Fender Tone Master Pro hopes to capture the ears of guitarists everywhere

Guitarists tend to have a very binary reaction to all things digital. There are infinite ways of treating the signal generated by this most analogue of electric instruments, but you can roughly divide the community between those who favour the perceived authenticity and warmth of traditional valves, speaker cones, cabinets and transistor circuitry, and those who are happy to use digital means of emulating the lot.

Fender’s new Tone Master Pro caters to the latter, with a nod to the former via a form factor and style that reflects the company’s eight decades of experience building guitars, amplifiers and effects. Designed to pair with the Tone Master amplifier series, this is a floor-based pedalboard that contains sophisticated emulation, effectively a whole studio’s worth of gear in a single box. 

The electric guitar is at one of its periodic crossroads, a point where the paths diverge and several futures present themselves. A couple of years ago, the industry was in fine form, buoyed by idle fingers seeking inspiration during the pandemic and the bottomless pockets of nostalgia-driven boomers. The fickle tides of musical taste have also swung back around to give all forms of six-stringed expression a fresh start, from anthemic to virtuosic. 

Fender Tone Master Pro: the ‘ultimate guitar processor’

Together with Gibson, the two brands account for over 60 per cent of all guitars sold in the USA. However, despite investing big on everything from innovation (the Acoustasonic series and a Stratocaster collaboration with Louis Vuitton), a huge range of merchandise and its first-ever standalone store, the Fender Flagship Tokyo, there is now a post-pandemic lull to contend with. The Tone Master Pro is designed to take Fender back to the head of the field. 

Guitar modelling is big business. In a relatively crowded field of established players – most notably Line 6’s Helix series, as well as similar boards from Kemper, Boss, Headrush FX, Fractal Audio, Neural DSP and Zoom, as well as many emerging Chinese brands – the Tone Master Pro needs to stand out. 

Like its rivals, the device models the sound of different amplifiers and effects, allowing for endless customisation through the 7in touchscreen or via the dedicated app. Describing it as the ‘ultimate guitar processor in terms of tone, dynamics, power, and user-friendliness’, Fender is pitching this new product at everyone from bedroom players (it sounds great through headphones) to studios and live performers. 

Right out of the box the quality is apparent. A chunky rectangular unit, built for being stomped on again and again and again, the Pro has ten footswitches, two dials and that touchscreen, with a wide array of rear inputs and outputs. The footswitches also double up as dials to adjust the many tweakable parameters for each of the 100-plus amplifier and effect models and each has its own LED ‘scribble strip’ to convey the function and parameter. 

Chains of effects can be built up using the screen, with a simple skeuomorphic interface that replicates the array of available devices. The presets range from warm and full to shrill and buzzy, but with the ability to tweak every single parameter, it shouldn’t be too hard to dial in something that sounds good to you.  

This is a noble first effort in a market that favours loyalty and likes to keep hold of proprietary data; you can build a great-sounding virtual board with ease, but it cannot be shared with similar devices from other manufacturers. What is in a common format, however, are the ‘impulse responses’, or IRs, shipped with the device. These are audio files that provide an accurate map of how an amp, effect and space will alter a signal, offering infinite ways to replicate different sounds. 

If this is all a bit technical, then rest assured that the Tone Master Pro is very user-friendly, with a huge collection of pre-set sounds built in for those who don’t want to delve too deep into the system. It’s more compact than many of its rivals, although it’s at top end of the price range, and Fender promises regular software updates that’ll expand the scope of the device. 

Like any quest for something that is endlessly subjective, the hunt for ‘tone’ (the sound of an amplified guitar) can become an obsession, one that can happily consume musicians of every ability. The Tone Master Pro caters to these hunters, while also completing the company’s contemporary guitar eco-system, albeit at a price. Fender is no doubt hoping that its loyal fans now have another reason to add to their collection. 

Fender Tone Master Pro, £1,649, tested with a Fender Tone Master FR-12 amplifier, £519, Fender.com