Fender Tone Master

don't know what year the amp was made. I wanted a Fender head with the flexability of clean and over drive. on this score it has what I need

i play a variety of guitars-- gretsch 6120, Strat ocaster, SG special.
I have found this amp to accomodate the different guitarsand the differnet styles i play. I've read a lot of bad reviews about the tone of this amp. I think the problem stems from guitarists who are unused to haveing tone controles that are sensitive and resposive. If you crank this thing up with eveything at 10 it's gonna sound abused. i've found that the sound you want from this amp really depends on manipulating the tone controls.

I've been playng for 20 years. i've own Rivera Fandango, Fender hot Rod Deluxe, Hiwatt studio/stage-- imported from England. My Tone Master adds another dimension to the sounds I need

same features as the other postings though you really cant give this more than a 6 rating

this is what I dont get, I read the reviews and thought great a fender amp that can come up with vintage and modern sounds. It could not be further from the truth, muddy OD with a flat 2D feel and clean that is worse than a peavey!!! This was one of the last models my local store got it and the tubes were like new. I played a used prosonic in the same store and it sounded way better. I'm sure people spend alot of money on an amp and make themselves love it when it really doesn't cut it. I'll go back to my blackface bassman with pedals!!!

just tried it, I'd not give it the chance to break down as it sounded so poor

never needed them

I'd avoid this one and buy something that sounded better (like a peavey!!!!) it looks great but lacks the fender magic I'd expect from a custom shop amp

Two channel head (clean and gain). Two effects loops. Blonde tolex with oxblood grill. If it had reverb, it would be the perfect amp.

I have had the amp (with the 2-12 Celestion V30 cab) for about 9 months now. I believe I may have gotten one of the last ones (thank god). The tone is amazing. I play rock (e.g. Steve Morse, Eric Johnson). I plug my NOS Nocaster in and I am in heaven. The clean channel brings out every nuance of the guitar. The gain channel is rich, warm and smooth--not good for metal, but for rock it's perfect. I don't understand some of the previous reviewers' comments about the poor tone. Maybe this is just testimony to Fender's lack of quality control and producing a consistent product. All I know is, I got a winner and this is the last amp I will ever buy.

No problems yet, but I have had it less than a year. Effects loops work great (using TC Electronic's GMajor), except I notice the effects take the edge off the tone slightly. It (and the speaker cab) seem built to take it.

Don't know--have never dealt with Fender.

I have been playing most of my life (40 years(!)), but seriously only the last 5. When I was a kid, I had a Princeton and a Vibrolux Reverb (am I sorry I got rid of them!). The Tonemaster is a modern amp with a vintage look. I know the workmanship on some leaves much to be desired, but mine is immaculate. The tolex and grill are very well done. I think the value of this amp will only increase. It was expensive, but I feel lucky to own one.

Don't know what year but, is a late model. The amp is versatile for blues, rock, heavy metal. You won't get massive distortion but enough to were you don't lose clairity when you play more than a power chord. I play Kiss, Van Halen, 70's, 80's, 90's rock, pop and blues. It has all the features I want and need. This amp has plenty of power. I use this head and the 4x12 cab with vintage 30's to practice at home,with a band, and live.

I use a Gibson Les Paul standard with a Seymour duncan JB in the bridge, SD 59 in the neck. And a Gibson Les Paul with a SD Custom in Bridge. This is veery good for the style that I play. Sounds great everywhere.

It's a tube amp so tubes can alway go bad at any time. But that is not a amp ploblem. Has not broken down.

I've been playing 14 years. I own a Soldano SLO-100.And I like the Tone-Master a lot more. I've tried a lot of amps over the years ( too many to list) and this is my favorite to this day.

