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I've never played a Friedman, and I still GAS for a BE100 every now and then, but the number of people I've seen describe them as "too smooth compared to a proper Marshall" is quite a lot now. Makes me skeptical about his amps tbh!
Fractal Talk
- Thread starter laxu
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Or he has had time and is nervous how close they are
But yeah as an amp maker I wouldn't be promoting digital gear either.
No one is asking him to promote it. I sure am not. Just don't be disingenuous, uninformed,
and spew nonsense.
They sound great from my limited experience with an early BE100 and a JJ Jr. head. But saying Fractal is one-dimensional with a cocked wah tonality just doesn't square with reality. Even Steve Stevens is pretty happy with Fractal and works with them extensively.
So his ears and taste for tone are good enough for Dave Friedman to build him a signature amp, but not nearly good enough to trust when it comes to assessing other products?!?! Does not compute.
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I am betting there are quite a few guys here with a TON more experience and direct knowledge than Mr. Friedman on this topic.
I also don't believe Fractal is a direct competitor to Friedman. Maybe Mesa Boogie is. Bogner is. Fractal? Not so much.
And the Great Analog/Digital Divide is old news. In this day and age the only correct answer is "both." This is not Good vs. Evil.
I also don't believe Fractal is a direct competitor to Friedman. Maybe Mesa Boogie is. Bogner is. Fractal? Not so much.
And the Great Analog/Digital Divide is old news. In this day and age the only correct answer is "both." This is not Good vs. Evil.
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FW23 just released for Axe FXIII! Finally out of Beta!! FM9 and FM3 should be next!!
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/axe-fx-iii-firmware-23-00-release.199382/#post-2482912
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/axe-fx-iii-firmware-23-00-release.199382/#post-2482912
Here's hoping! My FM9 could use some holiday loving....
JiveTurkey
Goatlord
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Time to update and play some guitar 
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Nice. I’ll be expecting these sort of updates every three days now.
Mongillo19
Rock Star
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It is occasionally every 7 hence firmware friday
MirrorProfiles
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I like Friedmans amps and enjoy hearing his opinions. Doesn’t mean I agree with them all but he has had a cool career in the industry and worked on most of my favourite guitarists amps (from a tone standpoint). His own taste in guitar sounds is from a different era to what I like, but he’s had his hands in enough amps and has a good ear for dialling in tones.
Cantrell, Adam Jones, Billy Howerdell=
Dave isn’t a digital guy, I wouldn’t get too charged up about anything he really says. It’s just his opinion based on his experiences. He doesn’t need to rely on digital at all, that’s just not really in his world and doesn’t need to be (besides building the occasional live rig with them),
Cantrell, Adam Jones, Billy Howerdell=
Dave isn’t a digital guy, I wouldn’t get too charged up about anything he really says. It’s just his opinion based on his experiences. He doesn’t need to rely on digital at all, that’s just not really in his world and doesn’t need to be (besides building the occasional live rig with them),
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I like Friedmans amps and enjoy hearing his opinions. Doesn’t mean I agree with them all but he has had a cool career in the industry and worked on most of my favourite guitarists amps (from a tone standpoint). His own taste in guitar sounds is from a different era to what I like, but he’s had his hands in enough amps and has a good ear for dialling in tones.
Cantrell, Adam Jones, Billy Howerdell=
Yet, those guys and their most iconic tones are/were all Friedman-free, no??
MirrorProfiles
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I think Howerdell tones were the Naked circuit and he’s basically always used that amp AFAIK. Jones’s Marshall amp is basically a Super Lead (or lazily modded Super Bass) but I think Dave’s serviced it/had his hands inside. I think AJ would have kicked him in the nuts if he changed the circuit at all.Yet, those guys and their most iconic tones are/were all Friedman-free, no??
Cantrell’s used all sorts over the years, often a blend. Live the past few years it’s been Friedman for sure. Maybe some on his solo stuff but no idea.
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I like Friedmans amps and enjoy hearing his opinions. Doesn’t mean I agree with them all but he has had a cool career in the industry and worked on most of my favourite guitarists amps (from a tone standpoint). His own taste in guitar sounds is from a different era to what I like, but he’s had his hands in enough amps and has a good ear for dialling in tones.
Cantrell, Adam Jones, Billy Howerdell=
Dave isn’t a digital guy, I wouldn’t get too charged up about anything he really says. It’s just his opinion based on his experiences. He doesn’t need to rely on digital at all, that’s just not really in his world and doesn’t need to be (besides building the occasional live rig with them),
This is my exact take on Dave. To a T.
And while our favorite guitarists maybe weren’t using a Friedman-branded amp at the time they recorded the records we love, he’s the dude many end up at after they churned through multiple amps over the years and finally have the pull to have someone build their own. Vai is even in that spot now as him and Dave developed his Synergy model. I thought for sure there’d be a Vai signature Friedman head during that time, I give myself a 40% score on that.
The Fractal stuff with Dave is odd and I blow it off as business. I don’t have proof of this outside of Dave himself saying in an older ToneTalk episode that Fractal had schematics of his amps and the fact that they’re one of the few amps to actually have the brand name included gives me the idea Dave was all cool with it right up until an officially licensed Friedman plug-in hit the market. Actually, it was in that episode he spoke of the schematics that he immediately mentioned that plug-in after.
That said, I think it’d serve Dave’s point more if he could say “I gave Fractal the schematics and told them to show me what they got, they had full access to my information and they still missed the mark”, but he just grimaces his way through blowing off Fractal until he gets to the plug-in.
No clue what year that episode was or who the guest was, but I’ll know soon enough because for some reason YouTube keeps fucking autoplaying the same episodes over and over, even though they’ve played all the way through.
MirrorProfiles
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tbf, I can’t imagine Dave being a computer editor guy, and can you imagine him dialling an Axe FX tone on the unit? Maybe the other units are a bit more immediate/intuitive to someone who doesn’t use anything like that.This is my exact take on Dave. To a T.
And while our favorite guitarists maybe weren’t using a Friedman-branded amp at the time they recorded the records we love, he’s the dude many end up at after they churned through multiple amps over the years and finally have the pull to have someone build their own. Vai is even in that spot now as him and Dave developed his Synergy model. I thought for sure there’d be a Vai signature Friedman head during that time, I give myself a 40% score on that.
The Fractal stuff with Dave is odd and I blow it off as business. I don’t have proof of this outside of Dave himself saying in an older ToneTalk episode that Fractal had schematics of his amps and the fact that they’re one of the few amps to actually have the brand name included gives me the idea Dave was all cool with it right up until an officially licensed Friedman plug-in hit the market. Actually, it was in that episode he spoke of the schematics that he immediately mentioned that plug-in after.
That said, I think it’d serve Dave’s point more if he could say “I gave Fractal the schematics and told them to show me what they got, they had full access to my information and they still missed the mark”, but he just grimaces his way through blowing off Fractal until he gets to the plug-in.
Fractal, Helix and QC all have killer Friedman emulations. No one has anything to prove there
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