Fender Cybertwin Review

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★★★★☆
4.3
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mvr7077's review of Fender Cybertwin

“TONE ”

★★★★☆

written by mvr7077 on 18/09/2006

Good Points
Tone, versatility, ease of use, 5 year warranty, tube preamp section

Bad Points
Weight, Fender-o-centric tones (can't get certain tones), reliability

General Comments
TONE

After 5 years I am still impressed with the tone and versatility of the Cybertwin. It definitely sounds better to me than full digital modeling amps (Line 6 et al). (Despite public perception, the Cybertwin is not all digital modeling - it has two 12ax7 tubes that it uses in many of the preamp selections, and it has the actual tone circuitry from many different amps to switch between. The power amp is solid state and the effects are modelled.)



VERSATILITY / USEABILITY

They did a good job of giving this amp an incredible number of options and parameters while also making it very easy to use if you don't want to wade in too deep.



Adding the Cyber Foot Controller (which costs about 25% of the price of the amp and weighs almost as much) gives the option of controlling a number of parameters from the stage. Sidenote: you can use any MIDI controller instead of the Fender foot controller (eg Behringer's is cheaper) but the construction of Fender's is much better.



FENDER SNOBS

I wish Fender had been less snobby making this amp and would give presets that cover other amps. Instead of a Roland Jazz Chorus we get Princeton and similar, and instead of Mesa Boogie we get Fender's equivalent. It does a good Marshall though, but Fender calls it Her Majesty's Bassman (because Jim Marshall modified an old baseman). So they are really in-your-face with their history.



BAD STUFF

I have two beefs. One beef is that I have not yet got a true Mesa Boogie tone out of it (see above comment about them being Fender-o-centric). The second is reliability. I had several items fixed for free under the excellent 5 year warranty after playing it for almost 5 years. Despite the repairs the amp still cuts out occasionally, even with filtered power supplies. This is rare, but still happens. I have to change to a different preset and change back again and all is well. But, it's a real pain in the ass if you're in a gig situation!



They were able to fix the FX knobs, which were working but jumped around while turning. And I got a free upgrade to Version 1.3 from 1.0. IMPORTANT: YOU NEED TO UPGRADE TO THE 'TUBE RATTLE KIT' THAT IS PART OF VERSION 1.3 AND HIGHER. Earlier amps can generate noise in the tubes by allowing the tubes to rattle, especially at higher volume.



I still recommend this amp over full digital modelling gear to people who want the versatility that amps like this can offer.

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