**NEWS**
8.31.07 Major move to American Birch
Due to a limit in Russian wood exports, there has been a short supply of Baltic birch plywood, which comes from Russia. In searching for an alternative we came to discover (actually, to re-discover) American Birch plywood. When it comes to quality cabinets the gold standard has been Baltic birch plywod. Baltic birch plywood is prized because it's inner plies are made of birch as well as the exterior veneer. Chinese birch plywood, for example, has a birch exterior veneer, but the inner plies are made of various wood composites and fillers, and often have gaps. Gaps mean less strength and bad tone. That certainly doesn't cut it for a Freda Cab. So what about American Birch ply? Well the good 'ol U.S. makes it, but it's more expensive than Baltic Birch, so you don't hear much talk of it. Well maybe we should start talking about it. Isn't it worth the extra cost to support American industry? We think so, and we are happy to absorb the extra cost to do the right thing and also.. give you a great product. Regardless of how others may rave about Baltic birch, rest assured that American Birch has a solid core structure and has passed our strength and density tests with flying colors. It has no fillers or gaps. Frankly, it's bad-ass.
We are proud to now offer a truly American cab... American solid-core, void-less birch ply, Kayline USA tolex, Switchcraft USA input jacks, Eminence USA and Weber USA speakers. We're also proud to tell you that we break down and recylce all the cardboard boxes that our speakers and supplies are shipped in. We're building great cabinets and hopefully a great future, too. Join us.
-David Freda, President
8.25.07 A new favorite speaker
The Eminence Guvernor rocks in our FL!112. I've always known about it, but hadn't played one loaded in the FL!112 for a long time. This past week I kept coming back to it over and over again. I test with various amps, but often come back to a Pignose 60 watt tube amp. What I like about the amp is that it's not extreme, and it's not high end. You can coax a solid clean or overdriven tube sound out of it, tweak your tone with simple EQ knobs, and then let the voice of the guitar do the talking. If a cab can sound great with a simple set up like this, then you've really got something good.
So I set the Pignose to a level where I'd get some crunch and punch if I dug in with humbuckers, but could almost get completely clean if I played lightly with single coils. I've always been a sucker for a good single coil sound, but hated how in the context of a full band the body of chord work disappears and all you're left with is that jangly, spanky top end. Solution: FL!112 with Guvernor. I couldn't get enough. The vibe was full, rich, harmonic, while bringing enough mid-range and low end to give that great single coil sound some backup it has always needed. Switch to humbuckers and you've got a fat, meaty sound that naturally tightens up a bit so you can dig into some power chords. Fortunately I have both single and hum in the same guitar, and switching between the two was like having a stomp box built into my guitar! The combo had me thinking... "holy cow, this rocks, I love the Guvernor again!" And also.... "is it time for a Freda amplifier? ... where have the days of good, affordable, meat and potatoes tube tone gone anyway?" Maybe that's why these emerging indie rock bands are breaking out old Fender combos. They don't need super-saturated half stack madness. They can't afford a $3500 amp, awesome as they may be. They just need a good tube tone that can break up well and let their guitar's natural tone come through. Then they'll throw in a stompbox or two for flavor. Hmmmm... the Freda amp... I like it.
