[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, this is John with Fender, and I'm here with Rick Heins,
part of our Fender amp team.
In this video, we're looking at the Fender Tone Master
series of amps, which includes the Twin Reverb as well
as the Deluxe Reverb.
Now in this video, we're looking at the Deluxe Reverb.
It sure looks like a Deluxe Reverb,
it sounds like a wonderful Deluxe Reverb,
but what is it really?
So Rick is here to talk a little bit about that,
and then we'll get into some more tones and features.
RICK HEINS: Well, the Tone Masters
have been a journey for us for about three years.
You know, we've been in the digital amp realm for a while.
Mustangs have been very successful--
all the way back to G-DECs.
But we wanted to do something a little different.
We wanted to see how far we could
take, in the digital realm, replicating a tube amplifier.
People love the way that tubes sound, the way that they feel,
and we felt that by going down this journey
we would see how far we could go, and we really succeeded.
It's not an easy thing to do.
There's quad core processing power in order
to replicate the sounds.
There's convolution reverb to make sure
that the spring reverb sounds exactly the way you want it to.
Studio quality.
RICK HEINS: Yeah.
But all those things, really, ultimately
what we're talking about is an amp that, when you play it,
it feels exactly the way you want it to feel, like a tube
amplifier that you just end up playing, you end up creating.
It's not about the digital realm.
It's about an amp that sounds great,
it has a ton of really cool features
that are added because of the fact that it's digital.
It makes it the ultimate kind of player's amplifier
to grab and go, or record at home.
All right, so let's take a look at the amplifier.
Approach it like it's a Deluxe Reverb.
You'll notice all the same controls.
The layout of the panel is exactly the same.
We have your normal channel, high and low inputs.
We have volume, treble, and bass.
And then over to vibrato channel, high and low inputs,
volume, treble, bass, and then reverb and vibrato controls.
All right, so we'll start off about three here.
Three, four, it's still relatively clean.
And then like any Deluxe Reverb, again, it's
around five you start breaking up and getting
that nice, natural overdrive.
And again, you know, the higher you go on the volume,
you have to back off on the bass so it cuts better.
So let's try that.
We'll start off with three.
You're going to hear that tone.
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All right.
I'm going to go a little bit higher.
Here is about five, and I'm going
to take the bass down just a little bit.
Right now it's about five.
Let me hear that.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right.
So now let's go, how about seven or eight,
and take the reverb down just a little bit.
And then the bass down a little bit more.
Let's see what that sounds like.
Now you're in the bridge humbucker.
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That's nice.
So when you roll back on the volume,
it really responds to that and cleans up--
that kind of old school channel switching.
All right, now let's roll it up to about eight and 1/2.
I'm going to take the bass down even more,
and then we're just going to rock out.
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Nice.
So again, no pedals.
That's straight into the amplifier.
Reacts just like a Deluxe Reverb.
You know, clean-- relatively clean up until about five,
starts overdriving, and then eight and 1/2 to 10,
you got the full on kind of almost saturation going on.
Well, that's the typical Deluxe Reverb.
I mean, a lot of people who play them
because they love the cleans don't realize that they
can rock out like that.
That's right.
RICK HEINS: But this is--
And you can rock out.
You truly can rock out.
Yes.
Yes, and we've replicated even down to--
on the volume, the original ones had a bright cap
that helped when you were playing clean for articulation,
but as you turn up the volume, it subsides a bit.
So if you're using overdrives and stuff,
it works really well once you get past about five or so.
Should we hear the normal channel, just compare it?
Sure.
All right, so I'll just swap this over.
RICK HEINS: Yeah.
Like the original 65s from back in the day and even
the reissues, the normal doesn't have reverb or tremolo.
So this is a straight up just tone.
JOHN DREYER: All right, so this is relatively clean.
Just kind of got the EQ flat.
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All right, and again.
Let's see what happens when you get it about eight and 1/2.
I'm going to back off on the bass a little bit,
pick the treble up.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So on the normal channel, like the originals,
it's a little bit darker because the bright cap's not on there.
So depending on the kind of tone you're
going for, that might be the perfect channel for you to use.
Yeah, if you have a brighter guitar, I guess, right--
single coil pickups, whatever you might find that this works
better for you.
Or whatever pedals you have going into it,
this might work better for you.
If you have a reverb pedal on your pedal board,
then you don't have to worry about--
you won't miss it on that show.
Absolutely.
Well, it's just different flavors in the amplifier.
I think sometimes people forget about that side
of the amplifier, and don't realize it's
got its own thing going on.
JOHN DREYER: It was made for a reason, right?
RICK HEINS: Yeah.
All right, so no good demo would
be complete without hearing the lovely reverb and tremolo
featured in the amp.
So I'll play a little bit, and Rick can walk us through.
Absolutely.
Well, let's start with the reverb.
As I mentioned, the convolution reverb
is a very, very thorough and complicated reverb,
and to get the sound of those springs in the amplifier,
we really needed to do our homework and get it right.
So we'll start you with a little bit of reverb.
I'm going to crank you all the way up
and we're going to go into surf city, OK?
JOHN DREYER: Great.
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And it just keeps going.
All right, let's check out the tremolo,
which is also equally as nice as the reverb.
Yeah.
So something to keep in mind when we did these is we
were using several different amps
to try and find the perfect sound.
So when we did the tremolo and reverb,
we were also comparing against vintage Deluxes,
and the current ones off our line,
to find the perfect sweet spot.
So we think we found it in the tremolo.
Well, let's take a listen.
I'll play some, and you can control the speed
and intensity.
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All right, so that's the basic features of the amp.
