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2 New Friedman Amps from PA


Larry Shelby

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Welcome Friedman Amps to the Plugin Alliance!
New & Out Now! Friedman`s BE-100 and DS-40 amps available in all native formats now. The BE-100 offers the famous plexi sound of superstars like the Foo Fighters, Alice in Chains, Bon Jovi, and The Cult.
The Dirty Shirley DS-40 was designed for guitarists who want a Vintage Classic Rock tone inspired by British tube amps from the 60s and 70s.

Save $30 extra with your intro voucher codes (below)!

Your Intro Price: $99.99* (per amp),

or $159.98 (for both amps) with codes:
FR-BE-100-9999
FR-DS-40-9999

Use both codes during checkout to save on the bundle. Valid until March 2nd, 2020.
Please feel free to share this code with your friends!

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products.html

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I wanted to get their Engl amps so much, especially the E765 RT, thinking it would be my one and only go-to amp-sim. Simply because I like the real amp a lot. Well, the plugin version quickly became a huge disappointment. I almost never open it and surely never use it in projects. Not sure why. It just sounds and feels wrong. Hope this one is better, but definitely not willing to pay the intro price.

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1 hour ago, Soundwise said:

Not sure why. It just sounds and feels wrong. Hope this one is better, but definitely not willing to pay the intro price.

 

4 minutes ago, Mesh said:

I've never been impressed with any of the PA amp sims. There's a lot of hype in their marketing/advertising, but in reality they were just 'ok'.

Exactly. Agree on both accounts.

I bought the amp sim suite they have  RockRack, and at first it was like, yeah this sounds good. But after a while, and switching between other sims, I got to thinking that these amps are not all that. So I thought the Megasingle/dual would be better, so I got them. But I never fire them up at all. I rather Mercuriall Reaxis and Amplitube Mesa. I also went with the ENGL 646. It's OK but not something I really use.

All I can say about PA amp sims is I am left feeling a lot like Soundwise says, it just don't feel/sound right.

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  • 2 weeks later...

One reason people don´t like these is because they are very mono and doesn´t come with any ambience. Adding a touch of room reverb will make them come alive.  Many of the other ampsims also includes effects in the presets. 

Another reason is that they are very sensitive to gain staging and you really need to hit them at the right level.

I personally still use them because of the simplicity, it´s just one view with all the controls in one place.  I put a gain plugin in front of it and tweak until it sounds ok. 

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Can't say I ever worked on getting the gain stage just right, but I am sure that I added some reverb and delay to it. Along with a comp in front.

And make no mistake, these are not throw away amp sims... just not what I was liking/looking for.

Edited by Grem
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8 hours ago, Joakim Lundberg said:

One reason people don´t like these is because they are very mono and doesn´t come with any ambience. Adding a touch of room reverb will make them come alive.  Many of the other ampsims also includes effects in the presets. 

Another reason is that they are very sensitive to gain staging and you really need to hit them at the right level.

I personally still use them because of the simplicity, it´s just one view with all the controls in one place.  I put a gain plugin in front of it and tweak until it sounds ok. 

I don't think simplicity is the right term here, but what do I know?!

What you've described is yet another reason why I avoid using bx ampsims. Yes, they render the sound with great precision and detail but it takes too long to get there. After lots of tweaking the sound is as fine and smooth as a ...grave stone! And I just wanted it to be alive and breathing.

Currently TH-U is my go-to ampsim, particularly the Rig Player with additional libraries. 

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2 hours ago, Soundwise said:

Currently TH-U is my go-to ampsim, particularly the Rig Player with additional libraries. 

What type of music are you making w/ that sim? I wanna hear it. I like the Nembrini sims and he's been the designer of most of the Brainworx amps, but the only Brainworx amp I own and like thus far is the Ampeg VR. My main guitar amp sim is the Nembrini Marshall w/ a Mecrueal Greed Slammer in front of it and the Nembrini Soldano also w/ the Greed Slammer and I dual track w/ the Marshall on left and the Soldano on right. I don't really care about this Freedman. It'd be cool I guess but I've already got that Marshall and though I haven't tried it I doubt the Freedman tops it. 

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I’ve got a bunch of all sims, way too many! The bx ones are ok. I tend to use Bassdude for bass and some cleans, and megasingle for heavier tones.

I’d also recommend S-Gear, the new couple of Nembrinis and anything by Neural DSP. My main style of music is metal.

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I have the UAD version of the Friedman BE-100.

It's OK

 

I've had a real BE-100 Deluxe.  Running it thru something like a Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander or Suhr Reactive Load IR sounds/feels great.

This combination sounds better than even the Axe-FX III.

Only thing not great about the BE-100 Deluxe is the size/weight.

I recently cycled back to tube amps.  A few months later, I had "collected" three 50-60lb heads and numerous cabinets.

They were starting to take up a lot of physical space...

Finally came back around to the realization that the Axe-FX III (for me) is just a whole lot more practical.

 

Neural DSP has released some top-tier plugins. 

They seem to have a bent for heavier gain.

Their Quad Cortex (hardware) looks and sounds impressive.  Release is on schedule for Sept of this year.

From what I've seen/heard... it'll be right there with Helix, Axe-FX, and Kemper.

Supposed to have a means of "Profiling"... in addition to modeling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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With the intro price + my monthly voucher I could get one of those for $25. After much youtube wandering I choose the "Dirty Shirley" DS-40. The 2 videos that sold me on it was the Sammy Boller's one on PA's channel and the other was a Pete Thorn video (this guy is AWESOME!) where he shows individual parts of one short track he made to demo the plugins. It was the UAD version of DS-40 but I assume the native version sounds the same.

 

Edited by Sergio
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