Weird Friedman input problem

[dxlxntxxlxr]

i went to my local music store and plugged into a friedman be-50 deluxe. i tried to push the front end into 5150 territory with my ehx east river (true bypass 808 clone) and it didnt really do much. I then tried the khdk ghoul jr which was much the same but with a nasty eq curve. I tried both the j rockett rockaway and the archer. The archer worked better than the others but still wasnt getting there. At this point i have no idea what would work. My first thought was the precision drive, which i havent tried. Thoughts?

 

[Jacew]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

5150 has multiple preamp stages. Pushing front end only adds the first preamp stage to distortion. I don't know how friedman pre-amp is built, but you may need distortion or stack OD's to get there. It's not just about the level of distortion, but how it's distributed.

 

[PS412]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

Sorry to interrupt, what was your overall impression of the be50?

 

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

Sorry to interrupt, what was your overall impression of the be50?

I absolutely loved the midrange character and overall gain character. The clean channel was more pristine and punchy than i expected which i love. It was just weird how the input sucked up the drive pedal and reacted minimally to it. The tube screamer/klon style circuit offered virtually no compression or sustain. It might just be an issue of it needing to be cranked up higher than like 2.5 on the master (even in half power) but i have no idea, hence this thread.

 

[Ayrton]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

Can't say I have tried any pedals in front of the BE-50, but an OD in front of my BE-100 just adds more saturation. The 5150 is more Soldano than (modded) Marshall, but I don't have enough experience with the 5150 to do a deep dive.

What sort of sound are you after?

 

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

im after a 5150 level of saturation, but with the friedman richness of the midrange. Something less "aggro" than a 5150, but with the same level of compression, tightness, sustain, thickness, chunk, etc. i can get that tone with the axe fx friedman 2018 model but im struggling a bit with the actual amp

 

[Ayrton]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

I have a KS Marshall that Dave did for me before the "Marsha" days including the "JBE" or Jerry Cantrell mod. I can get reasonably heavy with that (heavier than I would typically want), so maybe the JJ is closer to what you want.

You can also talk directly with Dave about what you want and he can either suggest something or can even tweak an existing model for you.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

I can't really imagine wanting to turn the BE50 into a 5150, but to each his own I suppose. The BE50 has more than enough gain on tap for my tastes. But these days the heaviest stuff I play is Alter Bridge, AIC, etc.

P.S. Dave Friedman's amps are 100% Friedman. Their tonality will always be Dave's tonality. I've owned six of them and played the rest. My current Buxom Betty is a single channel clean pedal platform. It sounds a lot like a Fender blackface (the best blackface ever). But it doesn't matter whether I hit the front of it with my Strymon Sunset, Friedman Dirty Shirley pedal, Fulltone OCD, or any other OD pedal... what comes out the other end is pure Friedman. Anything from the plexi channel of a Smallbox, to the Dirty Shirley 40, to a raging HBE channel of my old BE100. Dave's tone stack results in amps with his tonal character. Just like Reinhold Bogner's amps always have the Bogner thing going (except maybe the Helios series).

 

[dystrust]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

I can't really imagine wanting to turn the BE50 into a 5150, but to each his own I suppose. The BE50 has more than enough gain on tap for my tastes. But these days the heaviest stuff I play is Alter Bridge, AIC, etc.

P.S. Dave Friedman's amps are 100% Friedman. Their tonality will always be Dave's tonality. I've owned six of them and played the rest. My current Buxom Betty is a single channel clean pedal platform. It sounds a lot like a Fender blackface (the best blackface ever). But it doesn't matter whether I hit the front of it with my Strymon Sunset, Friedman Dirty Shirley pedal, Fulltone OCD, or any other OD pedal... what comes out the other end is pure Friedman. Anything from the plexi channel of a Smallbox, to the Dirty Shirley 40, to a raging HBE channel of my old BE100. Dave's tone stack results in amps with his tonal character. Just like Reinhold Bogner's amps always have the Bogner thing going (except maybe the Helios series).

