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I spend a good amount of my time teaching guitar, and many of my students are younger. My first thought when unpacking the Fender 212R was about its likely success as a 'first band' amp. A ton of my entry-level students seem to gravitate to Fender's 15-watt Frontman practice amp, and the 212R will give them a similar look, feel, and tone with enough power to handle ensemble performance.
That's not to say this is a glorified beginner's amp. It has plenty of pro-level features, including footswitchable channel selection, an effects loop to get your pedalboard into the mix, and a solid Fender sound backed by 100-watts of power. Intermediate axe-slingers and crafty veterans should have no problem dialing up some tasty tones.
As with most Fender amps, the control layout is very straightforward. On the left, a pair of 1/4-inch input jacks await your instrument cable. Jack number 2 is padded, so if you have extra-hot pickups or are planning on running high-output pedals up front, you may want to give that one a go.
Next are the controls for channels 1 and 2. You get dedicated Volume and 3-band EQ knobs for each channel, and the dirty channel adds a drive knob, a 'more drive' switch for added gain boost, and a shape switch for the midrange EQ. With the shape (labeled Contour) switch engaged, I was able to get a more progressive mid-scooped tone often used for harder-edged music. Channel controls are followed by a single reverb knob that is used for both channels.
On the far right, 1/4-inch jacks for the (included) footswitch and effects loop (Pre-out/Power-in) are readily accessible. If you plan to keep your pedals in front of the inputs, you can always use the Pre-out to drive a power amp/cabinet rig or as a PA send or direct recording option. The channel EQ knobs are still in effect for these applications.
Fender amps are probably best known for their clean tone, so I started with Channel 1. It's a far cry from the warmth and richness you get with a Fender tube amp, but fared as well or better than many other solid state amps I've used. For the price (compared to a vintage Blackface, for example), the 212R exhibits an acceptable amount of Fender-ness with plenty of headroom. I was using a Schecter with fairly hot humbuckers for the demo, and the clean channel didn't start to break up until I hit around 8 on the volume knob. That said, Channel 1 seemed a little quieter than I would have expected out of a 100-watt, 2x12 combo.
The clean channel was very pedal-friendly, offering a stable platform for a variety of distortion and modulation effects I tested. Some amps don't seem to play nice with pedals, but the 212R was very transparent, letting the texture of the pedal shine through in a musical way.
Switching to the gain channel, I was impressed by the tight solid-state response and the clear note articulation that jumped out of the speakers. Depending on your taste in overdrive, you may not even need to add additional pedals to the signal chain. For me, the tone was a little bit sterile, but I'm partial to the chunkier tube amp sound. Again, at a fraction of the price of a Hot Rod DeVille, the 212R has plenty of bang for the buck. The gain boost afforded by the 'More Drive' switch was decent, and the transition back and forth was smooth. Keep in mind, the EQ settings for Drive and More Drive are the same. I wouldn't necessarily be looking to dial in a whole new lead tone with this amp, just to push it a little farther out front when the time is right.
Quality reverb is another hallmark of Fender's amp line, though the tank on the 212R sounded a bit empty. The spring unit was much smaller than I was expecting compared to other Fender amps, but not sure if that's the culprit or not. I had to crank the 'verb knob up more than half way to get a noticeable coloration. In a pinch it will work, but if I relied heavily on reverb, I'd probably run an external processor in through the loop.
Overall, the Fender Frontman 212R is a solid journeyman amp. It's relatively lightweight for easy gigging, and I liked the open-back design with velcro fasteners for the power cord and included footswitch. I'm constantly tripping over those kinds of things, so it's nice to know there's a convenient place to tuck them away without damaging the internal components. The tone is solid, if not quite on par with some of Fender's flagship tube amps, but you'll be hard pressed to find a better solid-state workhorse in this price range.
4.5 out of 5
(129 ratings)
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