@@RhettShull I have an LF Tribute band .. I transcribed alot of the guitar parts and solos off Feats Don’t Fail and Columbus.. pretty sure he was using a Dumble for Columbus by 77’.. not sure about the earlier albums however.. a lot of his earlier sound was Massenburg apply multiple 1176’s I believe.
Waiting For Columbus is is one of the only true live records officially released. Meaning no overdubs, etc. Think Live At Leeds from The Who is one of if not the only other that isn’t messed with
@@Eric-z6f search for an interview with Bill Payne and in it he tells how LG went to a studio and replaced a lot of the vocals and his guitar parts…it’s weird I know but you can sometimes hear his original slide parts from the stage mic’s way in the background and then the overdubbed guitar comes in super loud.. also there is a few RUclips’s from that tour where it’s an audience recording and he bails on alot of the higher vocal Melodie’s..having said that what an awesome musician…
I knew Howard (before he became Alexander) and liked him quite a bit. He was always nice to me - told me lots of stories and we even jammed together at the Alley, the rehearsal studio in North Hollywood where he had his shop at the time. He lent me an overdrive special for my first recording project in LA (I think it was around 1982). I spent a week with it; it was great, but too much like a hyper-clean twin with a great distortion pedal added on for me (either clean as a shiny whistle or that great David Lindley overdrive). I used the studio's old plexi and 4x12 for most of the tracks. Maybe I just wasn't ready for it... it was a long time ago. But at the time the sound didn't work for me... it's sad that I was broke, though... he would have sold it to me for (I think it was) $1250 and I just didn't have it. He was a great guy, like I said... among the nuggets he told me that I recall: about the Roland JC120 : "it has a really great clean sound; too bad they make it with such garbage parts..." and, "the only amp that impresses me is Hiwatt..." (about the original Harry Joyce wired ones...) "a great, innovative design, and reallly well made..."
I agree with Dumble. I went to a Guitar Center and they had a HiWatt in the vintage room. It was in mint condition. I played though it and the sound blew me away. It was super clean but didn't sound like any other amp I ever heard. I wanted to buy it but it was over $5,000.00 which was way more than I could afford.
@kennylyon1934 I knew him as well - I'd been up to his house, played a bunch of great stuff, hung out ... He was a wonderful guy and got a bad rap from a bunch of Internet misinformation. Sadly, he's gone, and moving forward so are his one of a kind creations imho.
@@TheZenguitarguy Shiloh! Cheerfully walking in with the old-style coffee pot full of "alley grinds." And Bill (was it Bill? It's been so many years...) Yeah, it was a great place. Do you know Freebo? He's the guy I rehearsed there with: a band with him, Mike Rogers and Gary Mallaber... It was Freebo who introduced me to Howard.
I played that blonde Dumble that Robben owns pictured here. I was thinking of getting one but Robben's amp didn't get clean enough for me so I was considering getting a Steel String Singer. I have a friend that was good friends with Dumble so he was going to hook me up with him. At the time that amp was going for $5,000 US and considering that a full blown handwired Boogie was about $800 US, that was a pile of money and this was in the early 80's. All Dumbles are built specifically for the player. There's a video where Larry Carlton talks about how he and Robben switched Dumbles and they couldn't get the tone they were looking for with each others amps. Personally I didn't really care for Robben's amp all that much but I like pristine cleans and that amp didn't do it for me. My friend had a falling out with Dumble so the amp never happened which is a shame because I keep my gear in pristine condition and could have sold it and paid off my house. Supposedly all of Dumble's amps have been blueprinted so there's schematics for all of them but I don't know if it's true or not. I've only seen two Dumbles. The one I mentioned above and another one that came into another friend of mines shop to get fixed. I was there when it came in and we took the chassis out of the cabinet and the electronics were all gooped up with this black epoxy shit. It was gross and disgusting. I asked my friend "How are you going to fix this?" He said "I'm not." He called the guy up and told him to take it back to Dumble.
Drew Berlin was extremely close with Dumble and was most likely blessed by Alexander's estate to do what he's doing. He has access to all of Alexander's amps, parts, notes etc. What he doesn't have, or will ever have, is Alexander's ear for crafting an amp for a specific tone/player.
Wife: what happened to the Timmy's college fund? Husband:Timmy's a bone head, we both know he's never going and I need a real Dumble amp. Timmy will understand.
John, great video and one of my favorite things is hearing you play at the start of the videos. Your content is great and would love to see a video of you talking about your fav artists. Have a great weekend and hope the gigging and family are doing great.
Great Stuff. Little Feat is AMAZING!🤩 Joe Bonamassa said he was gonna send Lowell’s Dumble on the road with LITTLE FEAT to have on stage with them again 🤘🤠💜
Yeah. I'm not sure how all the "best tones" only come from gear that is rare and expensive. It reminds me of The Beatles lyric "He's got to be good lookin' cause he's so hard to see". The gear is next to impossible to find and afford, so it must the greatest thing ever, but it's not. EQ pedals are awesome and readily available though.
