What's so special about Friedman amps?

Fortheloveofguitar

I bought a BE-50 Deluxe and sold it within a week 

Clean channel was nothing special, BE was great, HBE was meh. So all in all one great channel wasn’t worth 3K+ to me 

Aidanspaghetti

To be honest I was lusting after a Friedman for years and finally got a Smallbox - It was brilliant but a life got hectic quick and I promptly had to sell it. I eventually replaced it with a SS100 which I also loved but again I had to sell. 
To be honest I ended up living on the clean channel with a BD-2 lol. Amazing sound, but I ende up flipping it and getting a Satriani Marshall for peanuts which is fantastic. Honestly, I never thought of looking at Marshalls (Im a Marshall user all my life basically) for that thing but it does it so well. Never use the 2 lead channels, just clean and crunch (and my trusty BD-2).
I'll definitely get another Friedman at some stage - intrigued by the Deluxes but then The Mezzabarba M-zero seems tobe the missing link between SLO and Marshall (For me) so maybe one of them lol.
Great great times to be a guitar player!

WiresDreamDisasters

Those Satch JVM's are pretty great to be honest!

Jonathanthomas83

Mentions of Friedman, Mezzabarba, Soldano and Diezel...bucket list amps right there! One day...

WiresDreamDisasters

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Mentions of Friedman, Mezzabarba, Soldano and Diezel...bucket list amps right there! One day...

TBH you can get a steal these days on the Diezel's. D-Moll for £1000 isn't to be sniffed at!

Jonathanthomas83

That is ridiculous indeed. I've wanted a VH4 since Muse's Absolution in 2003, so that's the only one for me, I think. Been a long wait! Ha.

If I could order them in terms of the one I want most, it'd be:
- Diezel
- Mezzabarba/Soldano
- Friedman

Aidanspaghetti

Ill try link this demo, check this bad boy out, 
Fantastic musician...
https://m.facebook.com/amudimusic/videos/584600558745501/?refsrc=https://m.facebook.com/&_rdr

Jonathanthomas83

Nice that!

breezytele

WiresDreamDisasters said:

I've been drooling over Friedman amps recently. Electronically and historically speaking, what's special about them? They seem special to me. But I don't know if that's just amp GAS rearing it's ugly head!  

 You might enjoy this b.a.d. factory tour with Mr Friedman  (March 2019)

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/boutique-amps-factory-tour/

spirit7

Agree with the above on Diezel prices. I sold my Herbert Mk. 1 for £1400 last year, which is a steal. 

sgosden

I'm still in honeymoon period with my JJ jnr, but will say it really has made me want to pick up the guitar more.

I obviously got it to play them bones on loop for hours on end, but have actually spent more time on the normal BE channel with a LOT LESS gain than I'd have expected me to have. And a long time on the clean channel too, but that's more in the evening, as I've got in in my head that neighbours don't mind clean noodlings as much as ' teh brootz' .

It reacts really well to volume knob on both channels. At home it seems fuller than the kraken I still have, or other amps that have gone. And turned dup a bit its got presence without getting fizzy.

it doesn't need any pedals up front, but takes them really well. particularly a klone or TS style (set pretty tame). The FX loop is spot on too.

I've played with a drummer and it sits nicely there, but haven't had a chance to play in full band mix yet.

Fenderish

the special thing is you get good amps (some more marshall-esque than others) with good build quality and, if bad luck gets on yours, excellent service. Dave Friedman almost always replies to request, even technical ones (I needed information to mod my runt to change the loop level to line level and he kindly gave the resistor numbers to modify by email.)

rockmonster

I’ve had quite a few Friedman amps (about 8) but not the runts or the deluxes. I preferred the butterslax for crunch and lead tones but there was no clean so it wasn’t versatile enough for me. To me the Friedman is the sound you hear on recordings of how a hotrodded Marshall should sound but it never translated to a live sound for me. They do sound great on their own at home though!lol! I went back to my EVH 100 for live use- The EVH doesn’t sound great until it’s cranked and in a live situation- way less money and 3 properly separate controllable channels. I had a Diezel Einstein too but that didn’t do it for me either! I still have a JVM Satch which I do kinda like and they are cheap as chips. In a live gig nobody notices except yourself in that scenario are they worth the extra 2K-2.5K not for me! Recording at home in a studio? I would probably use a Kemper (which I don’t own as I don’t record) They are lovely to own but overrated IMHO -Let the shit slinging begin!

CHrisP86

I’ve only really played the smaller Friedman’s.

I had a DS Mini and my MJW Electra at the same time and did a few side by side comparisons.

I felt the DS Mini had one sound that was great for bashing our AC/DC riffs. When you got the sweet spot it was perfect with great clarity. Anything outside that just didn’t work for me.

The MJW (also single channel) covered so much more ground and there was very little in it between the two amps when comparing a ‘crunch’ tone.

TTBZ

I still reckon for “modded Marshall” type tones it’s hard to go wrong with a Jubilee. They do so much more than 80s and Slash. With the responsive EQ you can go way thicker and darker than your typical Marshall if you want, and with a Klon or TS into the lead channel you can get some awesome heavy tones. Used mine this way for my stoner/grunge/mastodon rip-off stuff in my old band and it was perfect. I don’t use the clean but rhythm clip is good for the less compressed 800 style stuff. Might as well go to the source and get a UK made reissue and save a load of money over a Friedman in the process

rockmonster

TTBZ said:

I still reckon for “modded Marshall” type tones it’s hard to go wrong with a Jubilee. They do so much more than 80s and Slash. With the responsive EQ you can go way thicker and darker than your typical Marshall if you want, and with a Klon or TS into the lead channel you can get some awesome heavy tones. Used mine this way for my stoner/grunge/mastodon rip-off stuff in my old band and it was perfect. I don’t use the clean but rhythm clip is good for the less compressed 800 style stuff. Might as well go to the source and get a UK made reissue and save a load of money over a Friedman in the process

Is that a 20 watter or the 100?

TTBZ

I use the 20w and actually almost prefer it to the big one as you can get the master up past 6 which is also where the fizz disappears and it fills out into that awesome fat tone.

rockmonster

TTBZ said:

I use the 20w and actually almost prefer it to the big one as you can get the master up past 6 which is also where the fizz disappears and it fills out into that awesome fat tone.

Interesting! I fancy using one and an EVH 50 together!

Modulus_Amps

I don't think it is fair to judge the bigger Friedman heads based on the smaller ones, but I modded a Runt 20 for Steve recently and it sounded killer afterwards, cleans where nicely balanced and all the fizz was gone, you could actually turn up the presence control

JMP220478

Modulus_Amps said:

I don't think it is fair to judge the bigger Friedman heads based on the smaller ones, but I modded a Runt 20 for Steve recently and it sounded killer afterwards, cleans where nicely balanced and all the fizz was gone, you could actually turn up the presence control

I love the notion and irony of modified Friedman's ..

perhaps Marshall should make them ? :-)