Earlier this year at Winter NAMM Fender released a series of effect pedals that are designed to compliment and expand on their line of effect pedals released last year. With these new pedals, Guitarists and keyboardists are able to take advantage of the full sonic pallet Fender has to offer ranging from distortion to modulation to some effects unique to Fender’s tonal legacy. Many of the new effect pedals were designed specifically from customer feedback and requests.
In creating these new effect pedals Fender has brought a high level of attention to detail and has succeeded in faithfully recreating many of the vintage Fender amp effects and tonality that players know and love. All the effects are ruggedly constructed and feature a switchable LED on each of the knobs and as would be expected with any pedal carrying the Fender name, many of the pedals feature a bright LED Fender Jewel Light signifying the selected effect is active.
Here is a short rundown of the pedals released at this year's Winter NAMM:
The MTG Tube distortion pedal features a real; NOS US Made 6205 preamp tube and three-band EQ, voicings and a switchable boost. The pedal is a great enhancement to any Guitar amplifier clean channel and allows the player to dial is for a wide range of overdrive and distortions. There is a “tight” control that adjusts low-frequency or bass content ahead of the distortion circuitry, and it controls how loose or tight [articulate might be another word] the low notes are relative to the high stuff. This lets a user dial in a controllable bottom end while still having plenty of drive on high notes). There is a separate boost circuit with its own level and boost control.
The Tre Verb Reverb / Tremolo effect pedal is designed to give the guitar player a highly accurate recreation of Fenders iconic Tremolo and Reverb in a single pedal. The pedal features classic reverb voicings based on Fenders 1963 and 1965 standalone reverb tanks. The reverb section features a modulated Plate emulation. All three reverb models can be fine-tuned via the on board tone, blend and dwell controls. On the tremolo side cab be found three different tremolo modes based on Optical, Power Tube, Bias or Harmonic Vibrato style tremolo effects which can be dialed in using level, rate and depth controls.
Using the Tre Verb and MTG Tube distortion together as a front end for your favorite clean channel gives you a comprehensive tonal pallet to compliment just about any guitar amplifier.
Fender has also expanded their line of Modulation effect pedals:
The Bubbler Chorus gives you a classic sounding bucket brigade Chorus effect with some additional features designed to give you modern flexibility You get separate two rate and depth circuits allowing you to dial in subtle or extreme cascading chorus effects. The pedal features stereo outputs. There are also sensitivity controls allowing you to automatically speed the rate up based on your playing dynamics.
The Lost Highway Phaser is a highly flexible analog Phaser effect. The pedal features two separate rate and depth controls. You get foot switchable fast and slow speeds each of which have their own rate and depth control. You also can toggle between sine and Triangle wave forms as well as switchable 4 and 8 stage Phasing. These controls allow you to dial in subtle to extreme phasing effects on the fly. The pedal also features separate blend, feedback and sensitivity controls. There is also an overall effect boost on the back of the pedal.
The Pinwheel is rotary Speaker emulator that makes it easy to add an unmistakable swirling effect to your signal path. You get complete control over the effect. The pedal features Stereo inputs and outputs, tone, level, fast and slow rate controls and control over the effects drive, there is also a Mode switch which is designed to emulate two different classic Leslie rotary speakers, as well as Fenders, own Vibratone speaker cabinet. There is a sensitivity control that works in conjunction with a connected expression pedal that automatically selects from slow to fast settings depending on your playing as well as the rate of the effects selected. There is also a ramp control that adjusts the amount of time the effect takes to ramp up.
The Downtown express is designed to give the Bass player a complete all in one pedal for tone shaping as well as direct and live recording. The pedal features a comprehensive three-band EQ, an overdrive control and a compressor each on its one its circuit which you can switch on and off via foot switch. There is also a mute control for silent tuning or changing instruments. The direct output balanced DI makes it easy to use the Downtown Express in any live or studio situation there’s also a toggle switch to re-order overdrive and compression
With the addition of these latest pedals Fender now has a total of 15 pedals ranging from $100-$300 MAP price and offer the discriminating guitarist a comprehensive range of effects to compliment any musical style. The pedals are available factory direct on Fender.com now as well as are available from leading retailers worldwide. Check out fender.com for more information or call Fenders consumer hotline at (844) 202-0924.