I was able to play two Dumbles over the 35 years I've been playing, and almost twenty of building and repairing amps. One was a 100W skyline and the other was an HRM. I had no idea what i was playing the first time (and to be honest i wouldn't have known much of a difference at the time), the HRM was about 15 years later. I've both owned and built a score of clones, and have playes several others. I love the ODS cleans, and i like the OD channel at lower to mid gain, but I'm not really into the higher gain settings, at least on the Skyline tone stacks. I've been enamored with fuzzy gain tones. I've discovered that i prefer the HRM for higher gain settings. I find the OD channel on the HRMs to bea lot more dynamic, to the point that they can be difficult for players to wrangle if they're not used to that type of response. They're like a second instrument.
Oh Boy !! Have you got some fun times to come catching up with Little Feat ... Dixie Chicken, Willin', Fat Man In The Bathtub .. and loads more Also check out Lowell George's work with Robert Palmer - "Sneakin Sally Through The Alley" is an Excellent album.
EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES. Literally none of my 100 favourite guitar albums were recorded using Dumbles. The list would probably extend to the top 1000 if I could be bothered to look into it. They are nice sounding amps. Like Marshalls and Fenders are nice sounding amps. And that's it. No magic. No secret tone. Just amps.
@AmericanNationalist852 - Think what you really mean is that the JCM800 2203 is your *favorite* amp. Otherwise your on a island with a only a few that would agree it’s the “best” amp and best is subjective anyway
Just to add names to the people that build amps based on dumbles that are worth considering: Welagen, Bludotone, ERSO amplification (genius dude!), ceriatone, gazzi, Sinewave amps etc
If you listen to Robben interviews, he says he didn't use the overdrive (much). He used the clean, but if you watch, he steps on the Zen Drive. And if you really watch, its his hands. Tons of people are theoretically mor knowledgeable than he is. But they don't sound like that through a Fender (which he ends up using on the road from rental). When Robben plays blues like he has been doing so much lately it is great, but when he plays Fusion, It is MAGIC. This is coming from a guy who was offered the job of doing the Roger Coreman B Horror movie score before Robben and then Larry. Make no mistake, Robben has a special gift for Jazz fusion- Miles heard it. Robben made his ledged on Fenders. I used to live on the North Hollywood side in Studio City a block over from Laurel Canyon Blvd. All of them were shopping in the Food King. I would network at 2:30a there because it was easy to pick up gigs like that. You go where the Fire is if you want to roast your weenies. My store of choice was Valley Arts. My Diatribe is almost pre-Dumble. These are great players who when where the fire was at that time.
Yes, he did say that! the reason being is because, he didn’t like pumping effects into a dirty amp. He also said in that interview in the studio he would use the amps gain. I think he also said he didn’t want to carry the rack gear anymore. Which allowed him to use effects loop allowing him to use the amps gain channel live.
Tough gig. Truth is, the dumble infamy isn't about magic amps, it's the fact that a good few of the greatest guitarists play them and the scarcity makes the hype grow. If they become readily available people will realise they're just another good amp that works great for some and not for others. Same as when Klon made the KTR. No one wanted them and they could be had super cheap on eBay because likewise the Klon is just a decent overdrive like several others. If they just bring the brand back and don't try to make it a continuation of the lauded amps of the past then fair enough.
Yeah, and Dumble charging a small fortune at the time only added to it. If these folks played a solid state Crate, those would be stupidly expensive now.
Didn’t Alexander Dumble refuse to take an apprentice? There’s no way he wrote down all of his trade secrets for someone else to copy after he died. Like you said, these will be well made clones with a logo stamped on them It’s time to move on! I’m more interested in what we will do, not in what we have done.
@@csl4159 Nope, the circuits were all base line models tuned differently for a certain player. Without Dumbles ears tuning the amp to a certain player. There will only be clones of someone’s used amp.
@@csl4159 there’s no magical Dumble amp. The magic was Dumble tweaking A amp for your playing style. Which we all know probably won’t work for everyone in general.
I net Alexander a few times and my friend Jamie Kime knew him quite well and my other friend Joey Brasler who is now the VP at Fender new him very very well. The problem with the idea of making "Dumbles" is that without Alexander it's not really the same thing? His ability wasn't just the electronic components and the configuration of the parts that made the amp, but his ability to listen to an individual player and understand how they attacked the guitar and translate that into an amp that would respond in the best possible way to the way that player played. Like when you're at the optometrist and they say "better like this close or better like this?" And then they make adjustments. Just to put some components together and slap The label on the amp doesn't make it any more of one of his amps than any of the other contenders. I've played through several of them and they're all completely different, and the ones I played through didn't particularly suit my hands, which in my opinion made a lot of sense as they weren't made for me. I think that the hype around the expenses is out of proportion, but for the guys who tour and can afford it, good for them! For the rest of us find the tool that works and have a good life! Thanks for the great video as always !
