Friedman Dirty Shirley Mini - the amp

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HamishR

Well-known member
I recently built a hi-headroom 5E3 for a friend of a friend. I like to build a Deluxe with a big PT and plenty of headroom for guys who want a very portable pedal platform kinda amp. Well this fella had been using a Friedman Dirty Shirley Mini and he just dropped it off for me to try for a week or so - how cool!

I love old Plexis and '70s/early '80s MV Marshalls - I just love that sound. I was quite impressed by how well the Dirty Shirley captures that kind of sound with a pair of EL84s. Especially with just a single 10" speaker. It sounds a lot better than the pedal of the same name. What impressed me: low noise. Really low noise actually. The definition is plain excellent - quite possibly better on the low strings than a lot of plexis actually! I like that there is a good amount of low end for such a compact package. And the lows never sound like they are going to crap themselves, like on most small Fenders. There is that wonderful vocal sound with some gain on single strings that I love about old Marshalls - and it starts very early in the gain settings. And the touch sensitivity is just right.

So on my first play, with a couple of different Gibsons (one with P90s, one with PAF style HBs) I was rather impressed. I can hear why Rusty Anderson has been using Friedman with Paul McCartney.

Then to see what would happen I plugged the amp into my normal tweed style amp's cab, which is just a bit bigger than a 5E3 cab and has a 12" Celestion Gold in it. Well that wasn't as successful! I had to practically neuter the treble and bass and max out the mids to get a decent sound. Ok, so the 10" Greenback and sturdy ply cab play a big role in the sound.

Then I compared it to my regular amp with my favourite OD pedal and found that I could get them to sound reasonably close to each other. The Friedman's low end is a little weird - there is a pleasing thump but it doesn't ever feel 100% connected to the rest of the sound. It's as if there a gap between the bass and the mids or something. It's not a terrible thing but just a bit unusual. And while I still like the beautiful vocal qualities of the overdrive sound it doesn't have the warmth of my amp and pedal that I'm used to. It's not necessarily bad, but different from what I'm used to.

Overall I really enjoy playing the Dirty Shirley Mini but like what I already have too!
 
I forgot to add - what small amps have you guys been impressed with lately? That was kinda the point of my post but I forgot to say! Small amps are becoming better these days
 
I’m totally with you on that Marshall sound. To me, it’s the sound of the gods and I’ve loved that tone since I was a kid. While not technically called a mini amp, My Ceriatone 2202 makes my peepee tingle every time I plug into it. Seriously, I can’t stress enough how much I love that damn amp. I had Nik and his crew build it for me back in 2018 and since then, sold off every other amp I had. Even the Marshall DSL 40 I thought I was in love with had to go. Essentially, It’s a jcm 800 preamp with a 20 watt 6v6 power section. All that Marshall style bite and growl but, with a post phase inverter master volume, and a lot more manageable 20 watts. I can actually crank her up and not blow all of the windows out of my house. Running it through a 2x12 loaded with Greenbacks is that sound of the gods to me.
 
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My first Marshall was when they came out with the DSL50 for the first time. Made in the UK they weren't cheap but sounded pretty good. Then a friend sold me a very beat-up '82 Marshall JCM800 2204. It made the DSL50 sound very polite and anemic! What an amp! Very loud though.

So I have made a few 2204 style amps and a few 1987s in the '67-68 style as well. Crazy loud but beautiful sounding. You can easily bias a 2204 or 1987 to run 6V6s and they can sound killer with less volume. Still way loud enough for a band though.
 
I'm struggling with amp-building GAS, and clicking on this thread did not help! I'm really keen to build low-wattage versions of a Wizard MTL and a modded Plexi with the Headfirst PCBs. Think they can both be done at 25W... which is not really a low wattage amp, I guess. Sorry. But I will keep reading anything you guys write about this 😅
 
I LOVE using tag or turretboards for these amps. You can get them from places like Valvestorm.com. Excellent chassis there too. With tagboard or turret board modding is easy and you don't have to worry about frying a trace.
 
A friend of mine got a SLO 30 and I got to play it a bit. Now that was an experience. Beautiful, chimey cleans and man, can it growl.
I'd really love to build one with 6V6s.
 
I'd love to see a schematic on that Dirty Shirley mini. I built a 68 Plexi using the Valvestorm materials and have incredible NOS Mullards in there(2 i63s, long plate f91 as the pi, 2 nos xf2 el34s), and a Mojotone TMB, which I don't love nearly as much even with a bunch of improvements. Just too wild and noisy even with shielded cable and moving grid stoppers to the tube pins.

I do love this Matamp GT120 clone I built off of the Hilbish schematic. The growl and low end on that amp is like nothing I've ever played. Hilbish is starting to sell the pcbs for that amp and I'd recommend it(I bought one yesterday bc I may redo my build).
 
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