I've been using valve amps and an array of pedals for years for live gigs and practice. They sound great but they weigh a ton. I decided to look for something more portable with built in effects that I can just turn up to gigs, plug in and play. After trawling through the internet I narrowed it down to the Boss Katana and the new Fender Mustang GTX. After comparing the features, price and the fact the Mustang GTX100 comes with a footswitch, I opted for the Fender.
I've now been using the amp for a while now and am very impressed.
The presets are great with sounds for most types of music. It has a load of amp models, cab models and effects which you can use to create your own patches or alter the presets. Each parameter is tweakable from the amp or from an app you can download on to your phone and links to the amp via Bluetooth.
I'm not the most technically minded man in the world but I managed to work out the app controls in about 10 minutes however, if apps aren't your thing, it’s not essential. You can, however, use the app to create playlists so that you can keep the patches you use most often together in one place. This would be very useful in a gig situation where you could have a different patch for every song if you liked.
You can add up to five effects to each patch but be aware that some patches seem to take two places rather than one. I guess this is to do with how complex they are. The effects are very good with something for most situations. There are a few that are only really useable if you buy the expression pedal (wah and pitch shifters). You can alter the order of the effects putting them before or after the preamp (as you would with an effects loop).
There is a very useable looper giving you 60 seconds of loop time. I’ve never been that keen on them before but I’m very impressed with the sound quality on this one.
If I had to find a downside with this amp I suppose you could say that there is perhaps a bit too much you can tweak. Once you start twiddling and meddling it’s hard to stop.
I suppose the main question to ask with any modelling amp is does it sound as good as the amps it’s trying to emulate? The answer is obviously no, but it’s very close. I was expecting something that sounded synthetic but it seems to react well to playing dynamics as a valve amp would. The Fender amps sound especially good.
It's easy to use, lightweight, loud and sounds good with a huge array of options on tap.
A very good amp