Fender FM-212R

solid state 100watts in the tank, plenty of volume paired with some real nice heavy fender speakers

this amp is pretty much 'no frills' in technology, -clean/drive/more drive channels do exactly what they say.

'mid contour' button to give you modern/traditional overdrive sounds

reverb is your only effect on this one, but pretty much ineffective if you're looking for the 'surf' sound.

i like this amp for its straightforward approach though(less things to go wrong!) i play this one with a Boss multi-effects pedal, which is a better option in my opinion, because in-built effects on amps are typically limited

clean channel- as far as solid state amps go, this is a beauty. it has warmth close to what you'd expect of its tube cousins and it's really clear. EQ is effective. i'm currently playing my american telecaster into this with distortion pedal and you can hear it loud and proud!

drive channel- you'll get from 'quiet blues' to 'metal' range on the overdrive. not my personal taste of 'drive' sound but nonetheless a good all rounder.

more drive channel-strictly speaking not a channel, what this does is give you a couple more bars of gain for your lead parts. beefs up the single notes nicely on solos, pretty sweet feature

mid contour button-pressed in drops your mid range sound to give you modern overdrive, sounds good

clean channel sounds alot better than drive channel. its definatly the strength here. i've recorded with this amp and the results were good. but this is what you would use at gigs, in a pub you shouldn't need to mic it, at middle to larger venues it would be

I have owned this amp for 5 years now, i practice twice a week and gig once a week in a grunge band. it's taken knocks, coffee spills, offroad car journeys, plugged in 'full blast' by accident and even had a guitars thrown at it!

It has NEVER cut out, lost power, faded in sound quality, had replacement parts or been visably damaged.

if you have this amp you will certainly not need a back up.

if a nuclear war broke out i would hide inside this amp

never had to ring them but there website is fancy?

i love this amp because is does the simple things very well, it sounds great especially running distortion and effects through 'clean'
i was able to afford this amp as a beginner for ??230 but you still get all of the fender build quality. i've started running it together with a vox ac30(??1299!) -many artists are pairing up tube and solid state amps nowadays because they BOTH have strengths. this amp is now part of MY professional rig.

I bought this item new as a back-up to my Laney VC30 212 valve amp which is my gigging amp. I use a Digitech GNX4 multi-effects unit so I only need to use the clean channel of the FM212R. I felt I needed to test the amp thoroughly and I was quite impressed with the sound of the drive and the more drive channels. The footswitch worked well, I couldn't discern any benefit from using the effects loop. For a solid state amp I was impressed with the volume. It doesn't have a line out or headphone output so I can't use it for in line recording which is a shame.

I play all sorts of styles but my band is a 50s rock & roll outfit and I use an Ibanez AFS-75 TRD Artcore guitar with low powered humbuckers and a Classic Players 60s Strat - the MIM model with the custom shop bits and '69 pickups. The cleans are nice, not chimey like a valve amp but nice nonetheless. The drive channel can be balanced with the clean channel to imitate the break-up point of a valve amp but obviously you can't get all those harmonic niceties that you expereince on a Class A valve amp. It is very loud and I'm used to loud. It can be tamed for home use but in a band situation I noticed that the higher volumes improved the tone as the speakers gradually began to open up. By the end of the first band rehearsal I was quite impressed. A word of caution though, the reverb unit supplied with the amp was crap. There was barely any reverb coming through even in the 7 - 10 range. I took another reviewers advice and contacted Tube Amp Doctor who advised me to upgrade to a Z-8DB2C1B Accutronics Reverb Can, it's fitted to various Marshall and Roland amps and is compatible with the FM212R - fitting is easy there is no electronics involved. This mod has elevated the quality of sound enormously.

I usually play with either a clean or a warm sound in this band with various effects added according to what is required for each song. I can achieve both tones easily with the amp alone, but the modded reverb is the icing on the cake. Before the mod I would rate it a 7 but afterwards I rate it a 9. I often get compliments on the authenticity of the 50s sounds when I use my valve amp. I am so impressed with the FM212R that I will use the valve amp as a back-up at tomorrow night's gig and see if anyone actually notices the difference in sound.

I play heavier stuff for a bit of light relief and again these sounds can be achieved well with this amp.

I bought the amp as a back-up because it is solid-state and because someone cut the power to my valve amp and blew all the fuses - it's happened a couple of times before and I decided that just had to have a spare amp around at gigs in the future. I thoroughly checked out the options and chose the FM212R as the 'go to' back-up.

Only time will tell me if I'm right or not.