+1

Soldanos, Rectos, and 5150s are all cut from the same cloth so to speak, so there's a bit of tonal overlap between them. Friedmans and Bogners are a different thing entirely, so while it's possible to get heavy sounds from them, they're never going to really do the Recto or 5150 thing. I have a Jet City 22H, and while it doesn't sound exactly like a Recto or 5150, it gets close enough for my tastes.

 

[Cynical]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

Friedmans and Bogners are a different thing entirely, so while it's possible to get heavy sounds from them, they're never going to really do the Recto or 5150 thing.

The Bogner Uberschall and Twin Jet are more like the early Rectos than the 5150, SLO, Jet Citys, etc. are. I frequently describe the TJ in particular as a "perfected Recto".

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I don't even know what I'd call "the Bogner thing". All of the ones I'm familiar with are really different (aside from the Uber and the TJ, of course). I know people talk about their dark top-ends and thick lower mids, but the Helios, Brixton, and, depending on how it's dialed in, the Uber/TJ (and both channels on the TJ) don't really do that; that's really just an Ecstasy/Shiva thing, and even those two amps are really different from each other.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

The Bogner Uberschall and Twin Jet are more like the early Rectos than the 5150, SLO, Jet Citys, etc. are. I frequently describe the TJ in particular as a "perfected Recto".

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I don't even know what I'd call "the Bogner thing". All of the ones I'm familiar with are really different (aside from the Uber and the TJ, of course). I know people talk about their dark top-ends and thick lower mids, but the Helios, Brixton, and, depending on how it's dialed in, the Uber/TJ (and both channels on the TJ) don't really do that; that's really just an Ecstasy/Shiva thing, and even those two amps are really different from each other.

I had a TJ, and though it's tight and gainy... there's still that Bogner tone in there in how it roars. Regarding the Shiva and XTC (Both of which I've had as well)... they are Reinhold's most well-known, iconic, and beloved amps by far.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

I had a TJ, and though it's tight and gainy... there's still that Bogner tone in there in how it roars. Regarding the Shiva and XTC (Both of which I've had as well)... they are Reinhold's most well-known, iconic, and beloved amps by far.

An Uberschall sounds something like a Recto or 5150 (but still different) as long as you keep the power amp running clean. As soon as you turn it up loud enough for the power amp to start compressing, it becomes its own thing.

 

[Cynical]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

Maybe it's because I've got a KT88 TJ rather than a EL34 Rev Blue, but that doesn't match my experience. While the sound does get a bit weird and dead when the MV is below about 9 'o clock, when you're above that point, you can go well past noon on the MV and still have that same "Recto but brighter in the mids and darker in the treble" sound that happens at about 9:30.

 

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Re: Weird Friedman input problem

I can't really imagine wanting to turn the BE50 into a 5150, but to each his own I suppose. The BE50 has more than enough gain on tap for my tastes. But these days the heaviest stuff I play is Alter Bridge, AIC, etc.

P.S. Dave Friedman's amps are 100% Friedman. Their tonality will always be Dave's tonality. I've owned six of them and played the rest. My current Buxom Betty is a single channel clean pedal platform. It sounds a lot like a Fender blackface (the best blackface ever). But it doesn't matter whether I hit the front of it with my Strymon Sunset, Friedman Dirty Shirley pedal, Fulltone OCD, or any other OD pedal... what comes out the other end is pure Friedman. Anything from the plexi channel of a Smallbox, to the Dirty Shirley 40, to a raging HBE channel of my old BE100. Dave's tone stack results in amps with his tonal character. Just like Reinhold Bogner's amps always have the Bogner thing going (except maybe the Helios series).

Theres just an intangible something that irks me about the 5150 gain structure sometimes. I can get the tone im after from the axe fx friedman (still doesnt really feel like a tube amp), but not from the real amp.