FRIEDMAN BE-OD
Now what would a company that makes handmade Marshall type re-pro and hot rod amps know about making a pedal?
Well they might know better then to go onto a flooded market with anything but the best. They make amps in the $3000.00 range. I think the idea was to make this a candy for the guy that gets one...so if you want more...you will just buy the amp.
The pedal is a clone of their BE Amp.BE...stands for Brown Eyed.
Friedman amps were originally called Marsha.
This is a high gain pedal. When the knob on the Friedman is only turned half way up it has more gain then the competitors.
I can tell you right now if you only want one pedal for serious 'remove the back wall' distortion this one can do it!!!
So...is this the best OD ever?Yes...and No. It is not the fatest. It has a nice JCM 800 sound in there but boosting willy-nilly
it all but disappears and it can get a bit harsh. Realistically it should be considered a distortion pedal.
But medium and low gain distortion can be covered with a couple of $35.00 USD Chinese clones
so ...
selling the family cow for a high gain pedal is not an issue.
It is reasonably versatile. Back it off and you have a great pedal for OD chord work...even a fixed position C sounds good...crank it past half way and do some Metal...turn it up all the way...and throw away that Fuzz pedal you have,
It has incredible definition no matter where you set it.
I do not think you could muddy it up if you tried, Every note is razor cut clear. It is definitely not warm. It reminds me of an early 70's Hi Watt amp in the way that many choose to set it up.
Pete Thorn in his vid does a beautiful job of keeping all the lovely nasty stuff but still pulling out a Marshall JMT45 sound out of it.He seems to think this thing is flat out the very best OD you can get. In his other vids he has played some exceptional OD's. In short this is a bold statement...as a reviewer it paints him into the corner of the room. My point is he has a lot to loose saying this.
Ok...one pedal is not perfect for everyone. BUT....for those that want to blow out the back wall yet still have great tone... old Pete says 'this is it.' ...and his video is very, very convincing.
I have been whacking out $200.00 to $400.00 every few weeks lately trying to find the ultimate dirt pedal for soloing. How often does one use there 2nd or 3rd best pedal when shredding time arrives.
So what's my point.
I ordered one. LOL
If it really is that good...there will be some very nice nearly new mint condition dirt pedals for sale on Reverb.
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Current Price $200.00 USDa bit cheaper then the competitionbut they are still new to getting a serious pedal rep. |
It has 6 knobs to control all the goodies. You get treble and bass tone controls. The presence is very nice...if you like that fat bassy Marshall sound you can add some sizzle without having to nudge up the highs and screw up the sound.
or you can back them off if you go into ultra-shred...so the crowd won't go home with tinnitus.
Tight is popular with everyone since Amptweaker put it on a pedal.
Very useful though it does eat up your low end.
Last but not least is the gain knob. It can easily put out more then double the gain that most players would need.
Finally...it is nice size not to large a footprint but big enough to easily get your hands around all those control goodies.
The look is simple and unpretentious.
So...hopefully I will soon have my pedal...and I will extend and edit this post.
ONE WEEK LATER AND IT ARRIVED AT MY DOOR...
PETE THORN STUCK HIS NECK OUT AND BASICALLY SAID THAT THIS IS THE BEST DISTORTION PEDAL EVER!!!
I have had mine know for only a half hour.
Apparently PETE did not have some emotional over reaction
HE'S RIGHT!
I THINK THIS IS THE VERY BEST DISTORTION PEDAL I HAVE EVER PLAYED
TELLING YOU THIS IS LIKE BETTING ON A FIXED RACE !!!!!!
My first impression was quite simply stunned disbelief.
SO....It is a few days later and I have played around with the pedal a bit. A bit of fine tuning to get
that extra drop of perfection from it.
I have some decent guitars..I usually leave 3 or 4 in the rehearsal room in the city.
As fate would have it...I had not tried my Les Paul with it.
I now have.
I now have.