I've been buying Fender gear since I was a teenager which was frighteningly a long way back in another century and I haven't had to contact Fender about a problem yet. Their website support is a mine of information though.

I've been playing for 36 years, you do learn about gear in that time. I only buy what I think is quality. I have a Gibson Les Paul, Fender US Custom 62 Re-issue Tele, Fender Classic Players 60s Strat, Ibanez Artcore, Laney VC30 212 amp, Digitech GNX4 (+ supermodels upgrade), various Keeley pedals and Carl Martin pedals.

If this amp was lost or I would buy another and do the reverb mod all over again. I really like the vintage blackface look of the amp and I think combined with modelling effects I use it will fool a lot of people into thinking that it's a Twin Reverb. It's excellent value for money. It's not a valve amp and it won't sound exactly like one, but I reckon it's a close second and you get a hell of a lot of amp for very little spend. If you spent nearly five times as much money you could get a nice top of the line Fender valve amp that will be better - but I've been around the block a few times and IMHO five times as much money does not buy you an amp that is five time better. The FM212R is a great little amp.

Amp was made in 2002 I think but I got it second hand. Very versatile for what it is. I think with enough time you can equate the two channels (there's a button on the footswitch for "gain" and "more gain" to help you along) and the reverb is kinda nice. I never bother with the mid-boost thing because I don't think its necessary and it makes hardly any difference when its turned on. Use it for practice and gigs and its plenty loud enough (I've never taken it above 6/10).

Distortion is a bit poor but comes out quite clear. I normally play this on clean through a distortion pedal (MXR+ or something) and it cuts through the mix way better than the channel on its own. Distortion channel buzzes a lot. Oh yeah, and the channels are LOUD as hell.

This thing is super reliable, I throw it into the back of my car and leave it out over night, pick it up in the morning, wipe most of the dew off and carry on. I gig quite a lot so it takes a lot of abuse and seems to stand up to it very well. I never use a backup. One time it did smell like burning plastic for a bit but it might have been because it was standing on top of a radiator. I moved it off and it was fine. Anyway, top marks for reliability.

Never had a problem with it so I've never contacted them.

For the price I paid (??130, about $150 at the time), this thing is ridiculously good. My friend uses a Fender Super Reverb 2x12 from the late 80s and a Super Tremolo and they've done nothing but break down while this thing carries on. Its heavy which is kind of a pain but it looks good and sounds great. If it was stolen I couldn't afford to replace it with anything else. In a perfect world I'd have a Fender Deluxe 2x12 but until then, I'm happy to stick with this. I've played myriad guitars through it (Fender Jaguar, Fender '50s Telecaster, Fender MIA Stratocaster, Gibson Les Paul Special II, Telecaster '72 Thinline Gibson Melody Maker II, Danelectro U2 and the Telecaster Custom Deluxe I play now) and they all sound great through it, the distortion channel really beefs up the single coils which is handy. I'd happily recommend this amp, Solid states in this price range are nowhere near as good.

My FM-212r was made in 2008.

I mainly play pop-punk and metal so the amp is good for this, although the "more drive" has alot of buzz. the clean channel isnt really used alot with me but seems to be ok.

With the 2 inputs the amp still sounds ok but any guitar with single coil pickups(eg. telecaster) would be drowned out by a guitar with humbuckers (eg.Les Paul) which for a solo over power chords just doesnt work...

I use this amp nearly every day on a low volume (which is hard to do as the volume knob is VERY sensitive and either blows the windows out or your stuck with your ear against the cone)

I use an Epiphone Les Paul jr. with a Gibson Dirty Fingers pickup and a Fender Mustang with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rail at the bridge. With the stock pickups in both guitars the amp still sounded good.

The amp has next to no variety with the tone that it produces, if youre looking for a cheap amp then buy this, and put an effects pedal through the clean channel, this will work a whole lot better for choosing just the right tone for you.

I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS AMP TO ANYONE!!!
but maybe thats just my bad experience.

This amplifier has broken on me twice in just over a year, both times doing the exact same thing. First comes the loud crackling noise then comes the smoke, then comes the burning smell and the lack of any sort of sound from your guitar. All there is is a low frequency hum. And this did not happen due to loud volume.

The first time this happened, it was fixed under warranty and came back good as new.

When my amp broke, i emailed fender and they were super helpful (I bought the guitar off ebay and they gave me the address of an authorized dealer near me to take it to for pick up)
The amp was fixed under warranty and got back to me in about 2 weeks.

I have been playing guitar or about 8 years (im 20)
In my house there are 8 electric guitars and 2 acoustic guitars.
The amp is ok, not too heavy, but some wheels would help alot with transport.

