A Tone Master Question I Haven't Seen Answered

Hey, I'm young and a dad.. I can backsquat 320 pounds, and front squat 300, my deadlift is at 360.. not heavy for a professional olympic lifter, but thats heavy for ordinary people... But lugging a twin to gigs still a task that needs preparation and mental battle.. getting it out the trunk (boot - for my UK friends) and putting it back..

This is providing a solution to that weight problem.. but the tones are worth it... I mean, have you ever played a gig before and lugging a Twin, or any other heavy amp combo? Try it for a few years..

With that said, Im excited with the twin version..

 

We were talking about the "perceived value" not cost.

No one said anything about the amp being the "Motherlode of Golden tone." Where on Earth did that come from????

"They" who? But, just to play along, here's a retailer you can go complain to:

"The Tone Master has power scaling from 22 watts all the way down to .2 watts, "

gearmusic.com Fender Tone Master Deluxe Reverb

 

This nails the reason the TM amps cost more than a Mustang or Champion or the entry amps. Those have basically less expensive MDF and not flash speakers. Adequate to the job but not 'special'.

Fender woke up to the would-be enthusiast. Who like the aesthetic and mystique of a real Twin but don't want the weight, perceived maintenance issues and tube costs. But it's otherwise entirely interchangeable. Practically, visually and logistically -place your normal pedals in front. No-one will know the difference except your back and wallet.

I don't doubt the TM does a very creditable job of mimicking it's namesake. If you added lots of gimmicks it wouldn't add an iota to anything but your bottom line costs - you couldn't charge more for it.

 

Sure there is... but there is also a glowing bottle sub-forum for those that want to discuss tubes. Isn't the AMP forum open to discuss ALL amps?

 

Hi.

Personally, I’m wondering how long until this kind of technology gets small enough to be stuck in the guitar itself? Effects too. Then all you’d need is the clean power amp & full range full frequency (or whatever it’s called) speaker(s).

Sounds silly, even to me when I thought of it. But then I got to thinking, probably will happen eventually.

After all, we already have the precedent in that old Japanese guitar I forget the name of, that had modular effects you could plug into it.

Pax/
Dean

 

Electra MPC

 

Ah. Subjective rather than objective.

I'll tell you exactly where that came from... or who. Aspen Pittman. Pittman promoted "power amp overdrive" and claimed the way to get there was to crank your amp. Well... many tube amps come to life above a certain volume, literally "The Motherlode of Golden Tone". Combine that with the perennial trend of musicians buying larger amps than they need, we have the makings of an Urban Legend. Say a backline of stacks mostly for show with perhaps one of them throttled back with an attenuator and mic-ed into the mains. That's how it's done, people.

From an engineering standpoint it's dumb. Inefficient. We're spending more than we need on amps that are larger than we need. We're expending more power than we need to expend on amps that are larger than we need. Then we convert useful power into useless heat.

An attenuator on a Class D power amp is (udders) on a bull. It makes no sense on analog solid state amps and even less sense on digital.

"They" would be TDPRI member @foundjoe, obviously. Oh, wait. That's you.

Thank you for reminding me I have better things to do than to participate in discussions on internet forums. I'm working on amps right after breakfast.

When I'm not here to answer questions within my area of expertise... that's why.

 

ohh DAD!

 

I think @JD0x0 nailed it.

Reminds me of late '60s Silvertone amps. They had a tiny little solid state amplifier and a tiny little speaker in a relatively large box. The part musicians see is the big box. Looks impressive, lacks substance.

Sometihing similar would be metalheads who haul faux backlines of empty cabinets from show to show.

I would be far more impressed if Fender made a "Tonemaster Twin" in a package the size of the old Crate Powerblock. It doesn't need to be any larger.

A Deluxe Reverb never had a midrange control. So the Tonemaster "Deluxe Reverb" doesn't have a midrange control.

Load it with models of Fender's entire 1960s product line, bring the price down to where it should be... I probably still wouldn't buy one. Everyone else would.

 

Your shop must be just littered with dead horses.

 

Hi.

Yeah, that one. One of the overdrive or distortion modules launched a thousand boutique pedals I believe.

Pax/
Dean

 

I'm so glad that I just read this thread if for nothing else, to add the term, "Dad Amps," into the lexicon. Lmao.

 

Have you tried a Tonemaster DR or TR yet?

If not, lots of words on a product you know nothing about.

I get it. Many are threatened by new. Maybe you ears aren't good enough that you trust what you hear coming out of the box. Maybe your hands aren't good enough that you trust the feel.

Why the axe to grind? Wouldn't it be a great thing if they cracked the code? Created an amp that does't rely on transformers and tubes, but gets the sound and the feel.