This is just an addition to the last post I made. I have recently found that a LP standard through the dirty channel set at med ohmage and Gain at around 5, treb full, bass at 3, and mids at 7 gives far less compressed, but almost identical version too what is most likely the person with one of the greatest live guitar tones playing right now, Allison Robertson of the Donnas. I have been chasing this sound while trying to avoid her JCM2000. This nails it with sound, but is more natural, which is absolutly perfect. It produces alot of harmonics. I just can't decide which channel to use now.

The specs are described in countless reviews so not much need to go into that, this is the model with dual effects loops. Not alot of versitility which will be addressed in the next section, but does its sound very well. I would like reverb, but who cares. I like bare bones amps, and this is a proffesional straight to the point amplifier.

Here is where I have to strongly disagree with everyone so far. I bought this amp expecting a strong loud clean sound, and a possibly usable distortion channel. I was looking for an original soundng amp and thought this would provide a good basis for pedals. The reviews never could have led me to believe that this was the amp I got. Fortuantly the unexpected sound is a godsend. I have played around with all the settings, I have played it with all 3 of my guitars (LP standard, LP Deluxe with p-90's and a telecaster custom with a singlecoil in the bridge)and I can get nothing but pure rock distortion. I can not for the life a me coax a clean sound out of her on the clean channel, and the clean I can get on the lead channel is far too quiet to hear with drums. At home I play some surf and country for which this is bad news, But fortunatly when I play out, I play straight up dirty rocknroll (like a raunchier version of bands like the Cult, the smugglers, Social D, Rocket From the Crypt). I am tired of the marshall sound but couldnt find anything that still had the same overall feel with just a little different character. I have found it. I used to buy and sell amps monthly. This is now my only amp and will be around so long as I am playing out. It is very very loud, very very crunchy and very very perfect. I plug the guitars straight in and crank the clean channel to around 7 roll up the mids and highs and roll down the bass out into the matching 4x12 and I have the best rock guitar sound I have ever heard. Period.

Seems built like a tank

I have owned 3 marshalls (800,6100,JMP) a bandmaster, soldano hr50, Ampeg VL-1002(absolutly killer amp as well) and a 59 bassman RI. This is the first that feels like a keeper. I wish I could get clean if I wanted it, but the clean channel sounds so good cranked I can live with out it. I use the lead channel for solos sometimes. Amps feeds back sometimes, and is very expensive, but this is an absolutly killer rock amp. It looks totally hot as well.

I don't know when it was made. Tone Master head, 100 tube watts, two channels(A clean, B lead), has two effects loops,two FAT switches (clean and lead) not sure if rectifier is tube. Doesn't have reverb which is a major consideration. If I could afford this amp (I'm a working musician on a BUDGET) I might buy it. I play all styles, not metal or really hard rock but play jazz, blues, fusion, country, rockabilly, Irish, R&B, whatever. I wouldn't say this is a practical gigging amp but would be cool for bigger clubs/ festivals. Definitely enough power, 100 watts will melt your ears off on any volume setting past 3 or so.

I played an American Texas Strat (is that what it's called?) and a humbucker-equipped PRS through it. Sounded better with the Strat right off the bat but I'm sure you can tweak the amp for humbucker tones. I would recommend this amp to blues, blues rock, classic rock players, not so for jazz, fusion, country, R&B etc. The clean is very three dimensional and FAT, particularly with the FAT switch activated, isn't that interesting. Played it through a matched ToneMaster 2X12 cab, the sound was so bottomy I couldn't believe it. Very much like a Vibro King with more headroom. This is not from personal experience but the word is the amp was made to work with the Celestion 30's and not really anything else, so buy the matching cab that comes with it. At the music store I teach at some of the guys were saying that this head through Tone Tubby speakers was enormously trebly and piercing. I can't imagine needing more clean headroom but keep in mind those Celestions begin to distort pretty quickly lending a warmer character to the clean than the clinical spank of a Twin with Jensens, if you're a country or R&B blackface guy this isn't the amp for you. The lead channel was pretty explosive for Fender, had a crunchy quality rather than a violiny Boogie Nomad thing. There is plenty of gain on tap there. This isn't a metal amp but like I said, if you're a blues, rock guy you could do a lot worse than this amp. Everybody's got their tone that they're looking for so obviously you have to try an amp for yourself before you buy one. Anybody who would buy an amp unseen and unheard from a mail order catalog is begging to be disappointed, don't ever do that. The best way to describe this amp is a louder Vibro King head with two footswitchable channels and higher gain in the lead channel (Vibro King has only one channel.) I wouldn't say there's a lot of variety of tones, it has two great tones and if that's what you're looking for you could do a lot worse. I personally thought the clean was sensational and the lead was pretty good. Any lead preamp setting past 5 is pretty noisy, that is the nature of preamp distortion. For each increase in preamp saturation there is an appreciable noise increase in any amp. My real rating for sound would be a 9 for the clean and a 7 for the lead.

