Which Friedman Clean Channel takes pedals the best?

[DG335]

Currently own a JJ100 and I find the clean channel to be decent with pedals, but not as good as I'd like. Wondering if one of the other big box amps is better. The JJ clean is such a high headroom clean clean that it does ok with Muffs, but not so much with Fuzz Faces and some other fuzzes that like the amp to be pushed or at the edge of breakup.

BE50 = Buxom Betty clean
Smallbox = Plexi clean
SS100 = Twin-ish?
Butterslax = Plexi (with diodes?)

I absolutely LOVE the JJ BE/JBE tones and you'll have to pry that part of the circuit from my cold dead fingers. But, the thought is to have my clean channel modded by Dave to something more pedal friendly mainly for Fuzzes to give me some alternate tones.

 

[acidvoodoo]

Probably the Buxom Betty Clean

 

[CrazyNutz]

I have not tried any with pedals, but I would say Buxom as well. The tone of Buxom is much like other famous amps that take pedals well.
Also I have tried all three cleans, and Buxom is by far best IMO.

That being said, you could ask Dave to change your JJ100 clean to Buxom. It would be 100% doable.

 

[DG335]

That being said, you could ask Dave to change your JJ100 clean to Buxom. It would be 100% doable.

Yeah I think it's either ask him to mod a BE50 dirt channel into a JJ or mod my JJ clean into a BB.

I'm leaning towards keeping my JJ.

 

[GOHOINC]

Ive had the Buxom Betty, Runt 50 and I currently have a JJ-100, BE-100 and ButterSlax. For me, its give and take, nothing is perfect for everything.

Pedal settings that work well for the JJ and or Slax sounded too bright on the Betty for me. If I dialed Betty to sound good with the same pedal settings that sound good on JJ and Slax then I would lose some of the character I wanted from Betty. Some of this could be related to master volume. Betty needed to be louder to sound good vs. the master volume amps. With a BE-50 perhaps the "issues" I had with Betty are taken care of due to it having a master volume. In any case, I ditched Betty for a BE100 which has a simpler "american" clean. I found the BE easier to dial in a base clean tone I like and it still worked well with the pedal settings that work with JJ and Slax. I wouldnt say its better or worse than JJ or Slax, jus different.

Bottom line is that I haven't found one head that gives me everything I want in terms of balancing clean,dirt and pedals so I run 2/3 heads at a time and the mix gives me what I want in all scenarios. In terms of best overall package, I say its the JJ. The dirt is perfect, the clean is pretty good and I find you can goose it with a Buxom Boost and get some of the american style top end back into it. Also for more vintage sounding pedals like various fuzzes, I find that they tend to have a little lower output than some modern pedals, if you juice them up with a clean boost after them into the JJ it sounds really good to my ears.

 

[CrazyNutz]

One thing to note, the BE100, and JJ100 have the exact same Vox style clean circuit. Only difference is JJ has a 25k mid pot, and the BE has a fixed 10k resistor in place of the mid pot.

 

[CrazyNutz]

That being said, you could ask Dave to change your JJ100 clean to Buxom. It would be 100% doable.

Yeah I think it's either ask him to mod a BE50 dirt channel into a JJ or mod my JJ clean into a BB.

I'm leaning towards keeping my JJ.

It's much easier to just mod your JJ clean to BB.

 

[DG335]

That being said, you could ask Dave to change your JJ100 clean to Buxom. It would be 100% doable.

Yeah I think it's either ask him to mod a BE50 dirt channel into a JJ or mod my JJ clean into a BB.

I'm leaning towards keeping my JJ.

It's much easier to just mod your JJ clean to BB.

Yeah, but if I'm sending it in I'm also getting the pseudo 2 channel JBE MV mod done as well. I'm also considering adding the thump and resonance controls (which Dave said he can do on the JJ), but most likely would skip that. So there would be more to it than just the clean mod. But I hear you, modding my JJ is probably the easiest way to go.

 

[DG335]

In terms of best overall package, I say its the JJ. The dirt is perfect, the clean is pretty good and I find you can goose it with a Buxom Boost and get some of the american style top end back into it. Also for more vintage sounding pedals like various fuzzes, I find that they tend to have a little lower output than some modern pedals, if you juice them up with a clean boost after them into the JJ it sounds really good to my ears.

This weekend I was given a Chase Bliss Brothers by my wife and kids for my birthday and I set it up on the JJ clean channel as fuzz playing into an OD and it sounded killer. Better than any other fuzz straight into the JJ clean. Then I stacked an Analogman Sun Face (RCA) into the Brothers OD only and it sounded phenomenal. So you're right about about juicing the fuzz by stacking with another pedal. I never thought about adding a Buxom Boost in there. That might be worth trying as well. I guess stacking is the answer if I don't mod.

But it's good to hear you feel the JJ is the best overall package with your experience. The dirt channel on the JJ is my favorite I've ever heard or played for the type of sounds I'm into. I bought mine shortly after they were released and I haven't had the urge to buy another high gain amp since.

 

[GOHOINC]

One thing to note, the BE100, and JJ100 have the exact same Vox style clean circuit. Only difference is JJ has a 25k mid pot, and the BE has a fixed 10k resistor in place of the mid pot.

Probably right, I haven't dug into the circuits, just going off how dave has described them in videos. JJ gets described as a vox style but be was described in the sweetwater video as american style. Whatever the circuit difference between them, the voices of the two certainly sound different to me.

 

[CrazyNutz]

One thing to note, the BE100, and JJ100 have the exact same Vox style clean circuit. Only difference is JJ has a 25k mid pot, and the BE has a fixed 10k resistor in place of the mid pot.

Probably right, I haven't dug into the circuits, just going off how dave has described them in videos. JJ gets described as a vox style but be was described in the sweetwater video as american style. Whatever the circuit difference between them, the voices of the two certainly sound different to me.

I've been inside both, they are exactly the same with the exception of mid pot vs, fixed mid resistor. Now there are a few global differences in the JJ vs BE that affect all channels. The JJ has 16uf preamp filtering, and .0069uf depth cap, vs 22uf preamp filtering, and .0047uf depth cap in the BE. This may be the difference you're hearing.

The SS100 does however have an american voiced clean.

There also may be a possibility that Dave changed the BE to the SS clean at some point. Can't rule that out, as I have not seen the inside of anything newer than 2016 models.

 

[mxr2000]

In terms of best overall package, I say its the JJ. The dirt is perfect, the clean is pretty good and I find you can goose it with a Buxom Boost and get some of the american style top end back into it. Also for more vintage sounding pedals like various fuzzes, I find that they tend to have a little lower output than some modern pedals, if you juice them up with a clean boost after them into the JJ it sounds really good to my ears.

This weekend I was given a Chase Bliss Brothers by my wife and kids for my birthday and I set it up on the JJ clean channel as fuzz playing into an OD and it sounded killer. Better than any other fuzz straight into the JJ clean. Then I stacked an Analogman Sun Face (RCA) into the Brothers OD only and it sounded phenomenal. So you're right about about juicing the fuzz by stacking with another pedal. I never thought about adding a Buxom Boost in there. That might be worth trying as well. I guess stacking is the answer if I don't mod.

But it's good to hear you feel the JJ is the best overall package with your experience. The dirt channel on the JJ is my favorite I've ever heard or played for the type of sounds I'm into. I bought mine shortly after they were released and I haven't had the urge to buy another high gain amp since.

How about using a wampler Equator or a empress paraeq after the fuzz set in mid boost!