As an aside, I put a mid knob on a DR once. 5 was where the stock value sat (roughly). Guess where it always sat, even if I closed my eyes to set it.

Funnier still, how many threads are there about modding vintage amps, swapping speakers, rolling tubes? To get ‘me to sound right.

 

There is a recent thread...very short one...somewhere around here in which a member is wondering about repairing his Super Champ X2. In that thread he is informed that Fender no longer supports that amp...if they ever did. His amp now a piece of junk...or...a cheaply built speaker box. let’s be realistic and understand that our world has been moving toward a throwaway society for quite some time.

As for who will use these TM Fenders??? That would be a wide variety of people, I am sure. I have a friend who has been a working pro musician for some decades now. He recently bought one of these TM Twins. I have not heard it yet...but he was taking his Champ II to his gig Friday. He will use it when it fits the situation for him..... oh, and he is not a Dad despite his age.

 

I remember when our TV and radio had tubes. Almost no one misses them. Tube amps will persist but inevitably their adherents will diminish over time. I don’t like our throw away society and hope they build these new TM amps in a modular way so individual modules can easily be replaced rather than tossing the whole thing. Seems like this approach could reduce losses associated with warranty service, too.

 

I use a tube TV, because I'm too cool to use a, "Dad TV."

 

Did you presume there's only one absolute way to determine pricing structure??????? Really??

Maybe you'll find this helpful:

Marketing Essentials - Perceived Value

What is "Perceived Value" -- Business Dictionary

And here's a reference, in context, from Ritchie "the amp guy" Fliegler, who has worked for both Marshall and Fender.

What does any of that have to do with what I posted??

And we'll just ignore the example where I showed how the amp is marketed with the same terminology. Guess what -- the term "power scaling" is used by lots of other people besides myself -- perhaps "they" need your input [pun intended]?

Is Power Scaling the best way to go for home to gig in a single amp?

A good Fender Amp with Power Scaling?

Even in the UK ...

I'm pretty sure you could have read the title of the thread, refrained from commenting and saved both of us some time.

 

as long as the manufacturer supports the product by making such modules available the. That modular replacement approach works. That Super .champ X2 owner I mentioned was looking for such a module, iirc. Unobtanium. I worked on a red knob Twin which was 9 years old at that time......sometime in the ‘90’s. fender did not support that tube amp with easily sourced PCB potentiometers. After a long search for the part to fit thenPCB, I had to tear down a brand new push/pull pot to get the push/pull mechanism with which to rebuild that old potentiometer.
Without manufacturer support, these solid state/digital amps will be throw away trash at some point. My nearly 40 year old Super .champs are still going string while someone’s relatively new SCX2 is of no use as an amplifier.

 

I think Fender will be safe on that front. From my understanding, they basically took all the processing power that they stick in those amps and dedicated it to one great reproduction vs a bunch of okay ones. They'll be fine to handwave it away with "we can't put enough processing power in an amp right now to do both" or "the cost would basically be as much/more as buying both amps separately because the modelling hardware/software of both will have to be independent for XYZ tech reasons".

Plus, I don't think they're intended for the same audience. All of the multi-modellers tend to be viewed as either practice amps, an economic "master of none" amp, or good bedroom amps kind of like a Katana. The whole draw of the TM is that they are light and easy to carry to gigs and don't rely on touchy tubes. None of that really matters much if you aren't gigging with it, really. And they certainly aren't being spun as the cheap alternative to a real Deluxe or Twin.

 

The throwaway society debate is one I go back and forth on a lot. To me it seems that it's more to do with the sheer number of options and access to tons of manufacturers at various price points for every single product you can think of. Consumers are overwhelmed with choice, uninformed, and impatient. There are brands that make stuff well and brands that don't. People are also prone to user error. A quick survey of the Amazon review section for any given product will reveal how many people have no idea how to operate and maintain the things they buy. At the same time, the markets are constantly flooded with cheaply made poorly designed products, and planned obsolescence is a real thing.

The thing I don't understand, and this isn't specifically directed at you Wally, is why people feel the need to constantly spend their time hopping on a thread to disparage something that they haven't even tried when there are first-hand accounts by many people who own these products who say that they really do work as advertised.

We get it, the way they are made doesn't compare to the way things were made 70 years ago. Still, reviews coming in from real working musicians that use these amps and they say they work well. Not everything made back in the day was the pinnacle of form and function just like not everything that is made today is disposable junk. As with any new electronic product we won't really know the real quality of these amps for some time as more and more get out into the wild and are put through their paces by gigging musicians, but I'll say they are off to a pretty good start so far.