Don't know. It's not a good idea to gig without at least some tube replacements handy but generally I don't. I've blown power tubes on gigs and it's not pretty, this leads to expensive ass amp repairs. At least buy a POD and be prepared to go direct into a PA on any gig. Any tube amp needs yearly maintenance, 6 months if you gig for a living.

I've never personally dealt with Fender, being such a large company I can't imagine their tech support would be any good. Fender tube stuff is easy to work on, however, any competent amp tech can repair their stuff. I have a Fender authorized repair center right down the street from where I live.

I've been playing 16 years, about 10 professionally more or less (I've played gigs since I was 16.) I play a Fender Custom Shop Strat and a Parker Nitefly which I want to get rid of through a Boogie Mark 2 head and Boogie 1 12 speaker. Not really an effects guy, use a wah when I need to, Tube Screamer reissue most of the time, Boss DD3 for slapback or echo, sometimes Boss Octave Divider. You have to compare the Tone Master to other high end stuff like Soldano and ask yourself is this as good as a Soldano (or other such super expensive pro high end gear ) because that's the kind of money you're paying. Personally I don't think the Tone Master is THAT good for roughly $2000 brand new for the head alone. If you can find a used one for around 1100 or 1200 or so that's probably the way to go. I wish it had reverb. It's certainly a great amp.

perchased used/mint, it's a 1999. Dual channel, fat switch on both.
impedance switch ( which really only works at higher gain/vol. levels. )

I play americana blues power rock, using a pair of " HAMER " custom shop Monaco Elites, a re-issue 57 strat, re-issue 52 tele, and the amp works very good for me. BUT, this is not the amp for everyone.
I was looking for a clean, powerful, fondation with a certain tone.
The dissapointment with this amp is that it does not sound like anything else, and will not be what your looking for unless you want a TONE- MASTER.

zero problems so far, but i am easy with my gear.

I have delt with fender in the past, and hope i wont need to in the future ( know what i mean ? ).

Overall very good. It turned out to be what i needed and wanted. I believe this is it for me, and i will buy another one as a back-up.
Check it out, and be ready to love it or hate it.

-Effects loop
-Db/Fat switch
-Should have used a 50K pot for the Mids instead of a 25K (but almost all fender tone controls are set up like this)
-Channel switching (my relay is starting to go out a little)
-Solid state rectifier (wish it had tubes)
-Didn't like the tone from the dirty channel so I changed some of the caps values and used some really nice caps (low esr black gates, tight tol sprague blah blah blah)
-Auto biasing would be awesome

OK here's the deal don't buy this amp if you're looking for a marshall or a fender or a boogie or a hiwatt or an orange. Its got its' own character. The clean channel sounds like a dark twin and the dirty channel is like a buzzy marshall. If you want to hear in action take a listen to Chris Whitley's "Narcotic Prayer". The only thing he had hooked up to that was 50ft of speaker cord the rest was tonemaster. It's not a pretty amp and you may have to work with it but man I love this thing. I've put mullards; JAN GE's, Phillips and Brimars in the 12ax7 slots and I found that I like the GE's the most. First because they don't burn a whole in your pocket and second they take the edge off a little. In the output section I've replaced with svetlana, tung-sols and I stopped with 7581a's from phillips because they sound unbeleivable...what a great sound. I hate it when people talk too much about there set-up so let me say it sounds great with les pauls, strats, teles, es335s but it really doesn't like crunchy active pickups...way too much edge. By the way... mind band plays emo-ish indierock but I play delta blues also.

only reason I give it a 9 is because it's got tubes and you never know when they start to go out, increase in microphonics, etc...auto biasing would be great.

