Major Update of the Fender Tone Master Pro Preamp/Multi-Effect
Fender's Tone Master Pro modeling guitar processor, which Fender has somewhat surprisingly, but certainly confidently, presented in the digital territory previously dominated by Line 6, Mooer, Fractal Audio, Boss and Neural DSP, has received a major update, both to the floor model with eight DSP cores and to software accessories including the Desktop Pro Control app. So what's new in the latest firmware (v1.3.74) from the Californian manufacturer so far?
There's now a mobile Fender Pro Control App for phones and tablets running on iOS or Android platforms (min. iOS 13.1 / Android 8 arm64-v8a) with wireless Tone Master Pro control, up to 25 backups can be stored on a Micro SD card and the Block Settings section allows personalised settings for amp, stomp box or effects blocks to be saved and recalled from the Add/Replace menus, with up to five custom block settings for each model saved. The EXP Live mode retrieves the current position of the expression pedal, which can be useful, for example, for the global volume of the Volume Pedal block assigned to each preset.
A function has been added to the Virtual Cabinet unit to select the appropriate speaker impedance curve that best matches the third-party IR sample, an External Cabinet item has been added to the list of separate stomp boxes, and last but not least, the level control of the displayed parameters (scribble strips, faders) has been upgraded, which can be set using the encoder footswitches.
The update also includes, of course, the expansion of the range of virtual instruments, stomp boxes and effects with the following models: Amps/Combos – '62 Princeton, '65 Deluxe Reverb Blonde NBC (No Bright Cap), Solo 100 Overdrive, Tangerine RV53. Cabinets – 1x10 '62 Princeton C10R, 1x12 '62 Princeton CS, 4x12 Solo G12, 4x12 Freeman Greenback, 4x12 Bassbreaker V30, 4x12 Tangerine V30, 4x12 British V30, 4x12 British G65. Effects – Super Drive, Rocket Man, Big Apple Fuzz, Little Rock Phaser, Analog Delay, EchoTank, Reverse Nebula Reverb, Filtron, Enigma Filter.
The update also includes the following improvements: Songs now allow custom labels for each footswitch, information on scribble strips has a larger and clearer font, IR pulse levels are now displayed in decibels instead of percentages, and the volume pedal now supports both mono and stereo signals. The issue with the level of FX loops 3 and 4 has been fixed, the scrolling for presets with more models than fit on the display has been changed, the volume drop of some effects listed after the Amp section has been corrected, all amps, stomp boxes and effects are phase coherent throughout the processor signal path, Celestial Reverb will no longer oscillate spontaneously when Pitch 1 or Pitch 2 is set to 0.00, the sonic difference between mono and stereo Space Delay reverb modes has been eliminated, etc.
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