Friedman BE-OD Brown Eye Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal

Rating:
91 % of 100
SKU
FRDMN-BE-OD
Friedman BE-OD Brown Eye Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal Friedman BE-OD Brown Eye Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal Friedman BE-OD Brown Eye Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal
Friedman BE-OD Brown Eye Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal
$199.99
or 4 interest-free payments of $50 with .
In stock

Friedman BE-OD Brown Eye Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal

Popular manufacturers such as Wampler, JHS, and Catalinbread have made amp-in-a-box pedals that offer up some of the character of legendary heads and combos distilled to compact size. Plenty of amp makers such as Supro, Randall, Bogner, and Mesa/Boogie have also themselves shrank their respective preamps, drive, or lead channels to stompbox form for us, allowing us to keep their sounds we know and love at our feet. When a highly regarded amp maker such as Friedman decides to try their hand at adapting their designs in such a way, the guitar-playing world pays close attention.

The BE-100 Brown Eye amplifier head has been synonymous for years with high gain tones that could provide singing highs, tight low-end growl, and when desired clean up beautifully. Its creator, Dave Friedman, has been known for his work building rigs for artists such as Eddie Van Halen, Bill Kelliher, Steve Stevens, and Jerry Cantrell. Although worth every penny, the Brown Eye heads do not come cheap, and are a bit out of affordable range for the everyday player. Thankfully Mr. Friedman has shrunk its sound to a more affordable form that won’t bleed our wallets dry.

The BE-OD gives us Bass, Treble, Presence, Volume, Gain, and Tight controls. Most of these are rather self-explanatory and common on overdrive pedals, but the Presence control is a nice addition for contouring the highs, as is the Tight control for shaping your low end. An internal gain trim pot is also available, and easy to get to when you open up the underside of the pedal. The internal gain is set by default to noon, and stayed there during testing.

With that internal trim pot in its default setting the drive ranged from a BE-100 just past breaking up at the bottom of the pot to the saturated high gain you’d expect on the top end. It is good to know there was even more gain available if I ever wanted to get my doom on, or could draw it back to more of a boost to mid-gain overdrive range if I felt so inclined. It should also be noted that you can run this pedal at 18V if you need more headroom. Whether running it in 9V or 18V, the touch sensitivity of the drive and its response to instrument volume were very much like plugging right into a BE-100, proving the nut did not fall far from the tree.

The EQ and contour controls provide a versatile array of voices thanks to this highly responsive control set. The Tight control has open, blooming low end that doesn’t get too muddy on the bottom of the pot, to razor sharpness on the other side that will find fans in rhythm players looking for defined bass. Dialing the Treble and Presence controls below 11′ o’ clock or so creates a cool throaty lead tone that sounded like a Vox on steroids, to unchained snarl and aggression when both controls were raised to 2′ and above. The Bass and Treble pots are not overly sensitive, but enough to effectively shape your high and low response to sit in the mix where you want.

Trying out the BE-OD on bass found it equipped to handle the job with the right tweaking. The Tight control on lower settings had fuzz characteristics, with punch growing more powerful and defined the more you turned it up without much significant loss of low end. Once you set the Treble and Presence to taste, the BE-OD may find favor among bass players who don’t mind a lack of wet/dry blend in an overdrive/distortion.

In use the BE-OD provides a range of tones that will please many different stripes of guitar and bass players. Right out of the gate it is a standout in the overdrive/distortion crowd with its incredible definition and that responsive control set. Whether you are looking for a full-bodied boost, a crunchy overdrive, or dimed out saturation, you can find it in the Friedman BE-OD.

 

- Eric Lucero, Pitbull Audio Product Specialist

Features

  • Authentic British overdrive tones

  • Volume, Gain, Tight, Bass, Treble and Presence

  • True bypass switching

  • Can be powered between 9-18VDC (no battery)

  • Authentic British overdrive tones

  • Volume, Gain, Tight, Bass, Treble and Presence

  • True bypass switching

  • Can be powered between 9-18VDC (no battery)

More Information
Condition New
SKU FRDMN-BE-OD
UPC 763815128672
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