Friedman BE100 Universal Audio plugin review

Here's a video review of the Friedman BE100 plugin available in the Universal Audio Apollo interface. Friedman is well know for the quality of their high gain tube amp. That's why I was very curious to test drive the plugin based on the BE100 model.

Here's a screenshot of the plugin in what I call the simple mode where you see only the amp settings:

Here's a screenshot of the plugin in what I call the rack mode where you see in the top half all the settings to fine-tune the sounds : noise gate, cab and mikes, delay, etc. And in the bottom half the amp settings :

Friedman BE100 Universal Audio plugin video review

Setup used for the review

The guitar used is a double humbucker instrument built by luthier Benoît Guilbert and loaded with a pair of Dominger pickups.

The instrument was plugged straight into the Apollo Twin Duo interface. The recording was done on two tracks on a Macbook Air using GarageBand. Just a touch of reverb was added to the guitar track.

What I liked the most

• Huge sound
• Very dynamic responding to volume change on the guitar
• Super quiet
• Easy to dial in the sound
• Onboard noise gate and delay

What I liked the least

• Now I want a real Friedman BE100!

Conclusion

I was literally blown away by the sounds I could get from this plugin. From AC/DC style of crunch on the clean channel to heavy saturated Satriani tones and everything in between. Even with very level of gain the noise level is super low, in fact the noise gate was off during the all review!

I never had the opportunity to play a real BE100 so I have no way to say if this plugin sounds like the real deal but I can vouch that the quality of the sound out of this plugin rocks big time.

Until the next gear review, keep on playing the guitar !

Pierre.

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