Fender has released a free new recording app called Fender Studio that seems pretty powerful. The app, available on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux, supports multitrack recording and offers a host of effects that emulate guitar pedals and several of the company’s iconic amplifiers over the years.
Some of the simulated amps include a 1965 Fender Twin Reverb and a 1959 Fender Bassman, but you can get more, like a Fender Super-Sonic or Tube Preamp, if you connect the app to a free Fender Connect account. It’s the same story with pedals: you get options like Overdrive and Small Hall Reverb to start, but you can unlock others like a Stereo Tape Delay and Vintage Tremolo by registering.
In addition to the simulated amps and pedals, the app has a variety of basic effects like reverb, delay, compression, and vocoder. You can use up to eight tracks for multitrack recording, but registering the app gets you up to 16 tracks.
The app also comes with a few pre-recorded tracks to play around with. You can’t use them commercially — the app makes you agree to a license agreement that says so right at the top — but they’re a good way to familiarize yourself with what it’s capable of.
I played around a little bit with Fender Studio on my iPhone before writing this story. At first glance, it’s similar to Apple’s GarageBand app. Both let you use effects that mimic classic amplifiers and pedals, have things like built-in tuners and metronomes, and include a number of different effects and EQ options.
But Fender’s app feels more intuitive and makes better use of the cramped space of a smartphone screen, with support for both landscape and portrait orientation (GarageBand only works in landscape). I find that I can never remember how to do things in GarageBand, and trying to figure it out each time is frustrating enough that I never bothered to develop a workflow for recording with it.
I’ve also always been a sucker for simulated amplifiers in recording apps, one area of software that never really gave up on skeuomorphism. I haven’t used a Twin Reverb in many years and haven’t played through a Bassman, but just recording with a hollow-body guitar through my iPhone’s built-in mic — if you have a USB-C DAC, you can use that to record with a more professional mic, too — the effect was decent enough that I could see using it to conceptualize a recording or even make a quick backing track for a video on TikTok.
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