Fender Smolder

The Fender Smolder is an acoustic overdrive pedal: an all-analog stompbox built to give an overdrive voice to a piezo-equipped acoustic guitar. Its circuit takes the frequency response of a piezo-equipped acoustic and morphs it into more of a magnetic pickup-like response before the distortion stage, and a Pickup Compensation control smooths out highs¹. It is listed at $149.99², with MusicRadar reporting a price of $169/£129³, so the two press reports disagree on the dollar figure.

What it does

The Smolder is aimed at acoustic players who want drive from a piezo pickup without the brittle, "ear-stabbing" qualities an ordinary overdrive can bring. Guitar.com's Richard Purvis found that the blend dial "allows you to retain the twinkly attack of your clean sound with the fuzzy stuff mostly just filling out" the background, and called that probably the best way to use the pedal⁴. MusicRadar's review went further, concluding: "Another superlative Fender stompbox, the Smolder is more than just a drive pedal, it could well become the secret weapo"⁵ of choice for electro-acoustic players.

GuitarPlayer's review described the design intent plainly: "The Smolder is designed to mitigate the junk and accentuate the harmonically pleasing elements contained in the signal"⁶. In other words, it tones down the harsh transients and rough mids and lows a piezo pickup produces while keeping the pleasing harmonic content.

How it works

Fender's designer Stan Cotey, who had a hand in engineering the company's amps, led the design with input from professional gigging and studio musicians⁷. In a Sweetwater demo video, Don Carr and Stan Cotey walked through the signal path: "there's a circuit that will take the frequency response of a piezo-equipped acoustic guitar and kind of morph it into more of a magnetic pickup-like response," followed by a distortion circuit modeled on a preamp channel from a Deluxe, then a mimic of a speaker and a mimic of a mic, all in one path with a mixer to blend¹.

Controls

The Pickup Compensation control drew particular praise. MusicRadar's review called it "evidence that Fender has thought this through," noting it is not the sort of ubiquitous feature found everywhere⁵. The pedal also has built-in cabinet simulation, which Guitar World noted is for use when plugging into a full-range acoustic amp or PA²; MusicRadar's review described it as a default inbuilt cabinet simulation active when the pedal is plugged into an amp or PA⁵.

Where it came from

The Smolder was unveiled at Summer NAMM 2019 as part of a six-pedal expansion of Fender's effects line³. MusicRadar's Michael Astley-Brown noted that the pedal "unusually opts to provide an amped distortion tone" for acoustic guitars³. gearnews.com described it simply as an "acoustic OD" effect⁹, and Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio called it "an overdrive for acoustic guitars (Smolder)"¹⁰. It sits alongside the Fender Acoustic Preverb from the same release⁸.

Videos

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