The only reason i bought this amp was because i wanted a reputable name and cheap price, this is TOTALLY not worth it, given any choice now, i would have rather paid a little more and gotten a 100w Marshall.

Kudos to Fender for the price and you really do get what you pay for, which is something not great...

GET A MARSHALL INSTEAD ITS WORTH THE EXTRA HUNDRED ODD QUID!!!

The amp was made in 2008, bought it straight out of the box from a Guitar Center.

This amp is quite versatile for quite a few genres. I play mainly blues, classic rock and indie rock, and for this the amp provides a very good base: the clean channel. The first channel is very powerful, has good tone and will hold up to a lot of gain coming from a set of pedals. In order to get a good overdriven sound out of the amp, you need a pedal, what kind of pedal doesn't matter. Regardless of how hard you push this channel, the speakers and tone stay nice and stable. The clean channel is also very good for reggae, country and hard rock, depending on what you send the signal through first.

The drive channel is a different story. The tone between the two channels is a massive change. No matter what settings you use for tone, it is impossible to get the two channels to get close to each other. The second channel has a blanket-like quality to it. That aside, this channel is excellent for tones that take out all the mids, such as modern hard rock and metal. The second channel also comes with a "mid contour" switch that is available on the footswitch as well. This further removes more mids from the tone, and boosts the highs and lows slightly. Very powerful, but the character of the sound between the channels is too great.

The amp features a spring reverb tank, as well as a preamp out, power amp in set of jacks. These are useful for powering another amp. Note: They are not cab outs, and must be plugged into the input of another amp for it to work. That being said, they do the job nicely. The spring reverb is quite nice as well, it has the sound you'd expect from a real reverb tank.

I use this amp for practice and performance both in my own music and with a jazz band. It holds well in any situation, although regulating the volume can be a little bit of a hassle sometimes.

Overall, this amp offers quite a few features. Some aren't exactly necessary or quality, but it has a lot of value within it.

The quality of the sound from this amp is excellent, though only on the clean channel. I play a custom-built stratocaster with Lace Chrome Dome pickups through a Dunlop Crybaby Wah > Boss BD-2 > Fender Starcaster Chorus > Boss LM-2 > BBE Sonic Stomp. It sounds great from the clean tones, to the heavily overdriven sounds from the Blues Driver to the funky tones of the wah pedal.

The amp only gets noisy when hum is added through bad cables or effects pedals. Aside from that, it's noiseless.

The clean channel does not break up. At all. I've played it at 10 just to break in the speakers and the clean tone shines right through. Naturally, with a distortion pedal it's unbearable at that volume, as is an undistorted sound. But the sound you throw at it is the sound it projects.

This amp is solid. As seen in other reviews, the construction is solid. It is moderately heavy at 43 pounds, but nowhere near unbearable. I would definitely use this at a gig without a backup. This amp holds together. No issues at all.

Have not dealt with customer support.

I've been playing for about two years, and I own a Line 6 Spyder 15 watt practice amp. I had used a Fender 165 Watt Vibroverb amp for a time, and this compares to it in sheer volume and clean tones.

If it were stolen, I would get another one the same day.

I love the fact that the clean channel allows you to create whatever tone you want from it. On the flip side, I don't like the fact that switching between the channels is impossible.

I chose this amp for it's power and it's versatility. Other solid state combo amps do not compare to this at its price.

If anything, I would want a wattage limiter switch in the amp like on the new Fender Twin models, to allow for easier to dial quiet volumes.

You already know tis amp's feautres, so I will not mention it.
I would say it has no more and no less of what I would expect to get from a combo amp.
Maybe that's because I'm old school.
I bought this amp on eBay for cheap, and it worked fine though it had a no-name replacement speaker.
I bought it just to experiment a stereo set up along with mu 65 TRRI.
Now I don't use it much since I found a '70s SuperTwin (yes, the 180W monster!!!).

Adequate clean channel, nothing to compare with a tube amp, and not even up to my SS Princeton Chorus, but I can live with it.
The Lead channel is pure crap.
But I have never found a lead channel of my liking, not even on more expensive tube amps (Marshall, Mesa etc.)
Once again, I'm old-school, from the days when you had one only channel you had to crank all the way up to get distortion.
Boosters and Overdrive pedals came only much later.

The amp worked fine till the day I tested it in my studio at stage volume.
It sounded much better than usual for about one minute and a half, then it died.
The repair guy told me he had to re-solder about EVERYTHING, as it was VERY crappily assembled (you get what you pay for).
Now the amp works fine, and seems rather reliable.
I might use it as back-up for the Twin.

