Fender Switchboard Effects Operator

stonevibe

Fender Switchboard Effects Operator a new "affordable" rival for the RJM Mastermind PBC/6X and the GigRig Atom G3?


https://guitarbomb.com/2024/01/18/fender-switchboard-effects-operator-a-rival-for-thegigrig/

onlyatom

https://www.fender.com/en-GB/new-releases/switchboard-effects-operator/0235150000.html

Listed at £419 on Fender's site

Musicman20

Seems a bit late to the game, like their modeller. 

stickyfiddle

I don't need one but it looks neat and well priced, assuming 370-ish in 6 months. 

How does it compare with the Boss stuff?

stonevibe

Musicman20 said:

Seems a bit late to the game, like their modeller. 

I just do not trust Fender to support any hardware for more than 12-24 months top. They are the polar opposite of companies like Line 6, etc 

DoctorX

Looks good, nice footprint and decent price.

english_bob

stickyfiddle said:

I don't need one but it looks neat and well priced, assuming 370-ish in 6 months. 

How does it compare with the Boss stuff?

Closest would be the ES-5. The Fender is in stereo which the ES-5 isn't. More presets. Only one TRS out versus the ES-5's two. Inbuilt tuner on the Fender, dedicated tuner out on the Boss. MIDI functionality isn't detailed so hard to say how it compares there (no MIDI in on the Fender though). A big feature of the Boss is how you can assign the footswitches in all sorts of different ways, which the Fender press release doesn't mention. Likewise, the ES-5 has "assign" functions that can act like an expression pedal among other things. Hard to really pick a winner- it'll be down to how people want to use their loop switcher.

stonevibe said:

Musicman20 said:

Seems a bit late to the game, like their modeller. 

I just do not trust Fender to support any hardware for more than 12-24 months top. They are the polar opposite of companies like Line 6, etc 

I don't know about GigRig, but Boss put out one firmware update for the ES loopers. Ever. On a product that's been out what, nine years? So it's not as if Fender have stiff competition in the after sales department. (EDIT: @TheBigDipper ;
makes a perfectly valid point below- there isn't necessarily a whole lot of scope for updating a unit like this)

TheBigDipper

It's going to find its own niche and some people will find it very appealing. I'm sure it will find a market and it will take sales from some new buyers of the ES-5, for sure. If you need the number of ins and outs that an ES-8 or GigRig has, I'd guess not. 

As a mono guitar-playing ES-5 user with some MIDI pedal control needs and a user of Assigns, it probably isn't me. I love stereo effects when recording, but wouldn't dream of playing live in stereo at the sort of gigs I get. Even if I did, the sound engineers would just sum me to mono to make the mix in the venue the best it can be for everyone in the room.

They're not yet being clear about their support for MIDI, but does have have something. I'm more likely to chuck the ES-5 at some point for an MC-6 with an ML10 for the analogue switching. But I'm not looking just yet, because the ES-5 is reliable and doing what I need. 

I'd like my ES-5 to have a better screen, and if I was buying new today, that would be a factor in my choice. But I don't actually suffer because of the one it already has, so it's no reason to change. I'm not concerned about the lack of firmware updates, either, because it already does what it's supposed to as far as I can tell. People don't buy Boss expecting frequent updates, do they? I'm not sure how much scope there is for adding functionality, anyway.

The built-in tuner is a good idea (as per the Plethora X5). The built-in volume pedal feature appears similar to the one found in the Plethora X5, and that had some issues (for me) with the volume curve they used when mapping the expression pedal to what the human ear likes to hear. It was a linear curve rather than logarithmic.

We'll have to watch a demo vid! :-) 

english_bob

^^^ I'd quite like to see a manual to see what it can really do, but I'm like that.

That said, I've got an ES-5 too, and I can't see anything here (or anywhere...) to make me want to swap.

Boromedic

Looks like it's made in conjunction with RJM if you read the back panel so it's going to be well made, £340 on Peaches website makes it a bit of a bargain really. I need a compact model so nothing is shifting my Disaster Area DPC5 Gen 3 which I think is about the best there is for value/functionality. Built like a tank too, but that Fender is a great addition to the market. I'd sooner that than an Atom at £900+ even if the Atom has one more loop.

stonevibe

Yup. Designed in collaboration with Ron Menelli and so should be decent.

TheBigDipper

The User Manual is up on the Fender website now, so I took a look. Only a brief look, so I could easily have missed something. 

At first glance, MIDI support when loading new presets looks slightly better than the ES-5. On load, you can send one PC command to up to 16 different channels (so 16 different MDI pedals). You can also send up to 15 different CC commands (and they could all be to the same channel if you want). 

No obvious sign of a feature like Boss Assigns, so - unless I missed it - no obvious way of sending a MIDI command at any other time. 

