Dave Friedman constructed his model (and repute) by making supercharged Marshall-inspired amps, and his newest hones in on certainly one of his private favorites – a beloved ’68 JMP Superlead – with a handful of player-friendly tweaks.

Friedman Amplification’s 50-watt Plex head is propelled by two EL34s pushed by a trio of 12AX7s, and sports activities a well-known aesthetic together with a management panel with Excessive and Low inputs that feed into two channels with inside jumpers, replicating the mixing approach used on classic Marshalls. Each have unbiased Quantity controls and Vibrant switches together with a shared Grasp Quantity and EQ part. Channel 1 mirrors a Lead-spec Marshall, Channel 2 a Regular-spec.

With a Les Paul plugged into the Low enter, Grasp dimed, and each Quantity controls at 9 o’clock, the Plex delivered glowing cleans. Push the Quantity controls additional and sound breaks up with heat and simply the correct amount of crunch for traditional rock. Experiment with mixing Volumes to discover a candy spot.

The Excessive enter kicks issues into overdrive with extra acquire, maintain, crunch, and harmonics. Dime each channels, and the Plex delivers a wall of in-your-face British crunch and low-end thump. With distinctive decide assault and tactile really feel, leads, and bends sing with easy maintain and harmonics.

The Plex reacts extraordinarily effectively to choosing dynamics. A light-weight contact yields articulate cleans, whereas heavier assault unleashes an explosion of throaty overdrive. The onboard Variac (managed by the H.V./L.V. toggle) helps you to run the Plex at a decrease voltage yielding a saggier, bouncy really feel. The elevated responsiveness makes hammer-ons and pull-offs a breeze, and three-way Vibrant switches add additional sculpting for heat, spherical tones to shiny and crunchy.

The post-phase-inverter M.V.C. management works extremely effectively, permitting the participant to push channel Volumes for full-blown power-tube drive whereas protecting general quantity manageable for thick, saturated tones at any stage.

The Friedman Plex captures the uncooked, unfiltered punch and crunch that created the mystique of classic Marshalls. Filled with intelligent, user-friendly options and hovering British tones, it’ll seemingly fulfill even the most-discerning Marshall fanatic.

This text initially appeared in VG’s September 2024 challenge. All copyrights are by the writer and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.