gearJunkie
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The Official Friedman IR-D leaked on GC (thread)?
- Thread starter JiveTurkey
- Start date
JiveTurkey
Goatlord
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Both of these vids sound GREAT
I actually think I would pick this over the IR-X because it would force me to be a little more vintage minded tonally vs. forcing Engl Fireball tones to work for Love Shack covers 
Byrdman
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Let us know how you like it. Do you have the X too? I would like to see a comparison video between the two
At first, I wasn't very interested, but I did see a video that intrigued me a little with the toaannzzz.
JasonE
Roadie
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I don't have the IR-X. I bought the OD pedals of the BE-OD and the Dirty Shirley when those came out. I know from buying those that I like the Dirty Shirley circuit much better than the BE-OD. When I found out they were releasing the IR-D, I knew I was going to buy it. I have a Twin Sister amp so I know what I am getting into. I saw one video where someone played this new pedal and the Twin Sister amp and they sounded exactly the same.
Byrdman
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Yeah, I think I saw that video too and that is the one that got me thinking I may be able to get the Plexi sound out of my DSL100H vs jonesing for a new Marshall Studio Amp by using a MIAB pedal instead. The IR-D seemed to have a lot of flexibility to get those tones plus some Friedman sounds too.
JasonE
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If you go down the road of a MIAB pedal, look at the Barber Compact Direct Drive. I bought one many years ago and was surprised by it. Mine is one of the old green versions.
Byrdman
Shredder
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Will do! I'm also thinking about checking out the Marshall Guv'ner or Drive Master. From my research so far, if it is a good pedal then is comes down to your setup as far as a MIAB goes.
JasonE
Roadie
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I got about 15 or 20 minutes to spend with the IR-D yesterday after it showed up. I am not sure how I feel about the IRs in it yet. I switched all of them out for other stock IRs on channel 2 so I could quickly compare 6 of the ones that come with it. I will need to spend a good bit more time with this. I have a few York packs that I plan on testing out with it as well.
I like the feel and the gain in it and the layout is pretty good. I left the boost gains where they were. I don't think those are something I will play with much. I like how it works now.
I wish it had the Presence and Thump on switches or knobs on the pedal like the Twin Sister amp has. It would be nice to be able to change those from the pedal if I wanted to for a playing situation where I don't have my laptop with me.
My plan at this point is to run the IR-D into a PA cabinet in my room and use a A/B switch to go back and forth between my Twin Sister amp and the IR-D and see how close I can get an IR to sound to the real cabinet that I have. My Friedman cabinet has the Creamback 65 in it. There is an IR for this speaker in the IR-D. I like that IR better than the 1x12 DS IR that comes loaded on it from the factory. The included IRs sound quite different from one another.
I knew that I would more than likely like this pedal based off of having the amp and a bunch of Dave's other pedals, including the DS. Another amp of his that I think would be nice to have in this format is the Small Box. I like that pedal a lot too.
I like the feel and the gain in it and the layout is pretty good. I left the boost gains where they were. I don't think those are something I will play with much. I like how it works now.
I wish it had the Presence and Thump on switches or knobs on the pedal like the Twin Sister amp has. It would be nice to be able to change those from the pedal if I wanted to for a playing situation where I don't have my laptop with me.
My plan at this point is to run the IR-D into a PA cabinet in my room and use a A/B switch to go back and forth between my Twin Sister amp and the IR-D and see how close I can get an IR to sound to the real cabinet that I have. My Friedman cabinet has the Creamback 65 in it. There is an IR for this speaker in the IR-D. I like that IR better than the 1x12 DS IR that comes loaded on it from the factory. The included IRs sound quite different from one another.
I knew that I would more than likely like this pedal based off of having the amp and a bunch of Dave's other pedals, including the DS. Another amp of his that I think would be nice to have in this format is the Small Box. I like that pedal a lot too.
JasonE
Roadie
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Another thing I forgot to mention, I saw some posting that they had a lot of hiss and noise with their IR-D. I don't know if anyone experienced this with the IR-X. Mine was pretty quiet when I was playing with it yesterday, until I flipped the structure switch up to the highest setting and cranked the gain up. It had a very prominent hiss to it at those settings. I don't typically play my amp on that setting but if I did, I would need to find a fix for this. I saw someone said they had an issue with it being noise but it was while they were connected to their computer auditioning IRs and when they pulled the USB cable out, the noise went away. I can't remember if I had it plugged in at that time or not. I will have to test that out since I plan on trying some of my York IRs with it.
JasonE
Roadie
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I got a chance to do something interesting with the IR-D this afternoon. I plugged it and my FM9 into the same powered speaker and ran my guitar into an A/B switch so I could switch between the two quickly. I then loaded the same York Audio IR of a Creamback into both and used the Dirty Shirley1 model in the FM9.
I can dial them in pretty close, however, the model in the FM9 has a bit of a midrange push to it that the IR-D doesn't have.
The IR-D is more responsive to volume knob changes. I did set the dynamics on the model to be feedback. It helped but the IR-D still reacted like my Twin Sister amp and the FM9 Model required much more of a volume knob roll back to clean up as much.
There is a sparkle on the top end of the IR-D that isn't there with the FM9 model. It definitely has more of that tube amp top end to it and clarity. The IR-D definitely has more of that tube amp sound and feel to me. The more I play with this pedal the happier I am that I bought it.
I definitely recommend trying some different IRs if you don't love the sound of it. The YA IRs sound leaps better to me than the stock IRs.
I can dial them in pretty close, however, the model in the FM9 has a bit of a midrange push to it that the IR-D doesn't have.
The IR-D is more responsive to volume knob changes. I did set the dynamics on the model to be feedback. It helped but the IR-D still reacted like my Twin Sister amp and the FM9 Model required much more of a volume knob roll back to clean up as much.
There is a sparkle on the top end of the IR-D that isn't there with the FM9 model. It definitely has more of that tube amp top end to it and clarity. The IR-D definitely has more of that tube amp sound and feel to me. The more I play with this pedal the happier I am that I bought it.
I definitely recommend trying some different IRs if you don't love the sound of it. The YA IRs sound leaps better to me than the stock IRs.
GuitarAddicted
Groupie
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- 75
This is exactly what I had when I did compare the IR-X with my Axe FX III.
I really prefer the IR-X over the Axe Fx III and I also have a BE 100 DLX and the IR-X does have that „feel and response“ that the BE 100 DLX has.
One of the things I’ll never understand is why the direct drive isn’t/wasn’t one of the most popular drive pedals of all time. That thing sounds glorious.
Achilles
Rock Star
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I've never tried one but damn if I haven't read a number of other's say what you just posted.
ragingplatypi
Shredder
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Barber is one famous guitarist’s endorsement away from stupid-resale-price status.
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