Fender Pour Over Envelope Filter review

The Big F adds an envelope filter to its ever-expanding lineup of pedals

By Trevor Curwen
( Guitarist )
published
Fender Pour Over Envelope Filter review
(Image: © Future / Olly Curtis)

Guitar World Verdict

There’s plenty to explore with the Pour Over Envelope Filter if you’re up for taking your pedalboard in a more leftfield direction, with onboard gain adding grit and a synth-esque effect to the filter sweeps. Very cool.

Pros

  • +

    Wide range of transformative filter tones.

  • +

    Gain circuit can be used on its own.

  • +

    Another well-designed Fender pedal.

  • +

    Very attractive price.

Cons

  • -

    Not much but envelope filter remains a niche effect.

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Envelope filters, eh? One could make the case that Mike Beigel’s Musitronics got it right with the Mu-Tron III in the 70s and that everyone since has been using that template and just adding their own bells and whistles.

Fender’s first foray into the genre has a similar set of controls to a Mu-Tron on the right with the familiar three-way filter choice (high-pass, low-pass and bandpass) and an Up/Down switch. 

Here, however, there’s the addition of a distortion section on the left-hand side via a toggle switch.

Without the distortion, there’s plenty of variations of auto-wah, quacky shifted tonality and filter sweeps available with careful juxtapositioning of the controls, but bringing in the distortion adds an instant edge and throatiness that can make those filter sweeps more synth-like and get you closer to talkbox-like sounds. 

As a bonus, you can use the distortion on its own - possibly adding some tonal shading rather than filter movement.

Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Fender)

As with the other pedals in Fender's lineup, the knobs have LED lights that you can turn on and off via a switch on the side of the pedal.

Specs

  • PRICE: $179.99 / £129
  • ORIGIN: China 
  • TYPE: Envelope filter pedal 
  • FEATURES: True bypass, 2x fuzz voices, selectable octave 
  • CONTROLS: Tone, Gain, Freq, Q, Level, Drive, Distortion switch, Filter switch (HP/BP/LP), Up/Down switch, LED kill switch, Bypass footswitch
  • CONNECTIONS: Standard input,  standard output 
  • POWER: 9V battery or 9V DC adaptor  (not supplied) 75mA 
  • DIMENSIONS: 95 (w) x 125 (d) x 64mm (h)
  • CONTACT: Fender

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Trevor Curwen
Trevor Curwen

Trevor Curwen has played guitar for several decades – he's also mimed it on the UK's Top of the Pops. Much of his working life, though, has been spent behind the mixing desk, during which time he has built up a solid collection of the guitars, amps and pedals needed to cover just about any studio session. He writes pedal reviews for Guitarist and has contributed to Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Future Music among others.