Fender Machete full written review and demo video

[Freethenoise]

What is it?
The Machete is Fender's response to modern high gain, feature laden, boutique amplifiers. It was introduced in 2012 and was priced as one of the most expensive amps that came off the Fender trucks for a long time (especially in Australia, $3000, yikes!) and as such had some very pro spec features and robust construction. Featuring things like an effects loop with individual send and return levels, XLR out with poweramp mute and cabinet simulation and speaker damping control.


Features
50 watts being produced by a pair of 6L6's get pushed through a Celestion vintage 30, 5 12AX7s, digital reverb, two channels and not a stupid amount of knobs (Hey Mesa) is essentially the plan here.

There are also little extra features. Instead of a lower gain input, there's a 6db pad button. This makes swapping between two guitars with different output pickups a breeze, leaves the treble in tact too.

I really do like the speaker damping control. It's a 5 way notch filter that allows fine tuning of the speaker movement. Basically, 'tight' is modern 'loose' is vintage.
One thing I did notice is that there is a pretty huge volume drop over towards the tight side. The loose side almost seems to extend the headroom of the amp and it certainly makes the clean channel much sweeter.

The reverb is digital; at first I couldn't get why Fender would allow one of the key ingredients to their trademark sound be left out of the arrangement but then I suddenly realized.
If this amp was any heavier, it would weigh more than my old Vox AC30...
The reverb sounds great too, it can get nice and wet and surfy or just add a little movement between chords like I use it for.

It also has midi control, but I'm too simple for anything like that.

Construction
First thing to say is that it's really solidly built, the cabinet is made of birch ply and the tolex and grill cloth look flawless. All the jacks feel solid and the handle is a turn away from the traditional soft Fender handles. Instead it's a solid piece of plastic and rubber solidly secured to the top of the cabinet.
One thing I did notice though; all the pots are solid metal, except the damping control which is really a cheap feeling piece of plastic.
Would it really have been that hard to just use a metal pot for that as well?
That seems to be the only punch pulled however as the amp is overly very solid and coming in at 32kg (71lbs.) you'd want it to be...

I really don't like the little push in buttons, I would have preferred physical toggles rather than small, fragile, cheesy feeling buttons. But hey, the red lights are pretty...

It really doesn't look that bad....
The aesthetic design of this amp seemed to be the only thing a lot of people had to complain about when it came to early previews of this amp. I've thought about this pretty long and particularly how I'm going to word this next part of the review.

It doesn't look like a Fender, deal with it.

I honestly believe there is way too much stigma going around trying to compare it to vintage Fender's when it isn't a vintage Fender. It's not trying to be a vintage Fender. It has the same badge, the comparisons should stop there.
It doesn't really look like anything really. It doesn't look overly mesa-ish or anything like a Vox. It really does look like it's own thing.
Plus, I think the racing stripe and white piping look badass.

Sounds
Okay lets put all that stuff aside and talk about how it sounds.
I've had it for just over two weeks now, I've used it at a few rehearsals and got the master volumes going pretty high so the speaker while not fully loose is not as stiff as when I first took it out of the box.

Clean channel?
So here is my first limitation of this amp. The clean channel isn't very clean. I have a Princeton Reverb and the Machete just peaks above the Princeton's complete clean volume threshold. It's louder and moves more air due to it's 12" speaker but it's certainly not a mega clean amp.
However, moving the damping control fully over too loose gives a boost of pure headroom that puts allows itself beautifully for nice, jangly cleans. This is fine for me as I believe the amps best tones are found when the speaker damping is set fully to loose but if someone wanted a tighter gain channel and still have pure clean on the clean channel, the limiting nature of the damping control makes that a little tricky.
The 6db pad helps out and cleans things up with my Stray Dog or 335.

I was wondering where the vintage Fender clean was hiding out. Turns out yu just have to keep the bright switch on, there's a slight midrange scoop that lands you right in Blackface county.

The gain on the first channel, if wound up just past half way delivers a beautiful, bluesy, Fender crunch that is so authentic it almost hurts. The gain boost pushes the clean channel up to more recent ZZ Top levels of gain. Perfect for rhythm and big sounding chords.
Fender could honestly make a single channel amp with just the first channel for half price, make it look like a Blackface and they'd sell like crazy.

Getting your dirt on
Swapping to the dirty channel, everything on midday apart from volume, the first thing I realized that there is so much more gain in this amp than I would use. But it's so molten and thick sounding on the neck pickup and so tight and punchy sounding on the bridge pickup.
Pulling the gain back to about a quarter is where the amp really hit home for me and this is how I use it in my band and music uses. It's a lovely fat, sustaining, blooming overdrive sound that works equally well for rhythm or lead.
Pushing the gain over halfway and cranking the damping control up to tight lands you straight in death metal territory. Feedback and endless sustain are easily found.

The gain is very pleasing, it's not harsh, there's no artifacts, it doesn't feel unnatural, it just works.

This is the nicest gain on an amplifier I've ever used. It just works for me.

Make sure no one bumps your EQ...
One of the things I noticed is how sensitive the EQ is, tiny little touches really make huge changes. If you play with the EQ enough on the clean channel, drop the midrange and bump up the bass, lovely bassman reminiscent tones can be coaxed. On the other hand, if you push up the midrange and treble, the more aggressive sounds of the Deluxe Reverb and Vibrolux can be found.

Same is true for the dirty channel, and dialing it in can really take a while. This can be frustrating at first but once you get the hang of it, it gets pretty good straightforward. I just can't imagine pushing the EQ knobs fully in any way, extreme settings just don't work for this amp.

Notch control?
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, let's talk notch.
First half, from 0 to 12, is awesome, it's great, everyone's happy.
from 12 to maximum (for me anyway) completely useless.
It takes all life out of the tone, adds a fat, midrange-less character that really I just can't get to work.

Funnily enough, straight in at midday, the notch control is the standard Fender tone.

On the other hand, the first part of it sounds great, all the way to the 'british' side, backing off the gain on the second channel and setting the damping to 'loose' delivers a lovely old school Marshall tone that I just love.
When it comes to metal, I'm more in the boosted Marshall side of things, so this really sits well with me.
On the clean channel, backing the gain off all the way and going full Brit with the notch injects EL84 type, squishy midrange into the classic Fender cleans giving it a kind of Hiwatt kind of feel.

Rip off the second half of the notch control and I'm a happy man.

Loose ends
I've never been bothered with effects loops, but jumping the jacks on the back and cranking the return and send level and using the footswitch allows for a lovely post preamp boost that just kicks the level up a notch. Super clever stuff.
The 4-button footswitch is very useful indeed, it can change the amp channel, engage the gain boost on the first channel, turn the reverb on and off and engage the effects loop. It really grants you ultimate control.

I've never really been into scores, but here's a video

[youtube][/youtube]

Thanks guys,
-FTN

[Doog]

Wow, sounds like a fucking winner! Never even heard of the Machete, will have to keep 'em peeled in the future, just in case one crops up for a good price..

[Mike]

I think it sounds great. Nice work on the demo too!

[lorez]

great review thanks.

[Freethenoise]

Thanks guys!
I'll get around to recording a few sound samples using just the XLR out with cabinet emulation and see how it stacks up against a mic'd setup, so far though, really loving it.