Friedman Master Volume

State of Epicicity said:
And I think I’m in the minority with presets not working well for me; totally take what I say with a grain of salt. Could be I have a weird pick attack, all sorts of stuff. There have been a small few presets that have been cool on my guitar, so it’s just a weird thing, and I’ll bet if I bought a great guitar actually made well and didn’t mod the shit out of it, as I am prone to do, someone’s presets would work for me haha.
I will say before I had fractal I had a kemper stage and it was much moreee hit or miss with buying presets for kemper. Buying presets with fractal has been a better experience in that regard
You have a good point there about setting tones for gig volume too. Fletcher Munson rears his head and keeps you from EQing like you have OCD. :)
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Lord ToneKing said:
This thread has been a game changer! I always steered away from the Friedman amps because they were always so bass heavy, but turning up the master has made the small box sound (in Leon’s Aussie accent) ‘Glorious’! 😎
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Awesome! It's making me inordinately happy to learn how many people are finding this useful! I know that I've had the Axe-FX III almost two years now, and it's only now that the Friedmans started calling to me en masse haha. I feel like it would've saved me a lot of tone seeking if I had thought of this sooner!
 
scottp said:
@State of Epicicity I just had my first chance for about 15 minutes to experiment with this.
I'm doing a quick test as a baseline.
Amp BE C45
Cab Factory 2 #723
SIC 4X12 Recto Slant - Is this the one you are using??
Amp Block: Input EQ cut at 110hz
Cab Block: Low cut 90hz Hi cut 5000

Everything else at default. Yes I notice right away with the MV going higher the bass or low end starts to go away.
I was then turning down the gain to about 2 and MV on 7.2. Then rolling back the guitar volume knob. That is where things started to get sweet!
It's amazing if you play soft how clean it can be.

Time for dinner!!
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Yeah Man; that's the SIC! I'm just liking the way it works with my guitar for the time being. I have that set as the global SIC, so it autoloads with any amp model, and it just has a great girth as well as definition with my guitar. But I feel like my guitar might not be well balanced frequency wise, so I don't know if, e.g., this SIC with that cab IR would sound good with anyone else's rig.

Now I like what you're talking about with these settings. It's finally time for me to pick up the guitar today, so I'll be trying this in a little bit. Thanks for the suggestion!
 
Jipps0525 said:
Not sure why my response ended up in a quote but it’s in there lol
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Haha I totally didn't see it in the middle of the quote like that! That's interesting to know. I played a Kemper one day at a store, and I don't know why, but I just didn't care at all about it; it just kind of felt underwhelming. So I can see how it would be underwhelming as far as presets go. On the other hand, the Axe-FX III is the most exciting piece of gear I've ever tried, and I still don't find most presets working for me ,so go figure haha. That's cool that you found presets for Fractal that work well for you. Part of me is envious.
 
Which cabinet models (generally) sound best with the Friedman models? I tend to gravitate towards the same few cab models for every patch I create… I’d like to try something different but have no idea where to start. Thanks!
 
sgplayer76 said:
Which cabinet models (generally) sound best with the Friedman models? I tend to gravitate towards the same few cab models for every patch I create… I’d like to try something different but have no idea where to start. Thanks!
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  1. I second the York FDMN pack. I actually liked the individual mics best on that pack with the Friedmans. Of course if you try that you might want to set your Speaker Impedance Curve to the Friedman 4x12.
  2. As I've mentioned earlier in this thread, the Factory Bank 2 #723 Mark Day V30 with Smoothing at 8.00 and the 4x12 Recto Slant Speaker Impedance Curve are working great for me.
  3. An old favorite of mine is the Factory Bank 1 #811 Brown Super with the 4x12 Brit TV, 4x12 Euro, or 4x12 Greenback Speaker Impedance Curves. I haven't tried it yet on the Friedmans, but for a long time I used that exclusively with the 6CA7 Plexi with various overdrives in front, so it should be another great one with the Friedmans too, if you'd like a more nasty Marshall type feel. You may want a little 200 - 500 Hz reduced with the #811.
 