Never dealt with Fender.

I've been playing since 1966, and I own (or have owned) about every piece of guitar equipement.
My current rig is: 1981 (modified) Les Paul Custom, 1974 SG Custom, 1990 Gibson Lucille, 1996 (modified) E.C. Strat, 200 Custom Shop 60 Strat, Reissue 52 Tele, a few more assembled strats, Gibson J200, Guild Electro-Acoustic, Alvarez 12 String, and a bunch of Banjos, mandolin & Sitars. 1994 '65 Twin Reverb RI, 1979 SuperTwin, '70s London City (Marshall Clone) Head with 1960Ax cabinet (plus a few more cheap ones).
If stolen or lost I wouldn't replace it, as I own way too much equipement, and I don't tour anymore (..but...you never know!!!!)

I like this amp WITH THE MODS. I would reccomend to replace the reverb tank as well.
I see somebody has dropped a couple of Vintage 30s, but that's going too far...
It would be too expensive for this kid.....

My amp is a fender frontman 212r and was made in 2007. It's a 100 watt power house. Real spring reverb, overdrive and a 2 channel foot switch.

I have a fender MIM HSS strat, a squier jagmaster with 2 duncan designed humbuckers, and a squier standard tele. All three guitars sound great through this amp. The clean channel is awesome. The overdrive is good for playing blues. Great for playing clean, rock or blues. Not the best for metal. Over all great sounding amp and very LOUD!

I throw this amp in the back of my truck every Friday for Friday night jams. I'm not a gigging musician, but I've been playing about 5 years and this thing is very durable.

Never had to deal with customer support. I've never had a problem

I've been playing for 5 years or more. I own a fender strat, 2 squiers, an alverez acoustic electric, a fender acoustic electric, a martin J-15 acoustic jumbo, a vox valvetronix ad15vt couple of boss pedals ibanez tube screamer, crybaby wah and thats all I can think of off the top of my head. I've owned many other amps, crate,marshall,vox and this amp is a quality amp for around $300. This amp has a great clean sound a good spring reverb and a fairly good overdrive channel. This amp is very loud and it is also a nice looking amp. If it was lost or stolen I would probably buy another, I'd like to upgrade to a tube amp though.

hi
my fender is build in 2005.
its realy a monster thing, its variable for all my styles im playing.
punk/blues/rock/metal it doesn't matter it can do it all.
it has 2channels, clean,drive and extra drive and spring reverb and mine came with an original fender switchpedal.
im using it with rehearses and gigs, and it does the job really good:D and power? omfg its not normal hehe above 5? no way ;)
im realy loving it :) and for the price im not complaining

im using different guitars with this amp.
my Dean ml,aria pro2 (les paul),fender jagstang and a fender mim.
and it fits to all my styles.
it doesnt fuzz at all, sometimes some feedback, but i like that :P
the clean can get a little brutal at high but why pushing it that far?
5 is realy enough, believe me!
the distortion is good for ac/dc,status quo and so on, when using the extra drive it can do some metallica,iron maiden, and others, but for the heavier ****, bui yourself a pedal(30 a 80bucks)and you can do it all

i'm using it for gigs and rehearsing but i always bring my marshall 8080 with me as backupamp(its always good to bring a backup with you,
its electric and can be busted! just like televisions;)
the amp hasnt broke down yet, i have it just a few days

i don't have it for so long,but a friend has fenders formore than 20 years and never had anycomplaints with the fender fabricators
the amp came with a warranty for 5 years, it was 1year old when i got it, so 4 years to go :D

im playing since i was 5, im 25 now so do the counting :P
im owning all kinds of amps/guitars/effects, from the cheapest to the expensive stuff.
if it would be stolen, i would buy it again(just because i love the sound, and other fender amps are to expensive for the quality you are getting,this thing does it all that other fender amps have.
people, if you can buy this amp just buy it and get surprised, or go to a musicstore and try one, when the price and sounds are right, dont complain later because someone said something bad about it!

Ok, here's the reason it gets a '10' in features. To me, a clean and tansparent tone is hard to fine these days for amps in this price range. It has vintage sounding spring reverb(no, it is NOT digital, this is a VERY good thing.) It has an effect loop and jack for foot switch. It also comes with a 2-button footswitch for two-channel operation, and a "Drive/More Drive" button that allows you to boost the drive channel. This amplifier has a LOT of treble. I like treble. I'm not one of these old guys who turns the treble down because he's still hungover from the last gig. I like my tone to be clear and bright. So it's nice to have an amp that gives you plenty of treble without even having to turn the control up very much. The mids are nice and so is the bass. You can dial in just about any kind of tone that suits you with this amp. To me, that is versatility. A bunch of fancy amp models, effects, and other bells & whistles just limit you, IMHO. Overall, the tone on this seems pretty balanced. It only amplifies your guitar and effects pedals or stompboxes as you would expect. Everything sounds clean.

