Friedman Jose First Impressions

[Yehuda]

I spent most of the day yesterday dialing in more rock style tones, but today I got a really good heavier sound out of the amp- I’m pretty impressed it can get this gainy.

Definitely has a sound my other amps don’t get for me

 

[angelspade]

I think this amp sounds really good from the vids and clips I have seen thus far. That said, it sounds a bit like your trying to dial it in to sound like a modern metal amp...and that's not where this amp shines in my opinion.

 

[Yehuda]

I think this amp sounds really good from the vids and clips I have seen thus far. That said, it sounds a bit like your trying to dial it in to sound like a modern metal amp...and that's not where this amp shines in my opinion.

Yeah agreed- I posted a more rock tone on YouTube before this though

 

[Smash]

Scratchy compression

 

[Corey James]

Thanks for posting regardless. Post the other video as well if you don’t mind.

 

[PiggySmallz]

Im in the minority here, but I like it

 

[BABMusic]

Yehuda, your amp sounds better than my BE50. The chug tone sounds tighter and more sizzly to my ears. You're doing all this without a boost? Based on what I've heard, it sounds like I would live on the Vintage Presence mode. I did put my BE50 up for sale a while ago, because I was considering putting that towards a Jose. I don't love that it's a single channel amp, but it's not like it's a simple one trick amp.

 

[mentoneman]

after playing one, i get the impression that it wants to be played really LOUD to extract the magic.

 

[Meanjoegreene]

Is there an “ideal” speaker these amps were designed with or around or whatever

 

[Yehuda]

Thanks for posting regardless. Post the other video as well if you don’t mind.

 

[Dave L]

after playing one, i get the impression that it wants to be played really LOUD to extract the magic.

Yeah, like I mentioned in some other thread, I have a similar vintage-style José from 3 Monkeys that also needs a bit of phase inverter crunch to really shine. You sort of need to juggle the pre-PI master, the extra preamp stage and the clipping to end up somewhere in the realm of a furiously dimed plexi at your desired volume - which in this case more or less is from stock 1959 to slightly less than stock 2203 levels It really dials like a cousin to the 2203/2204, which is a design I never got anything good from at high gain and low master levels, in that you want to balance the preamp and master volumes to tune the gain.

 

[War_in_D]

Is there an “ideal” speaker these amps were designed with or around or whatever

I don't know if there is an ideal speaker that it was designed around, but I can tell you from experience that I didn't like it the Creamback 65/Vintage 30 slant cab I tried with mine. It sounded a lot better with a straight cab w/Greenbacks. I didn't try it with the Cornford, all V30 cab that I have. I believe that Dave has mentioned in a video with Perfecto De Castro I saw that it would work well with a greenback/V30 mix, all V30 or all greenback.

It's around the 13.45 mark in the vid below:

 

[technomancer]

Can confirm kicks ass with 70s blackbacks