State of Epicicity said:
  1. I second the York FDMN pack. I actually liked the individual mics best on that pack with the Friedmans. Of course if you try that you might want to set your Speaker Impedance Curve to the Friedman 4x12.
  2. As I've mentioned earlier in this thread, the Factory Bank 2 #723 Mark Day V30 with Smoothing at 8.00 and the 4x12 Recto Slant Speaker Impedance Curve are working great for me.
  3. An old favorite of mine is the Factory Bank 1 #811 Brown Super with the 4x12 Brit TV, 4x12 Euro, or 4x12 Greenback Speaker Impedance Curves. I haven't tried it yet on the Friedmans, but for a long time I used that exclusively with the 6CA7 Plexi with various overdrives in front, so it should be another great one with the Friedmans too, if you'd like a more nasty Marshall type feel. You may want a little 200 - 500 Hz reduced with the #811.
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Thank you!
 
Lord ToneKing said:
This thread has been a game changer! I always steered away from the Friedman amps because they were always so bass heavy, but turning up the master has made the small box sound (in Leon’s Aussie accent) ‘Glorious’! 😎
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I thought I taught you better than that..LOL
 
Funny, I have been hearing people talk about the Friedmans for years, I couldn't gel with them until @State of Epicicity shared his findings with the MV trick. I think this is truly a great find! Thanks for sharing that!
I'll be working on all this, this afternoon, adding the smoothing mentioned at 8.0 and experimenting with input trim.
I'll report any worthwhile findings. :)
 
Trying to understand changing tone stacks better. I don't want to hijack the thread so I'll stick to this specific example.

Is there a "logic" that goes into picking a different stack? Was this a situation where you liked the Friedman, but thought, "Wish it was more like a Plexi" and went there? Or is this just one of those "try it and see" things?

I ask as someone who likes powerful tools, but can also get reaaaaaally carried away with tweaking... If there's a "direct approach" to thinking about this, it'll help my option paralysis greatly.
 
astrolux said:
Is there a "logic" that goes into picking a different stack?
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I'm pretty sure it's just centering different frequencies, so you're pushing different bands into overdrive first. It's such a dramatic difference. I always forget that feature exists, but someone else recommended it early in this thread, and after trying it, I was blown away by how cool it was with a Friedman. I've experimenting with swapping tonestacks in other amps, and it's always been a very dramatic change. To me the logic behind it would be, "I like the way this power amp behaves, but I hate all positions of the treble knob." To me, that's a good candidate for a tonestack swap. Another would be, "I like the way this amp feels, but the drive could be less harsh." I'm talking as a layman here, so someone else, please correct me if there's a better way to think about it.
 
@astrolux Your question about tonestacks prompted me to do some experimenting lay night, which led me also to fiddle with the tonestack center frequency, which, depending on your BMT settings, is another pretty strong shift in the feel of the tone. I tried the HBE V1 Fat, switched to the Blackface tonestack, turned down treble and presence all the way, then started moving the center frequency. It became a completely different amp.

Another thing also to weigh about tonestacks is that, from what I glean, they appear to be the most commonly modded components of amp designers. Cliff has posted that many amps are extremely minor tweaks of other people’s designs, just centering the BMT knobs differently, and changing pot tapers. Technically the most minor tweaks, but they make the hugest difference, enough to make the “new” amp instantly recognizable. E.g.:

FractalAudio said:
People think Bogners are dark but they really aren't. The reason they seem that way is the pot tapers. Most people assume knobs should be set somewhere around noon. If you do this on a Bogner it's like turning the treble way down on a Marshall. Close your eyes and adjust the tone controls with your ears. Don't be afraid to turn them way up or way down.
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Dirty145 said:
Tried another track raising the master to 7.5 with a plexi stack. Let me know your thoughts.

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I follow the events with great attention!
So far, I haven't really liked Friedman.
But this Mastervolume theme perked up my ears.
But!
So much information has come to light that I cannot do justice.
I experiment a lot.
Dirty145 - can I request the BE-100 preset? If it's not a secret?
I would be closer to the truth!
Thanks!
 
Well I think I had pretty good luck yesterday with this experiment.
I used my FM3 for the test as I will be using it today live.
I ended up using 2 channels of the amp block, one with the input trim on about .35 and the other one at 1.0.
This way I can easily switch for a rhythm and lead tones. Using the guitar volume knob still gets me more flexibility for each channel, which I like.
The FM3 doesn't have the smoothing parameter, so I will be visiting this on the AX3 later this weekend.
 
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