It's not very noisey unless you've got too much plugged electricity coming out of one circuit. Otherwise, its pretty quiet. As I stated in features, this amp is pretty clear and transparent. I disagree with a lot of these old die hards who say it's 'gotta be tubes or it's crap.' Solid state has come a long way since the 1960's. When I tried this thing out I sat it next to a Fender '65 Twin Reverb. I switched back and forth between the two amps and couldn't notice too much difference. The '65 Twin had more warmth (naturally), and not as much treble. But after playing with the controls on both amps for awhile, I got the clean channels to sound pretty much the same with very subtle differences. The sales clerk was amazed and took a note of the settings so he could use it for demonstation purposes. I was amazed myself. If I had the money of course I would've bought the '65 Twin Reverb. But I'm working musician and I needed more volume. I'm a diehard Vox fan and I'm used to mic'ing up my 30 watters with other bands. The band I'm currently working for doesn't mic up anything. I needed a lot of bang for the buck. I needed something with high output, and a very transparent tone. This thing doesn't sound like a Vox, it sounds like a typical Fender amp. But thats ok, I'll probably never use it in the studio, but for live work it'll get the job done. The clean channel does seem to break up nicely around 8 or 9, but as of yet I haven't needed to crank it up that high. This amplifier is LOUD. So far I haven't needed to push it past 5 for the clubs I've played. Anything louder than that and you'll really need a pair of earplugs.

It's never broken down but I've only had it for a short time. I think the idea of playing a show without having a backup is a bad idea. I'll still drag my Vox's to the shows in case this thing died, but I don't think it will. Some advice from a seasoned musician to all of you who are aspiring: ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP. At some point in your career *something* will go wrong. Always have extra picks, plenty of cables, a backup guitar and a backup amp. I even carry a double of my favorite overdrive pedal just in case it dies on me. The worst time to be unprepared is in a live situation when you have 100 or more people looking at you and wondering what's going on....

Haven't dealt with them yet. With Fender's track record I don't think I'll have to. Unless I bought a real lemon.

A genuine Fender amplifier rated 100-watts for only $300? Yeah! Its a fantastic value. The sound qaulity really is not bad, its what you'd expect from Fender. If you're a working musician on a budget and need volume, don't buy crap. Crate? Ick! Kustom....I've been there and done that....Valvetronix??? Oh god....
But this little amp. You won't regret it. Don't listen those guys that own like $5000 in just one guitar and amp alone. Most of those guys brag about thier equipment but they can't play anything but 12-bar blues either. Just because it isn't a tube amp doesn't mean it's worthless. I like this thing...

Basic features, no built in effects beyond reverb (this is a good thing in my book, I'm not a fan of amps with too much circuitry). The tone knobs on this are VERY responsive, to the point of allowing configurations that are too bassy or too trebly. That taken in mind, it makes for a very flexible amp, you just have to know how to reign it in. If you are in the habit of just dialing everything to 10 and rolling with that, you may not like the sound of the amp.

3 guitars -- 1.) = MIM strat with seymour duncan humbucker in the neck position 2.) = PRS SE guitar with stock humbuckers, 3.) Ibanez talman electro-acoustic. I play a mix of blues, alternative, classic rock some metal and some punk. Very flexible sounds. As some have said, this amp does have the tendency to be trebly when you just crank the knobs to 10. If you spend a little time dialing in your tone, you can get a good tone relatively fast. Distortion is decent, not super brutal but this isn't a mesa so you will need to get a pedal of some sort for more extreme musical styles. I some times play my digitech GNX3 through this and it doesn't seem to color the sounds too badly. I like how the amp attempts to replicate tube amps responsiveness to touch. With the right settings on the distortion, it can do a good job of allowing you to get a clean sound when picked or plucked lightly or more distorted when you hit the guitar heavier.

Haven't had the amp long so no opinion. A buddy of mine bought one and needed work done on the reverb which I've heard is a common problem on these. I don't use reverb all that much so haven't seen any problems yet.

Haven't needed to contact Fender.

I've had a chance to play these a bit before buying one. I'm pretty happy with it. To get better sound I'd have to pay more but for the price I think this is a great unit.