A nice feature that I'd like to see on my ES-5 is "Favourites". It's a bit like "Stompbox" on GT1000 products. It's the ability to have a preset defined as a favourite (one of 100 available) and reference it in several places in your preset list, but only needing to change it once to see that reflected in every place you use it. So, if you have a preset for your clean sound, but use it 20 different songs, you just build it once and reference it in the slots you want to load it from. On the ES-5, whenever you change the makeup of that patch, you would need to copy it into every slot, one at a time.

english_bob

stonevibe said:

Yup. Designed in collaboration with Ron Menelli and so should be decent.

Not sure that's necessarily how industrial design works. Could be that Ron Menelli drew up a design, then the Fender accountants went through it, changing everything they could to make it cheaper.

Likewise, "designed with" is not "designed by", and "designed with RJM Music" isn't necessarily the same as "designed with actual Ron Menelli".

I admit I'm being deeply cynical here, but I do wonder if it's just a way to add a bit of reflected boutique glow to the product.

uksaint7

Here's a post by RJM on their forum:

Fender's in charge of all sales, marketing, support and all that, so they'll have all the details on their site (soon, if not now). But, in short, this is an entry level switcher with a lower price point and smaller feature set than our switchers.

- It has 5 loops, the last one is stereo capable
- Input and output buffers, switchable
- Loops are reorderable, per preset
- One TRS function switch output
- One expression pedal input
- 400 presets, 100 banks of 4 presets
- MIDI output, sends PCs and CCs only
- Fixed button layout (with preset/bank and loop modes)
- No editor

It does have a couple of things our switchers do not: a color LCD, and a volume control. The latter is a volume control, which can be controlled by a connected expression pedal, that can be placed anywhere in the loop order.

english_bob

english_bob said:

stickyfiddle said:

I don't need one but it looks neat and well priced, assuming 370-ish in 6 months. 

How does it compare with the Boss stuff?

***Edited having seen the manual***

 Closest would be the ES-5. The Fender is in stereo which the ES-5 isn't.
(Actually loops 1-4 of the Switchboard are mono. Loop 5 has a mono send and stereo TRS return, master output has a TRS socket. Stereo is disabled if Loop 5 isn't the last in line. Still, no stereo at all on the ES-5, although you might be able to bodge it...)

More presets.
(ES-5 has 200, Switchboard has 500.)

Switchboard's "favourites" function is cool- it allows you to save a combination of loop, footswitch and MIDI settings as a favourite, then quickly dump that in to a new blank preset. If you're setting up a "setlist" that you scroll through for each song that'll be handy. You *can* copy and paste patches on the ES-5 too, but it involves a bit more menu diving.

Only one TRS out versus the ES-5's two.
(Switchboard has one TRS out for controlling amp channel switching etc. ES-5 has two. Both have expression pedal inputs that can convert analogue exp input to MIDI CC but the ES-5 allows you to use the expression pedal input for an external footswitch instead if you prefer.)

Inbuilt tuner on the Fender, dedicated tuner out on the Boss.
(Not much to choose here, although the tuner out means your tuner is always on, which might be helpful).

MIDI functionality isn't detailed so hard to say how it compares there (no MIDI IN on the Fender though).
(If MIDI is important to how you plan to use a switcher, this is where an ES-5 wins hands down. Switchboard has NO MIDI CLOCK, which acts as a sort of master tap tempo control over multiple pedals. If you have a MIDI enabled pedal that does output MIDI clock you can sync other pedals to that instead (as long as you daisy chain your MIDI cabling, which isn't always possible).

Also NO MIDI IN. I wondered if the USB in on the Switchboard might allow for MIDI over USB so that the Switchboard could be slaved to another MIDI device, but it isn't mentioned in the manual.

Switchboard does have the capacity to send more MIDI commands at once than the ES-5, but if you were that big on MIDI control for that many pedals I don't see you opting for a Switchboard over a less limited MIDI controller...

Obviously, this could change with a firmware update somewhere down the line.)

A big feature of the Boss is how you can assign the footswitches in all sorts of different ways, which the Fender press release doesn't mention. Likewise, the ES-5 has "assign" functions that can act like an expression pedal among other things.
(Switchboard is much less flexible in this respect. It allows momentary loop switching with a press-and-hold on the footswitch (ES-5 can do this too), but that's it. ES-5 will let you assign all sorts of functions to different footswitches, either globally or per-patch, including more MIDI commands, automated expression pedal control and other things).

Hard to really pick a winner- it'll be down to how people want to use their loop switcher.
(IMO you get more for your money with the BOSS- the new prices are pretty much the same and the Switchboard won't make it to the used market in numbers for a while, so an ES-5 is potentially considerably cheaper. If you don't need the extra stuff you might find the Switchboard more user friendly- I've got a much higher tolerance for menu diving than many guitarists- but if I didn't already have an ES-5 I don't think I'd choose a Switchboard over it.
Again, it's not impossible that Fender change some of these things with a firmware update at some point, but we are where we are.)