Fender Tone Master Pro Leaked

NelsonP · January 5

Decent review here. So hard to tell whether these things are genuine or just part of the marketing machine these days...
https://www.guitarplayer.com/review/fender-tone-master-pro

TheMarlin · January 5

I worked in advertising before getting into the games industry.

All reviews printed are for sale. You cannot trust a review. An advertiser or supplier just has to exert a tiny amount of pressure, and the shiniest turd can gleam like a diamond.

In the games publisher side, nothing changed. While working for one prominent publisher, we would write eight of nine reviews, some long, some short, and pop them on a CD with other digital assets and send them to journalists.

They would cut and past the review, change a few words, insert some of the photos we provided, then send it to the magazine and collect their pay check. If we made it super easy for them, they would use it. Others, we paid them for a good review.

Anything that has ‘Editors pick’ or ‘Note from
the Editor’ is 100% paid sponsorship.

It will be the same for social media. A few mavericks will plough their own path, but the vast majority will take what is given and be more than happy.

I’m not saying this item is rubbish. I likely would never buy the Tonemaster Pro, it’s not my thing. But if I were in the market, I would trust opinions from people using it on this site over any review.

jellybelly · January 5

TheMarlin said:

I worked in advertising before getting into the games industry.

All reviews printed are for sale. You cannot trust a review. An advertiser or supplier just has to exert a tiny amount of pressure, and the shiniest turd can gleam like a diamond.

In the games publisher side, nothing changed. While working for one prominent publisher, we would write eight of nine reviews, some long, some short, and pop them on a CD with other digital assets and send them to journalists.

They would cut and past the review, change a few words, insert some of the photos we provided, then send it to the magazine and collect their pay check. If we made it super easy for them, they would use it. Others, we paid them for a good review.

Anything that has ‘Editors pick’ or ‘Note from
the Editor’ is 100% paid sponsorship.

It will be the same for social media. A few mavericks will plough their own path, but the vast majority will take what is given and be more than happy.

I’m not saying this item is rubbish. I likely would never buy the Tonemaster Pro, it’s not my thing. But if I were in the market, I would trust opinions from people using it on this site over any review.

I have to offer some disagreement/balance here.

I worked in my formative years on a now out-of-print UK guitar magazine. We obviously relied on advertising to pay the bills BUT made it a point to keep our editorial integrity intact.

The line was always 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all' - so you would only very very rarely see anything with a 'bad' review. If it was crap, we didn't bother our readers with it. Something being below average is hardly a fun read or particularly interesting.

We undoubtedly lost advertising as a result. But we also weren't running a public service - I don't think it was our 'duty' to call out bad products.

jellybelly · January 5

(And almost everything had a redeeming feature or two!)

vasselmeyer · February 6

Beyond the initial burst of publicity, this thing appears to have completely disappeared from sight.

Anyone still got one? Has Fender issued any updates?

Lewy · February 6

vasselmeyer said:

Beyond the initial burst of publicity, this thing appears to have completely disappeared from sight.

Anyone still got one? Has Fender issued any updates?

I guess they stopped paying people to rave about them.

Personally, I just don't trust Fender to stand by this kind of product in the way that the dedicated makers do. I won't even look at it until they've established a track record of support and updates. They've done a firmware update but it's fixes for bugs that arguably shouldn't have been in the shipped product in the first place.

Nerine · February 7

vasselmeyer said:

Beyond the initial burst of publicity, this thing appears to have completely disappeared from sight.

Amount of people surprised:

0.

Lebarque · February 7

I just think we've just gone back to talking about more important things like valve amps and analogue pedals.

Musicman20 · February 7

I kinda feel for the early adopters who PAID for the unit rather than got gifted one.

chrisj1602 · February 7

Musicman20 said:

I kinda feel for the early adopters who PAID for the unit rather than got gifted one.

Are there any of those people?

