featuring Fender amp types. Standard Tweed and Blackfaces, some of their more modern ranges like the Hot Rods and Bassbreakers, along with sub-brands like the EVH 5150 amps. Some Marshalls (surely more to come), Voxes, Friedmans, the odd Mesa Boogie or Rectifier etc.
As yet no Orange or Hi-Watt or the countless other makes that other modellers now include. But each amp is supposed to take 3 months to model and test (mentioned in Guitarist mag), so they had to draw a line somewhere in order to get the first units out.
It is early days for the unit and so far there have been two firmware updates; V1.1.0 and V1.1.111. There will definitely be more. I've had the touch screen lock up a few times and when a patch is in stomp box mode, the LED rings round the foot switches lose track of an FX on/off status if you use the touch screen to bypass or enable an FX unit, Fender are aware of these particular faults, and are working on them (along with many other issues I'm sure). Some of the factory patches currently come with the light indications reversed.
Note that you can pick from about 7 colours for each the LED ring on (or even off) selection, so you can say pick a colour to indicate an FX type, or try and match the colour of the FX pedal shown on the screen e.g. green for a Tube Screamer, blue for a CE-2 etc.
There's an SD card slot, currently unused, but the Fender service rep I've swapped emails with said that there are plans to use this for saving/loading individual patches, as you won't always be connected to a computer when editing patches and it's important you have a backup. The individual patch Fender cloud upload/download is to a common global storage area, for everyone with a TMP, which seems like someone's bright idea but could very quickly become unmanageable.
It's really supposed to be for creating patches that others can use e.g. "Bohemian Rhapsody Lead Patch", but with no other way to save individual patches, it's going to be used for general storage. At least you can search by user name for your own.
Given the mic input, there are rumours that at some point you'll be able to create your own impulse responses.
There are various ways to arrange your presets, one of them being a song list, which is something that I've been told the Helix lacks. I've yet to try it but it should be useful for gigging.
The TMP was also introduced with two matching Fender FRFR cabs, the FR-10, a 10" unit and the FR-12, unsurprisingly a 12" unit, both with HF tweeters. Web reports said the 12" sounded a bit fuller in the low mids (not surprising really), so after deciding I liked the TMP, I bought a FR-12. It's the size of a Hot Rod Deluxe/Blues Deluxe, whilst the FR-10 is more the size of a Blues Junior. Both have a 300W power amp (1000W peak). Peak SPL for both is given as 130dB, so they go loud. It has treble, mid and bass tone controls, along with a level cut control for the HF tweeter, so you can tweak your overall sound settings, much like a traditional amp, to match the venue's acoustics, without needing to change the global output graphic at all.
It is a bit hissy (I can't hear it with my damaged hearing unless the amp is right up) but a change of op amps (Fender penny pinching on components in conjunction with a reportedly over-complex 12-stage series tone section) should fix that.
Other FRFR cabs are available, but the Fender ones looks like an amp rather than a repurposed PA speaker. The amp/cab-like Laney 1x12" FRFR sounds good, is a bit cheaper, but is a bit quieter and a lot heavier (about 5kg) and with its corner handles, is a lot more awkward to pick up than the top handled FR-12. The Laney has a small tilt-back support that flips down underneath, but the FR-12 has traditional Fender tilt-back legs on the side, allowing a much greater angle of tilt.
Another item in the TMP range is a Mission Engineering Expression pedal with toe switch. Nice and sturdy and has five selectable output tapers, but costs a ridiculous £160. The TMP has two hardware expression pedal inputs, one with an associated toe switch input (to mimic a Wah pedal), and can also accommodate two MIDI expression pedals (The TMP has hardware MIDI in and out sockets).
But the TMP expression pedal setup itself has six selectable tapers, so the hardware ones on the Misison Engineering pedal are really redundant.
Not wanting to pat £160 for an expression pedal (maybe if I was on a World tour) I made my own from a £26 Nektar expression pedal a footswitch and a jack socket. About £30 in total.
Works perfectly.
But I'm sure Fender could make an expression pedal turn an effect off and on simply using position. I know the Helix and Headrush can be made to do this (though it's not standard feature), rather like a Bad Horsie wah. So maybe we'll see that in the future.
It's one of the most expensive modelling pedals out there, so it's not going to be for everyone. It's got a lot of very nice features that make it easy to use, but not everyone wants all those features. Sound-wise, it's certainly up there with the best, but for the price, it needs to be.
Give it a year, with bug fixes and more amp and FX models and features (e.g. there's no auto-wah whilst there's about 10 different chorus models) and it should be an outstanding product. At the moment it's very good, but it could and should be even better.
And given that this is the Tone Master Pro, undoubtedly there will be a Tone Master Junior (or similar) with less connectivity and a lower price.
