Friedman Amplification introduces the BE-OD Overdrive pedal, an amp-in-a-box based on their BE-100 amplifier.
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This new release is marks the company’s foray into the stompbox market, and with their report of the good initial response to their new pedals, we can expect to see more pedals from them in the future.
If Friedman amplification doesn’t sound too familiar, know that the man behind this company was responsible for the signature tones of guitar icons like Jerry Cantrell, Steve Stevens, Eddie Van Halen and more. Dave Friedman has 25 years worth of guitar amplifier building, modding and repairing, and he did so only for privileged professionals who then spread the word amongst their peers.
By establishing Friedman Amplification, the same tone quality that rock stars enjoyed from Dave’s modded amps were made available to more players. Each Friedman amplifier is built in the USA with Dave himself inspecting each component and build to ensure it meets his standards. Now the company has expanded even further with the new BE-OD pedal, crossing over into the stompbox realm while still retaining the sound that helped launch the brand.
Being based on the Friedman BE-100 tube amplifier (BE stands for “Brown Eye”), the BE-OD or Brown Eye Overdrive pedal has quite the shoe to fill in. So the amp designer himself spearheaded this pedal’s development and approved it for production. He describes the pedal as a faithful reproduction of the “sonic impact” of the BE-100, making it a practical and compact alternative to the amplifier.
The press release expounds, “The BE-OD overdrive delivers authentic tube amplifier sound from a compact pedal with the controls needed to shape your tone, including volume, gain, tight, bass, treble and presence. These responsive knobs will take you from light, slightly broken-up overdrives to straight-up gain nirvana. Built in the USA and designed to withstand decades of abuse, the BE-OD provides a super-potent addition to the sonic arsenal of any gigging or recording guitarist.”
You can watch Pete Thorn put the pedal to good use below:
The video above showcases the pedal’s British overdrive tones, and how they may sound in an actual recorded track. And I must say that I am impressed with its British style crunch tones, although it could very well be because of Pete Thorn’s incredible playing and taste in tweaking pedals, because I notice that every pedal he demos sound good.
At first I thought this pedal is only limited to subtle dirt to classic rock crunch, but the video below showed how it can also be used for modern high-gain metal music.
Controls of the pedal include basic Volume and Gain knobs, while four other knobs let you shape the sound further, namely the Bass, Treble, Presence and Tight knobs. The pedal features true-bypass switching and it is powered by 9V or 18V DC power adapter. Note that it doesn’t run on batteries and it doesn’t have a battery compartment
The new The Friedman BE-OD pedal is currently retailing online for just under $200. You can visit Friedman Amplification for more information.
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