4 out of 5 e-mails were answered
2 of the answered e-mails took over a week
trying to find a educated person to speak to can be difficult.

I like...no...I love this amp but it won't replace a princeton or plexi. Listen and make up your own mind.

You can look at the other reviews for the basic features.

Interesting (and useful) features:

1. "Fat" switches on both channels. Does exactly that for single coils, adds even more grind for the HB's.

2. Variable Impedence selecor/Power soak: I've never seen anything like this on any other amp. The impedence selector has "High/Med/Low" for it's settings. The idea here (and the manual explains this better than I can here) is to set the switch to Low if your dirty volume knob is at 3.5 or less, Med for 3.5 to 7, and High for anything over 7. The output transformer on this amp is so massive that it will act as a power soak and give that "cranked" tube sound at any volume setting as long as your total impedance is 4 ohms or more. I've never got this thing over 3 yet (it is way loud) so I can't say whether it works or not, but it sure is a unique feature.

> Lots of volume, should handle any medium to large room easily.
> No reverb, bummer.
> Huge transformer. Very heavy.

First off, the guys who have given this thing the really low scores are full of it. They either don't know tone, are pissed at Fender for some reason, or thought they were buying some kind of Death Metal Marshall thing. This amp is all Pro, and is worth every penny.

I use just about any kind of guitar there is (except Rickenbakers).

The clean channel is typical Fender (like an old Twin) clean. The closed cabinet (w/Celestion Classic Lead speakers) and lack of reverb can lead you to think that the sound is kind of sterile, but it really isn't.

The dirty channel is warm, creamy and very "brown". Not like a Marshall at all. Again, the closed cabinet is very punchy and direct-sounding, so it's not going to fill a room with sound the same way an open backed cabinet will.

Just to prove my theory about the tonal qualities of the amp and the kind of affect the closed-back cabinets were having on this amp's sound, I hooked the output up to a pair of old Jensen speakers in an old Twin's open-back cabinet. Results?

The clean channel sounds just like an old Twin, except there is no bright switch and the Fat switch really beefs up the tone especially for single-coils.

The Dirty channel sounds just like an old Twin with a Ibanez Tube screamer in front of it! - I'm not kidding, it was identical. To prove this I borrowed a friend's Twin ('68) from down the hall in the rehearsal studio, hooked it's output op to a 4x12 Marshall cab, threw a Tubescreamer in front of it and used a DOD line switch and A/B'd it against my ToneMaster. Yep, same sound.

The moral of this story is that if you want a Tone Master on a budget, buy an old Twin and a re-issue Tubescreamer and an old 4x12 cab and you're 80% of the way there, plus you have reverb.

Aside from all that, it really does sound very nice with any guitar I use. Very pro, very quiet operation otherwise. I run some Morley effects through the front and a Midiverb through the effects loop if I just have to have reverb.

Brand new. No problems. It is very solidly constructed so I don't forsee any problems.

Point-to-point wiring.

Can't really rate it till it breaks down and I have to have it fixed.

This is my big hall amp. I don't use this thing unless I'm playing to a big hall (100+ people). When I do use it I don't need to have it mic'ed. Big, Loud American Tone to the Bone!!!

Downside: No Reverb, very heavy nd the 2x12 cab doesn't have casters.

Conclusion: Don't buy this amp unless you want reall tone and are willing to pay someone to haul it around for you.