Musicman20 · February 7

chrisj1602 said:

Musicman20 said:

I kinda feel for the early adopters who PAID for the unit rather than got gifted one.

Are there any of those people?

That is a good point!

monquixote · February 7

jellybelly said:

I have to offer some disagreement/balance here.

I worked in my formative years on a now out-of-print UK guitar magazine. We obviously relied on advertising to pay the bills BUT made it a point to keep our editorial integrity intact.

The line was always 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all' - so you would only very very rarely see anything with a 'bad' review. If it was crap, we didn't bother our readers with it. Something being below average is hardly a fun read or particularly interesting.

We undoubtedly lost advertising as a result. But we also weren't running a public service - I don't think it was our 'duty' to call out bad products.

I get the impression that's what a lot of influencers do. They won't risk their reputation by raving about something terrible that they don't like so they just decline to review it.

Rabea said as much in a recent video where he answered the question "Why are you positive about everything you review?". He basically said he doesn't want to do whinge videos so if he doesn't like it he sends it back.

Bo Beats the synth reviewer did a round up of things he "declined to review" which was essentially products he thought was shit.

People won't risk promoting something that doesn't land well. Benn Jordan recently quit doing gear reviews because he recommended something the community thought was a rip off and he got so much backlash for it he just stopped doing gear reviews.

stilwel · March 31

vasselmeyer said:

Beyond the initial burst of publicity, this thing appears to have completely disappeared from sight.

Anyone still got one? Has Fender issued any updates?

We literally sold every one that we made in the initial run and are waiting for more to arrive.

We've had 3 firmware updates since launch day (last was on 2/15) and we're working on the next one. Lots of great new features and models on the way.

stilwel · March 31

Musicman20 said:

I kinda feel for the early adopters who PAID for the unit rather than got gifted one.

Why do you "feel for the early adopters"? They are loving their TM Pros.

Irishbread69 · April 7

stilwel said:

Musicman20 said:

I kinda feel for the early adopters who PAID for the unit rather than got gifted one.

Why do you "feel for the early adopters"? They are loving their TM Pros.

That's certainly my opinion. Incredibly inspiring already and I'm excited to see where it goes.

chrisj1602 · April 7

I just watched some of an Andertons video where they compared the TM, Helix etc and I really liked the TM amp sounds…

It would be nice to see a smaller, cheaper version like the HX Stomp.

strtdv · April 7

To be honest it's no more expensive than any of its direct rivals. Yes it's got fewer models than some others, but I'll bet the Fender models it has will be really good.

soma1975 · April 7

TheMarlin said:

I worked in advertising before getting into the games industry.

All reviews printed are for sale. You cannot trust a review. An advertiser or supplier just has to exert a tiny amount of pressure, and the shiniest turd can gleam like a diamond.

In the games publisher side, nothing changed. While working for one prominent publisher, we would write eight of nine reviews, some long, some short, and pop them on a CD with other digital assets and send them to journalists.

They would cut and past the review, change a few words, insert some of the photos we provided, then send it to the magazine and collect their pay check. If we made it super easy for them, they would use it. Others, we paid them for a good review.

Anything that has ‘Editors pick’ or ‘Note from
the Editor’ is 100% paid sponsorship.

It will be the same for social media. A few mavericks will plough their own path, but the vast majority will take what is given and be more than happy.

I’m not saying this item is rubbish. I likely would never buy the Tonemaster Pro, it’s not my thing. But if I were in the market, I would trust opinions from people using it on this site over any review.

Agree with this - I know we've chatted briefly about our experiences around the videogames industry.

That said there was a glorious halcyon era when PRs just cared about getting the game out there and seen and those were their metrics for success and what you thought of it and said in your publications or videos was up to you and none of their business. Certainly back when I initially worked on videogames TV circa '99-2001 and even in marketing stuff up to around 2010ish - which coincides with the rise of youtube I suppose. At which point the new model came in which feels slimy, even when I am working in it

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Fender Tone Master Pro Leaked

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