I've known for a while that they were sunsetting Fuse, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I have a Super Champ X2, and it's a great little amp. After your comment, I decided to see what Fender has to say about that amp since they still make and sell it. You can run it as a regular tube amp or, using Fuse, you can go in and make changes to some of the parameters. Included in those parameters is a Mid tone control that there isn't a knob for on the face of the amp. They used to talk about that feature on the web site. "Internal mid control" or something is what they called it. They've removed any reference to it.
Although I haven't used it with the amp, I also have a GDEC that I use all the time for playing jam tracks. Since they have done away with Fuse, I guess it's a good thing I've never really utilized that amp for actually plugging a guitar into. However, I also have a Mustang Floor that I use for the occasional church gig that I use Fuse for pretty heavily. With 2 amps and the Floor, I'd say I'm pretty heavily invested in needing Fuse. I don't believe that Fender has ever come up with an alternative to the Floor, but, if they do, since their tech seems to have a really short shelf-life, I guess I'll go with one of the FlyRigs or something instead.
I'm with you. If/when I buy another amp from Fender, the availability of lack or an app to go with it won't be a consideration unless the app is needed to use the amp, and, if it is required, I won't be getting that amp. It seems that Fender doesn't really stick with any of their products that use forward-thinking tech. The VG Strat was only made for a couple of years I believe. Then they came out with that Strat that used the personality cards or whatever they were called. I'm not sure those lasted a full year before you never heard about them anymore. I think Fuse lasted all of 7 years (2012 - 2019).
I'm not going to theorize as to why Fender doesn't stick with new tech. It most cases, it could be that the market is just not there since guitar players at large seem to think older gear is better than anything new. In the case of Fuse, Silverlight's sunset is next year, so I'm guessing that they just decided not to pursue it anymore. I wish they would've thought about making something that would be backwards compatible for the generation of amps that aren't even 10 years old yet rather than just leaving us high and dry But I guess that's one of the frustrations with most tech these days...buy the latest greatest today and it's practically obsolete tomorrow.
Went to check things out on the Fender Forum. Seems they shut it down?
This is what I find the most odd. I've never been active on their forum, but I'd hit it once or twice a month just to read some of what was there. Oddly enough, it never was a really active forum. But, like you said, I can't find it anymore. The couple of threads that I had saved for informational purposes, when I click my links to them, aren't there anymore. Strange. Doing a little more digging, I found
this page. It's what used to be the main forum page, and basically just says they decided to go another direction. I also noticed that they've added SnapChat, Pinterest, and Tumblr to their social media. From what I understand from those that used to use them, Pinterest and Tumblr are both as relevant as MySpace...pretty much dead at this point. Kind of makes me wonder who's running their social media department.
