Friedman is always striving to provide players with the proper tools to customize their sound. With Friedman pedals, we've been able to accomplish this, starting with the release of the BE-OD in September 2016, prompting Dave and the rest of the team to continue designing pedals and effects that make longed-for tone across different playing and musical styles possible. The sound in Dave’s head, and hopefully yours, is steadily coming to resonate in real life. Always driven to keep making gear that carries forth a player’s raw, authentic emotion, Dave created the Golden Pearl, a lower-gain overdrive pedal. Rounding out the BE-OD and DS(Dirty Shirley)-OD, high and mid gain overdrive respectively, one of the Golden Pearl’s highlights is its capacity as a delectable tweak to an already overdriven amp, pushing the overall tone into seductive saturation.
Receiving high praise already from a wide array of guitarists, the Golden Pearl shines in its capacity to bring tone into focus and make playing incredibly enjoyable. The Golden Pearl features Volume, Gain and Tone Knobs, and a Three Position High-Frequency Cut Switch. Then you’ve got the Voice switch, which allows for three different kinds of clipping – none at all, the up position for a softer LED clipping and the down position for a traditional diode clipping.
With this transparent, versatile overdrive, you can sharpen up your clean tone, take a clean amp to slighty broken-up clean, or dirty it up with a turn of the gain knob. Pushing the front end of your Friedman for a cutting boost can be achieved with the LED clipping, but even more so with the diode clipping - dial it in by means of the amount of gain and the pedal’s capacity for tone-tailoring with its other settings. The Golden Pearl is superbly versatile, affording you a graceful, low-effort approach to getting the tone you crave, existing in perfect harmony with your Friedman amp or whatever your amp might be.
What tone treasure will you unearth with the Golden Pearl?
Before he was 20, David Friedman moved to California to pursue a career in music.
Long before the first amp with the Friedman logo was ever produced, he came to Los Angeles
and started his first job in the music industry, equipment cartage, and he moved along a rising trajectory,
hitting milestones, meeting and working with rock stars and marking off achievements along
the way. Talent is of course important to these outcomes, drive and passion, but so are the
formative experiences which Dave always credits for his success. A lot of things helped him not
just get the Friedman brand to where it is, but just inspire him to move across the country in
the first place, to find his purpose – first on the Sunset Strip and then the unlikely home of tone,
North Hollywood, in the San Fernando Valley.
Growing up outside of Detroit, he went to a lot of concerts, picked up a guitar and developed
an appreciation for rock, all of which influenced his career choices. He did a lot of this with his
childhood best friend, Marty Minui who Dave describes was almost like a brother to him, so
much time was spent at one another’s home and in the company of the other’s family. Dave
went on to Los Angeles, got a job doing equipment cartage, working with Andy Brauer Studio
Rentals, then Make’n Music and eventually launched Rack Systems, and Marty started his own
business – Motor City Guitar. Located about half an hour northwest of Detroit in Waterford, MI,
Motor City Guitar is like a giant candy store for musicians, with all imaginable gear and
accessories, all there behind the two huge crossed guitars adorning the front entrance. Motor
City Guitar is a unique retail destination, that serves the community with knowledgeable,
passionate staff and Marty’s exemplary guidance. Dave and Marty ended up on two sides of the
same industry – Dave founding the Friedman brand and manufacturing exceptional gear, and
Marty providing a stellar experience for the retail customer. Now Motor City Guitar carries the
Friedman product line and things have come full circle.
We wanted to bring you a few words from these two old friends and great successes in their
specific arenas, having gained extraordinary knowledge from years of experience and brought
together, then and now, by a shared passion. And if you’re in the Detroit area, be sure to attend
the October 27th clinic at Motor City Guitar, featuring Dave and Friedman artist Steve Stevens.
Blood, Sweat & Tubes Fall 2018 Clinic Tour
Official Announcement
We’re excited to share that this month Dave Friedman is headed to select cities in the Northeast and Midwest to conduct in-store clinics with Friedman retailers. Dave will be joined at each stop by Friedman artist Sammy Boller, and on limited dates by Steven Stevens (see below for full info) to help demo and discuss products. Each clinic is an opportunity to find out more about Friedman products and get insights into Dave’s design inspiration and process, get in-depth knowledge about our newest releases and hear some killer playing! The clinic tour is falling right between two new pedal releases, the Gold-72 Wah which is available now, and the Golden Pearl, coming next month. Dave will be discussing these pedals as well as other new and established products, so get your questions ready! We’re starting out in Cleveland on October 13th, and traveling East from there, then heading to Chicago and ending in Dave’s hometown, Detroit. We’re called these store visits the Blood, Sweat & Tubes clinic tour because that encapsulates the work & passion Dave puts into Friedman every day, and we can’t wait to bring it out to all of you.
What to Expect
The schedule, including dates, times and locations is below, but we strongly recommend that you contact your retailer for information such as RSVP’s, arrival times and anything else you may need to know about the event. Each clinic will be about 2 hours long, and will include a performance by the Friedman artist(s) in attending, a Q&A, Product Spotlight and Meet & Greet, AND a Raffle/Giveaway.
12AX7 TUBE POWERED PEDAL!
Designed by legendary tone guru Dave Friedman, the Motor City Drive utilizes an actual high-voltage (220-volt) 12AX7A preamp tube to deliver a fantastically smooth, organic feel. The 12AX7 tube naturally compresses, clips and adds complexity to create a more harmonically rich tone than most transistor or digital devices.
Named after Dave Friedman's home town, the Motor City Drive delivers rich tube tone that takes you from light overdrive to rich higher gain tones with incredible sustain.
12AX7 TUBE POWERED PEDAL!
Designed by legendary tone guru Dave Friedman, the Fuzz Fiend utilizes an actual high-voltage (220-volt) 12AX7A preamp tube to deliver a fantastically smooth, organic feel. The 12AX7 tube naturally compresses, clips and adds complexity to create a more harmonically rich tone than most transistor or digital devices.
12AX7 TUBE POWERED PEDAL!
Designed by legendary tone guru Dave Friedman, the Motor City Drive utilizes an actual high-voltage (220-volt) 12AX7A preamp tube to deliver a fantastically smooth, organic feel. The 12AX7 tube naturally compresses, clips and adds complexity to create a more harmonically rich tone than most transistor or digital devices.
Named after Dave Friedman's home town, the Motor City Drive delivers rich tube tone that takes you from light overdrive to rich higher gain tones with incredible sustain.
The wide-range gain knob allows you to dial in the right amount of saturation and distortion while the Bass, Midrange and Treble controls are a true tube preamp style tone stack.
Key features include:
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