Now we can take a look at the stealth features.
Rick, why don't you talk a little bit
about what they are, and then how
they're a benefit to players?
Yeah, the thing that's really cool,
because we did this in the digital realm and we're using
Class-D power to replicate the power of a tube amp,
it gives us the flexibility to do some fun things.
So one of those being-- as players,
we all know you get the distortion
as you crank up the amp.
Right.
Well, that doesn't work for every scenario.
So what we've done is we actually have a five position
attenuation that you can do.
So this amp is 22 watts.
You can take it all the way down from that to 0.2 watts.
The attenuation has five positions.
You can go from the full 22 watts
down to 12, five, one watt, half a watt, down to 0.2 watts.
So for practicing at home, it makes it a really great
feature, obviously, if you don't want
to upset the neighbors or family and you
want to get the great tone.
For recording as well.
I mean--
RICK HEINS: Oh, absolutely.
--mic up your amp, and it's like you can barely hear it
outside of the room that you're in.
Yeah, you get great tone way through.
So why do we have you play?
I'm going to take you through each position,
and we'll see how this sounds.
So we're starting on full power right now?
RICK HEINS: Right full power now.
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12.
12 watts.
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RICK HEINS: Five watts.
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One watt.
JOHN DREYER: Still good.
Still good.
Still feeling good.
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RICK HEINS: Let's go down half a watt.
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I mean, it's really cool because I can still--
it still has that--
I still feel the feel of a tube amp even at full volume,
or where I can barely hear.
It still feels-- retains that same feel when I'm playing.
It's really nice.
Wow.
Yes, it's because of doing in the digital realm
by using attenuation, you don't lose the tone.
You only bring down the volume.
JOHN DREYER: So cool.
The great byproduct of having the attenuation
is that, because the original Deluxes and Twins,
the only way you got distortion was turning them up.
That's not really conducive for playing
at home sometimes, or certain bars,
or wherever you're recording.
By using attenuation, you can bring down the overall volume,
crank up the amp, and get the distortion
that you want out of the amplifier, which
is a really nice feature.
JOHN DREYER: We demoed that earlier--
Yeah.
JOHN DREYER: --in a video.
Yeah.
All right, and if that wasn't enough,
we can also talk about the XLR out with the cabinet IRs.
And if want to explain a little bit what that is, and how
cool that is.
Yeah, well that's something that's
been a new technological advance in the past few years.
And that IR means impulse response.
And for us, we did it on our own.
We wanted to make sure that when you record this direct out,
that it sounds like the amp in the room.
So we actually did do the simulations
where we miked up the amplifier with a ribbon mic
and with a dynamic mic.
So you have the ability on the back.
You can set it so that it has no emulation, or no IRs,
so if you're going into another amplifier
and you don't want coloration.
Position one is going to be a dynamic mic, like an SM57.
And then position two is going to be a ribbon mic.
And the thing is, dynamics are great for when you're
playing live, because they really help cut in the mix,
and then ribbon is great for recording because you
get extended low end.
So that's a really nice feature.
So depending on the situation, whether it's
live or in the studio, you kind of have the perfect sound.
All right, so what are we now A,
B the real mics against the IRs and see how close they sound?
So why do we start with the 57 mic and see how that sounds,
and then we'll switch over to the position one on the IRs.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
OK, now we're going to switch over to position one on the IR.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right, let's switch over to the ribbon mic.
So we've got the Royer 121 right there.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now I'm going to switch over to position two for the IRs.
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The great thing about the XLR is that it has a line level
and ground lift.
So you can reduce any sort of issues
you're going to have playing live with lighting, things
like that.
Right.
All right, so one other feature I
want to mention, because I think it's really cool,
as all the features are.
So we talked a little bit in the beginning
about different types of players who would play the amp.
Now if you're a player using in-ears on stage
and have any stage volume at all, this also has a standby.
Right?
But when you're in standby, you can still get the signal out
of the XLR, right?
RICK HEINS: Yeah, absolutely.
So let's just show.
When it goes to standby, you'll notice
that the jewel turns orange.
That means that the speaker is disabled,
but you're still getting the signal out of the XLR,
so you can record at home silently.
You can play on stage, as you said, using in-ears.
We know a lot of like praise and worship,
and places like that, you can't have any stage volume, so it's
a great solution for that.
So people that are recording at home, people
are playing on stages with no volume, that makes it really,
really easy and functional amplifier
to use in most situations.
And that's on standby, right?
So we can't hear it here on set, but you
should be able to hear it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
OK.
So now the million dollar question.
All the pedal junkies out there are
wondering how does it take pedals, my overdrives, delays,
whatever.
So we happen to have some Fender pedals here.
We
JOHN DREYER: Do we have the Engager Boost, the Pugilist
Distortion, as well as the Mirror Image Delay.
So maybe I'll play a little bit, and I'll just
cycle through the pedals to see what that sounds like.
So here's the sound with the pedals bypassed.
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Engager Boost.
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Engager Boost off.
Here is the Pugilist Distortion.
Again, bypassed.
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With distortion.
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You can even add some delay.
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Sounds good to me.
All right, thanks for stopping by to check out the Fender Tone
Master Deluxe Reverb, an amazing amp, amazing features.
I will mention it also comes with a two-button foot switch
to control the reverb and tremolo,
and thank you to Rick for stopping by
to tell us all about it.
Yeah, and I suggest that you go try these out in person.
I think once you sit down and play through this amplifier,
hearing is believing.
You can head over to fender.com for more information
on the full Tone Master amp series,
and stay tuned here for more videos.
We'll see you soon.
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