I new it would sound good ...BUT OH MY GOD....this pedal just went from amazing to a place I can not describe.
THIS PEDAL ....SERVES A FUNCTION.
IT IS A LOOK AT ME SHRED PEDAL!!! lol
THIS PEDAL ....SERVES A FUNCTION.
IT IS A LOOK AT ME SHRED PEDAL!!! lol
FIRST LOOK AT THE FRIEDMAN
DP-OD
WHEN IT COMES TO THE BEST PEDAL TO SHRED WITH I ALWAYS OWN ONE JUST FOR THAT!!!
Today JAN. 1 2018 my Friedman BE-OD was SOLD!
WHY ???...a better OD
CUSTOM TONES ETHOS TWE-1 TRAIN WRECK EXPRESS OD/PREAMP
WARNING
CHECK OUT THE POST BEFORE YOU BUY THE FRIEDMAN
No comment ...the pedal sells itself ...it needs no help from me!
As a fellow guy that has a real habit of procuring boxes of magic which range from clean boosts through all shades of drive then through to classic distortions on to the modern ungodly/unholy cascade upon cascade of contorted, br00taly voiced varieties then further in to the sludgey, dopethrone-era Electric Wizard flavors of fuzzed insanity which of course covers both the gated type and the octavia/octave fuzz on steroids,
ReplyDeleteI feel your delight in thinking that you have discovered the holy grail which negates all that have come prior to it and that zen feeling of "I know that there will not be anything that can touch this one, My precious for aeons"...A few months later and perhaps having a few variables change through to many changing perhaps (A new amplifier head, an additional cabinet or combo with speakers that one has either not used before or it has been a long time for whatever reason(s) which change the voicing and projection...etc. or even adding a new preamp would be a few good cases in point) and the never ending search begins again.
The one thing which curtails my self-destructive, possibly self-sabotaging nature at times as first and foremost a guitar player is my earning my keep and putting food on the table via audio engineering which is now at a point whereby the home/project setup is more than up to snuff for the majority of work which I do, Therefore I simply have to focus on upgrading, improving pieces of gear when it is time, Improve the sound of my spaces acoustically, Make sure my monitoring setups are not falling below the reference quality I require, Agonize over one setup of A/D converters and D/A converters against another where it is past the point of anything except personal preference...and so on plus general maintenance.
Studio gear wise my weaknesses are microphones, mic preamps and dynamic processors. They are what mainly gain based pedals, amplifiers, loudspeaker mismatching, switching pickups and pretty much always making sure that every setup I have allows Me to run a good quality equalizer in a series FX Loop (which led Me to terrifying amounts of joy when a rather small name to most gear freaks released a tool which did that one thing so that now I do not have an amplifier head or combo setup which lacks this brilliant tool, It was the simple but perfect Sonic Edge FXUL8TR by Ben Fargen, You'll know of Sonic Edge and Ben Fargen I'd bet my last pound on it :) ).
I got almost as giddy when a small company released a device which enabled totally variable impedance of microphone which plays an enormous role in how any mic will interact with a mic preamp, It is a half rack unit device by Magneto Audio called VariOhm, It really brought so many microphones and preamps together in a similar way that the Radial Engineering dragster can when wanting a tool which sits in-between your sound source and preamp to dial in the optimal or one can also use such for the side affects which happen when the loading is not seeing eye to eye, It doesn't apply to guitar pickups and amp front ends though really as it does with microphones and mic preamps. Those utility devices are usually vastly lower in cost than either thing they sit between but bring such superb results, Little Labs are specialists in that area, The In-Between Phase box for aligning microphones with one another...Again one of those tools that makes life that little bit easier and also begs the question, Why didn't someone come up with such excellent utility devices sooner!
Sorry for waffling on a bit, I'll stop that now. I am glad that I have stumbled across Your blogspot as I believe that I'll very much enjoy the entries. Cheers fella and all the best Your way Paul