Fender Downtown Express - any experience?

[Minininjarob]

As the title says - online reviews are generally positive but anyone actually own one?

I’ve been to a friends who has so many pedals of all sorts and tried them all out and I pretty much concluded I want a compressor/EQ/overdrive so apart from a tuner it would seem it covers all the functions I would need. 
Looks nicely made too! 
 

https://www.fender.com/en-GB/effects-pedals/bass/downtown-express-bass-multi-effect-pedal/0234538000.html?rdl=true

Edited November 24, 2022 by Minininjarob

[NHM]

I had one for a couple of years but then moved it on. The EQ and compressor were good but I didn't use the drive, but then found I wasn't using the compressor or eq either...

Can you borrow one from someone local to try out? 

[Minininjarob]

48 minutes ago, NHM said:

I had one for a couple of years but then moved it on. The EQ and compressor were good but I didn't use the drive, but then found I wasn't using the compressor or eq either...

Can you borrow one from someone local to try out? 

I could see if PMT have one to try out but to be honest I don’t really know what is good or bad. 
I think I want a fairly subtle compressor and overdrive 

[NHM]

Trying one out in a shop is a good idea. As for 'good or bad', you can assume that a Fender product will be good in terms of its build quality as it is a reputable brand, but whether you feel it is good or bad for your sound is subjective to you. What suits one person doesn't suit another person. Try out as many different pedals as you can to get a sense of how the different types vary - then you'll be able to decide what suits your needs best.

[Doddy]

It's a really good pedal, and Ive used one quite a bit. I think the EQ is great, the drive is nice, and the compressor works well (I pretty much never use compression, and if I do it's super subtle). It's also designed by Alex Aguilar, so you'd expect it to be decent.

I've got individual pedals that I prefer but as a one box solution, the Fender is great.

 

[Osiris]

I've had one and like it a lot. For the money you get a lot of useful and usable features especially when compared to some other bass pre-amp pedals. The EQ is simple but very effective and will dial in petty much any sound you're likely to need. The centre frequencies don't seem to be stated anywhere but they feel like they're in about the right place, the bass EQ control is a little low for my tastes but I play short scales exclusively these days so the inherent short scale tubbiness could be part of the issue here, although I only use it for cutting rather than boosting as that helps to add clarity with a shorty. The mid control has a wide sweep and goes from scooped slappiness to a nasal grunt. The treble control is pretty much where I want it for adding clarity without getting brittle and even rolled right back it still leaves the tone with a usable amount of definition. 

 

The compressor feels like it's an optical design although this isn't explicitly stated anywhere. I'm not really a fan of optical compressors but it works well although it's not always quick enough (there's no Attack control) to catch big spikes, this could be an issue if you slap but it works well enough with finger and plectrum styles. The release is also quite slow and cannot be adjusted. It also has a clean blend for dialling in some parallel compression.  The threshold control seems to have a limited usable range, essentially only really usable below around 9 o'clock with passive basses, I suspect a hot bass could be problematic. There's a single LED meter but you can feel the compression kicking in before the LED lights up so it's kind of redundant. It's not my favourite compressor but it does the job. 

 

The drive section is excellent, IMO. It's more of a warm and rounded pushed valve amp type of drive so if you're looking for a Tech 21/DarkGlass scooped clank look elsewhere. It seems to have an inherent mid boost (think Tube Screamer style drive) and a fixed clean blend, both of which work really well when playing along to backing tracks. At low gain it does a good 'hint of breaking up' sound and when pushed it gives a pleasing smooth distortion, neither fizzy or bloated. There's a toggle switch to change the position of the drive and compressor, I personally like to use to comp before the drive so that it can be kicked in for a gain boost. But using comp after drive gives a more controlled tone. 

 

The pedal itself is reassuringly heavy and feels well made and pretty much bomb proof with solid feeling footswitches. I'm not overly enamoured with the anaemic pissy yellow finish, the white lettering will make it a nightmare to read on a dark stage but the blue LED's in each control will help you see where things are set in the dark, but due the pedals colour scheme you'll need to memorise which control does what if you want to change things on the fly on a gig. 

 

In summary, I think the colour scheme is a questionable design choice, black lettering would have made more sense than white, IMO. But blue LED's are cool, they just are. The compressor is good but not great and the pedal itself feels solid and has excellent EQ and drive sections. 

[Minininjarob]

Thanks so much for that detailed description. I’ll try and audition one in a shop. 
Good to know it’s well made. I wouldn’t automatically assume cos it’s Fender it would be well made. 

[Osiris]

6 minutes ago, Minininjarob said:

Good to know it’s well made. I wouldn’t automatically assume cos it’s Fender it would be well made. 

 

I reckon if you lobbed it at someone it'd pretty much take their head clean off their shoulders 

[MichaelDean]

You can try one out on Thomann's website! It's only an option for a relatively small sample of pedals, but it's a really cool feature. You can even use an audio interface to play through it in real-time or pre-record some audio so you can knob tweak. 

 

https://www.thomann.de/gb/stompenberg_fender_dowtown_express_bass_station.html

[Minininjarob]

54 minutes ago, Osiris said:

 

I reckon if you lobbed it at someone it'd pretty much take their head clean off their shoulders 

“It’s heavy” would use less words but I prefer your description! 😂