Friedman Small Box - I tried something new

  • Hey All, I hope you are all doing well today.


    I had an off the top of my head idea that I thought I would try. I was thinking that I know I can profile a cable and get a very neutral sounding clean amp profile, thanks to Kemper support for posting that in a thread. I was wondering if I could profile a pedal and get good results. I happened to be messing with some other stuff today and had a Friedman Small Box pedal on my desk. I decided to give it a try.


    I profiled it as a direct profile with no cabinet then I put in one of the cabinet IRs that come in the Kemper from the factory. I chose a Celestion cream back. I like these speakers and Dave uses them in a number of his real cabinets so I thought it to be a good choice. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the profile came out. This will definitely make me try doing this with some other pedals I have as well as with some different settings on this pedal. I uploaded it to the Rig Exchange if you want to check it out. I am also going to try to attach it to this post. Let me know what you think. If you want it to have a little different midrange try changing the cabinet. This has opened up a whole new road of possibilities for me...


    Small Box1 - 2021-12-05 15-09-59.zip

  • Anybody try this yet? I am playing through an older QSC K8 in my room with this and when turned up fairly loud it is a thick sound. I am going to try profiling it again with some different settings to see how it differs.


    Note: You won't hurt my feelings if you don't like it. I am paying around with this to see what I can make it do. To me, this is actually a usable tone. I have some York IRs that sound pretty good with it too. I obviously can't include those any of the ones I upload to share.


    I did a little playing with the definition on it as well. That brightens and darkens it up... I am still a bit amazed at how well this came out as a direct profile.

  • This kind of overdrive pedals often sound best into a clean or slightly overdriven amp. That's what they are designed for. Even if they are called "amp in a box", they really need a platform amp to shine. On their on, they are missing a lot, sound too dark... imo.

    And in addition, in my experience the Kemper often has problems to correctly nail the sound of this pedals. Sometimes you are lucky and it sounds better and smoother than the original 8), but usually I am not convinced by the result. (Also Quad Cortex can not perfectly capture the sound of many overdrive pedals).

    If you use a nice IR this can save the profile a bit and it sounds o.k. But it's still not great.


    Profiled amps with baked in overdrives sound much better most of the time, but also not 100% authentic. I guess, finding the right platform amp kemper profile and boosting with the real Friedman pedal will sound best. But of course, it is also fun experimenting and profile some pedals lying around.

  • This kind of overdrive pedals often sound best into a clean or slightly overdriven amp. That's what they are designed for. Even if they are called "amp in a box", they really need a platform amp to shine. On their on, they are missing a lot, sound too dark... imo.

    And in addition, in my experience the Kemper often has problems to correctly nail the sound of this pedals. Sometimes you are lucky and it sounds better and smoother than the original 8), but usually I am not convinced by the result. (Also Quad Cortex can not perfectly capture the sound of many overdrive pedals).

    If you use a nice IR this can save the profile a bit and it sounds o.k. But it's still not great.


    Profiled amps with baked in overdrives sound much better most of the time, but also not 100% authentic. I guess, finding the right platform amp kemper profile and boosting with the real Friedman pedal will sound best. But of course, it is also fun experimenting and profile some pedals lying around.

    I agree with what you are saying. I was surprised that this one seemed to have a pretty decent sound once I turned the definition up a little and put an IR on it. I expected it to sound like complete garbage based off of the profile I did of my clean amp with a Dirty Shirley pedal in front of it. That came completely unusable. This one came out way better. I am not trying to get a 100% accurate to the amp sound. I wouldn't even know what that sound is for this amp because I don't one to compare it to. If I get anything that is usable that is a win for what I am doing.


    I also profiled my amp with some light OD in front of it with various pedals and I am pretty happy with the results on those, with the exception of the one with the DS. I have a Marsh Springfield amp that I have been gigging for over 6 years. I profiled that with a few OD pedals that are on my pedal board that I have also been gigging for a decent number of years. The profiles are very usable and really captured the tones pretty close.