Shortly after unveiling six new pedals at last January’s Winter NAMM show, leading guitar manufacturer Fender has again added six more entries in its ever-expanding line of effects pedals during the Summer NAMM show in Nashville. The new additions include MTG:LA, Reflecting Pool, Compugilist, Pour Over, Trapper, and Smolder.
Among the latest batch of effects, Reflecting Pool is the most robust functionality-wise. Housed in the largest chassis, it combines a reverb pedal with stereo delay, providing extensive functionality and control of every effect’s parameters—Rate, Depth, Level, Mix, Feedback, and Time on the Delay side and Level, Damp, Decay, and Extra on the Reverb side. The Reflecting Pool also consists of tap-tempo footswitch and time toggle for subdivisions.
Pour Over is the first envelope filter in Fender’s effects line. Described as an auto-wah effect, it carries selectable low-, high-, and band-pass filters, plus an onboard distortion circuit.
Smolder is an all-analog acoustic pedal that vows to address typical acoustic distortion tonal issues with features such as a Pickup Comp knob that smooths out the bright attack of a piezo pickup.
While Fender’s effects line already has several distortions and a standalone compressor effect, the Compugilist pairs both effects in a single pedalboard-friendly enclosure. These two all-analog circuits can be stacked together for the ultimate pairing or used individually.
Another addition is the Trapper—a dual fuzz unit loading a softer-sounding first voice with a switchable high octave along with a grittier second voice that includes a very interactive noise gate.
Ultimately, Fender iterated on its MTG Tube Distortion pedal with the MTG:LA, which is built around an authentic US-made NOS 6205 preamp tube.
