A unique two-in-one guitar amplifier.
Now, how can I ever pass on an amp which shares the exact same name as my beloved bass guitar? The Fender Mustang FT25 is a practice amp, loud enough in any indoor/enclosed setting which gives voice to your electric guitar. We were in the market for a second amp, as my wife has an electric guitar and I have an electric bass guitar and we want to jam together, but we only have one amp between the two of us. So, what to do!?
As the amp which we do have is an electric guitar amp which I had procured from my sister (as she doesn’t use it anymore), so the logical way forward was to buy a bass guitar amp as our second, for its ability to go low and deep. But seeing prices around the $500 mark and its bulkier size, we decided to just get a second electric guitar amp- as I’ve been surviving with my sister’s amp for almost 10 months and in my opinion, it’s deep and bassy enough, if you turn treble right down and max bass!
So, we were drawn to Fender’s amps because they do something which not all amps do. They also include built in effects! Yeah, built in effects! So instead of needing to purchase effect peddles and other gear which equates to more money, more clutter and more cables, the Fender Mustang comes with 30 pre-set guitar effects, sounds which have come right from Fender’s archive of iconic guitar sounds! And not only do you have access to their 30 pre-installed sounds, but there are also 20 extra spots where you can upload your own custom effects, giving you a choice of up to 50 sounds at your fingertips, or should I say at the twist of a nob!
The other things which made the Fender Mustang LT25 so appealing, was its multitude of inputs and output ports! There are your usual 6.3mm jacks in and out, in for your instrument and out for your headphones or into a DI box. And then there are your 3.5mm jacks for standard headphone buds and stereo auxiliary in, which means you can plug in your iPhone with Spotify and be jamming with your fav tracks in an instant! And there’s also an USB-C port so you can record your own music creations and up-date the Firmware when it becomes available.
There are the typical nob controls on all amps to adjust gain, bass, and treble. A larger nob which enables you to cycle through your effects library, and each twist of the nob ends with a tactile click, so you don’t spin-out of control and miss the sound effect you’re looking for in pressure situations! And the postage stamp sized colour screen also shows you which effect (naming it by name) you’ve landed on. There is also a series of buttons to allow you to save settings, depress a button multiple times to install the BPM count which you want the metronome to tap at. And it even has CHROMATIC tuner (whatever that is!).
So, from a features packed point of view, it has everything you want and more! A modern technologically advanced amp for the modern age and modern player! But the most important thing, how does it sound? I hear you ask.
Um,…… Unfortunately, I must admit, the sound isn’t as pure as I like it to be, put simply it doesn’t sound as good as my sister’s amp. And my sister’s amp is from the 00s, year 2001 to be precise, and my sister being a uni student at the time, methinks she didn’t spend all that much on it? But the sound which comes out of her amp just sounds more real, a sound which you can almost touch, and old-school analogue sound which I prefer. You know?
Don’t get me wrong, the Fender Mustang is good, heaps of fun guitar sounds you can spend hours mucking around with, so that you find yourself sitting on the floor beside this thing, as you play a bar and twist the nob to test if another iconic guitar sound fits better with that track you’re playing to. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever played an entire song with the same guitar sound. Like a kid, I’ve been too distracted with all the shiny bells and whistles, I just keep playing around with the choices, so-much-so that I’m not actually focusing on properly playing my guitar.
And then, if I keep the amp on it’s clean setting, completely stripped of any effects, the clean sound which ought to be simply amplifying the digital signals from your guitar, it sounds a bit meh. Or in some cases, it makes me sound crap! The amplification of the guitar’s pick-up is so sensitive that if my instrument is slightly out of tune, it sounds very out of tune through the amp. And each time you slide along your strings, those unwanted sounds are picked-up and broadcasted as well. So, it highlights all the imperfections of your playing, so it feels like the amp is trying its best to make you sound bad. And for someone who is still learning and has a fragile self-confidence in their playing? It just makes me turn back to my sister’s old amp, where I sound like a freakin’ rock-star! Without any need to tune my guitar or alter my playing style.
So, in summary, the Fender Mustang LT25 is not a bad buy, at under $300 Aussie dollars, it’s a lot of bang for your buck. As it is so much more than ‘just an amp’. But to the core, absolute core purpose of its existence, um, I’m safe to say that there are better amps out there. If you want it to perform the simple task of giving your guitar voice, and to make you look and sound good in the process?
But if you want to read more about the Fender Mustang LT25 amp, and perhaps go to a nearby guitar store to test it out for yourself, click HERE! To find out more!
And for those who have been following my bass guitar journey, and as I use this blog platform to record my life like a journal- through what I consume and the material products which I buy…… If you’re interested to know, the last Sunday I played for the church band for the first time! Woohoo! And to put it simply, it was awesome! No, not my playing, but the experience! I never knew the camaraderie that comes from working with others to create a joint product, a single sound. So that was so cool! And I vow to get better! So, after 10 months, I’ve achieved what I originally set-out to achieve, and it’s full-steam ahead from here! Power to the bass players!
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