I don't get the Dumble thing

[GreatGreen]

1966 a young Howard Dumble stumbled out of an all you can eat buffet and heard an old beatnik playing guitar on a street corner out of tiny horrible sounding amplifier. He waddled up to the beatnik and asked him to play Mustang Sally, a new R&B song that was somewhere in the low teens on the billboard charts. Howard was disgusted with the tones coming from the amp to the point he couldn't even enjoy his favorite song.

Frustrated and angry he ambled back to his lair and started building an amplifier out of old parts laying around his mom's basement. Soon his creation was alive. It didn't sound very good though because it was made out of an old refridgerator and parts of a Ford. Howard got so angry he had to eat three sub sandwiches to calm his nerves. Near the point of tears he was inspired.

His friend owned a Fender Bassman amp. All he needed to do was take it apart and see how it worked. Of course, after he got half way through the deconstruction he realised he couldn't remember how to put it back together. In a panic he quickly restored it to the best condition he could, after taking a quick hot dog break of course. Once back together the Fender sounded completely different.... Instead of clean it had a new sound. Tain. With this new found tain sound Dumble went on to build several more amplifiers including the one copied by the guy who taught Tag the secrets of tone.

AAA+++ would read again

 

[spawnofthesith]

This pic goes so hard

 

[la szum]

OK, has anyone extolled the virtues of multichannel amps, vs ancient single channel amps destined to be used in conjunction with a pedal board, in your lifetime?

Nope. Never heard of them.

 

[la szum]

I've suddenly realized Pickles > Dumbles.

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

Was the Dumble amp popularized because of SRV like the tubescreamer?

That is, I think, the funniest parody video I have ever seen! F'in BRILLIANT!! Thanks for sharing that, what a laugh!!!

 

[gearJunkie]

That is, I think, the funniest parody video I have ever seen! F'in BRILLIANT!! Thanks for sharing that, what a laugh!!!

Thanks for your review or else I would have missed that gem. Hilarious!

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

Well, I have never played a Dumble and doubt that I ever will have such an opportunity ;~(( I also am probably the least experienced amp user here! But I can tell you this. Of all the amps I have tried, the ODS-100 Clean in the Axe FXIII has become my favorite amp ever, and when I found out about this amp (via Wes Hauch GOT 2023 preset), I had no idea what it was, but when I heard it, I knew I had found my home base!! I even set up a preset with all my other favorite amps (FAS Buttery, Diamante Fire, FAS Class A, Band Commander, Ruby Rocket, Bludojai and Blankenship Leads) and did a side by side to confirm. I can and do throw sh!t at it on a regular basis and it still smells like roses every time ;~)) I have been pairing it at times with the USA Mk IV Rhythm 1 for some extra bite, but if I had to choose 1 out of the hundreds of amps in the FAS world, the ODS-100 Clean would be it ;~))

 

[Orvillain]

Hopefully we all still have those same moments with some of our gear that @Orvillain has when playing a tube amp,

 

[PLX]

Not true.
Because SRV dumped ALL of his booger sugar
into a 5th of Jack or any handle bottle of booze,
within reach and would down the entire thing.
He also would buy up ALL the booger sugar in the town he was at on tour and do ALL of it at once.
That’s how hard Stevie went.
SRV also played 9’s his last year of playing due to chronic arthritis in his hands.
Where do you think all the poisons in the cut went to he was hoofing?
-in his spine & joints.
The last straw (no pun),
was he would have bouts of random blood tears/drops from his eyes.
Stevie went hard but you know who went harder??
Gary Moore. THE BEAST of beasts.

Just remember bro.. a "lethal dose" is the same thing as a "lifetime supply".

 

[la szum]

Just a modded Fender.

James Marshall did it better, though. Full stop.

 

[LeftyLoungeLizard]

1966 a young Howard Dumble stumbled out of an all you can eat buffet

 

[PLX]

This pic goes so hard

I told my kids that was Dave Friedman.

 

[Bruce]

Short answer….it is just an amp. The end.

 

[jazzarian]

Closest I’ve played is a friend’s Fuchs Blackjack 21. Not exactly a Dumble but similar topology scaled down to a 6v6 power section. I thought it was pretty cool. A unique voicing for sure. Definitely in the hot rodded Fender camp. I don’t know if it’s a voicing I’d use a lot but it’s a cool sound. Would I love to play the real thing? Sure. Will it happen in my lifetime? Probably not lol. But some folks love those amps and the derivatives thereof.

I've got a Fuchs Lucky 7 MkII and a 4 Aces, both of the Blackjack series. Not a lot of clean headroom but their clean channels are quite fine. The overdrive is typical of a mid 1980s Dumble ODS, which is something I love. Both feature a simplistic but extremely good effects loops.

Poor Andy has to compete with his own success these days. There's a lot of used amps available.

Here is my 4 watter. The bottom has a 12" Neo Creamback.

 

[0XI0]

if the clipping recipe was common knowledge it could be replicated cheaply, but the recipe is complex (not difficult) and not documented, REsearch necessary to extract the recipe (Gramaticooooo). if the clipping recipe to get the Rectifier buzz out of a Marshall (Morin) was common knowledge, rectifier and SLO would be wholly redundant, but nobody know how, so "rectifier" sound remains "valuable" and "unique", because u can't get it without a rectifier. except all the "rectifier" recordings... AREN'T

 

[PLX]

if the clipping recipe was common knowledge it could be replicated cheaply, but the recipe is complex (not difficult) and not documented, REsearch necessary to extract the recipe

There are sites dedicated to nothing but cloning Dumble circuits..

It ain't witchcraft.. it's audio circuit design

 

[spawnofthesith]

VESmedic got caught trying to pass off reamped stems as his own clips - he may be correct but o certainly wouldnt take anythjng he has to say at face value

 

[PLX]

VESmedic got caught trying to pass off reamped stems as his own clips - he may be correct but o certainly would take anythjng he has to say at face value

Oh Snap !

I forgot about that.

 

[0XI0]

There are sites dedicated to nothing but cloning Dumble circuits..

It ain't witchcraft.. it's audio circuit design

but does the Dumble sound "rely" on inadvertent undocumented inductive parasitics (from circuit layout) like a dual rectifier? do the clones feel the same? the characteristic Dumble clipping behavior is mostly in how the preamp gain stages are biased and filtered each in turn. single notes bloom into a kaleidoscope of harmonics because there is a lot going on other than just "more gain". Mike Morin isolated what the rectifier "buzz" sound was and squeezed it out of a 5 stage Marshall preamp, Marsha-fier. What is the Dumble "rumble" sound and where is it caused in the preamp? I call it "rumble" cause it sounds like a bag full of rocks. if rectifier "buzz" is on top, Dumble "rumble" is in the belly.

 

[PLX]

single notes bloom into a kaleidoscope of harmonics

They have a sound.. like all amps.

I personally don't go for the hype and hysteria over Bogner's circuits, or Friedman's, old Fenders.. Dumble.

The first Marshall amp was a direct clone of a Fender Bassman - flipped upside down.