@@RezaMatix you should check out the podcast that he and I did forever. If you DM me, I will send you a link. He and I used to have this really great podcast called Guitar talk Way back in the day, lol and yes, Jamie is one of the best guitar players I know. John is also right up there. He’s one of my favorite players on RUclips right now
That's what I was guessing. But I wonder what the differences between individual Dumble amps were. Did every one of a particular model have the same circuit configuration, and Alex's player-customized difference was a matter of slightly different bias points for the tubes, slightly different coupling capacitors? Or was it more fundamental, and he actually designed a whole different preamp from scratch for each player - possibly with different tubes and a different circuit topology?
@@Baribrotzer idk and neither does anyone else but if they have the schematics I'm sure they can build a decent amp. That along with the Dumble name should be more than enough to be successful imo.
My Rivera Clubster Royale Recording can roll from clean as can be to ragingly heavy. I have been very spoiled with this little guy. Picked it up for a great price and it has been the ultimate little tone box.
It would be interesting to see what their approach is for recreating these amps. If they have some notes that were never made public about the specific changes and tweaks to the original circuits that were made for each artist and why, and these amps are being designed for specific artists, this could be very interesting. If all we're going to see is basically what happened to Kustom Amps, where now it is just a relatively cheap amp with the logo that we are familiar with slapped on it, it's less interesting. I imagine there will be a general line available to anybody, regardless, but I hope some version of that first option is what we will see, because otherwise there isn't much of a point imo
I’ve played. Fuchs ODS 50 and an Amplified Nation Bombshell 6V6. My impressions echo JNC’s: amazing cleans, perfect cleans for me, but drive channels I didn’t love at first glance. In both cases, I spent all my time on the clean channel and was perfectly happy. I assume the drive channels might need EQing, maybe low settings, and maybe a lighter touch to “sound like a Dumble.”. I played one of the JM-era Trainwreck “reissues” John mentioned, and THAT is the drive tone I like. I have no illusions it was on the level of an original Ken Fischer Trainwreck, but I’ll never play one of those. Without having tried lots of other wreck clones, I found the ‘touch sensitive clean to mean” stuff people talk about in that “reissue” Express.
I've recently acquired a Amplified Nation Wonderland Overdrive combo (Warehouse 65 speaker) and it's the closest I've come to getting that 80s RF Dumble lead tone. Excellent pick attack, note bloom and clarity all around. It was stated as being one of the best amps to couple with a Strat, and it is great (Suihr HSS) but my Suhr Tele sounds even better and my old PRS ('93) CE25 is better still. I've mostly played it on "half volume" and not pushing the Master much over 4, but I've tested it out (in an empty house) at full 50W with the master up and it's even more glorious. I needed to re-educate myself on the cascading thing and I like it best with less Gain and Drive (both around 3). Just a Lynhurst comp and Zvex SHO in front with an old Diamond memory Lane Jr. in the loop. AND the clean side is absolutely pristine. Not cheap but not crazy expensive either, around $3,500). Highly recommend.
I recently acquired a 100 watt AN Phoenix Fury (formerly the Overdrive Reverb) with a matching 2x12 and it's absolutely phenomenal. I was considering getting a Wonderland Overdrive or Bombshell Overdrive next. I'm also getting used to the whole cascading gain thing and will occasionally throw a Greer Lightspeed, Sure Shot, or AA Buckartie-Boo up front for more gain. A little picky about what drives it likes (I found those three to work best with it out of my own dirt boxes), but most of the time, it doesn't even really need any pedals. Also, I am still getting used to how touch-sensitive it is, especially since I'm heavy-handed! I can imagine the WO is likely just as touch-sensitive as well.
@@dannyllerenatv8635 It is! These amps have a certain high fidelity (?) that forces you to clean up your playing technique for sure. I may try other speakers just to see how it responds, but certainly not necessary.
I just purchased the same amp Wonderland OD v2. It is truly an instrument on it's own. Love how each guitar shines with it's own character. Honestly don't need any drive pedals but I have kept the Greer LS and the new Mythos Envy, TS type pedal. Not that it needs it but when on the drive channel I do like using the Suhr woodshed comp pedal. Strymon Bigsky mx and Timeline in the loop. It really comes alive master set at 4, at least for me. In my home studio when I need to keep the volume lower at night I run it through my OX Box. I don't really notice tone loss. Debating on a Bombshell or Phoenix Fury as my next purchase. Friends own Two Rock, those are amazing, like the TS1 and Bloomfield, but honestly Amplified Nation, IMHO is right up there.
@@TrevorrNourse I tried adding gain pedals in front of the clean channel to have a crunch rhythm thing but I found just rolling the volume back on my guitar (and maybe switching a pickup setting) works better for this. Truly less is more in this regard. Rock on!
I've owned and gigged a Fuchs ODS 100 watt for over 20 years. First Fuchs was a mod he did for me. It's a great amp! It'll do whatever you need if you get to know it. Strangely enough I don't gig with it as much anymore cause it's so damn heavy! 😎 We do love our tools though don't we!
AFAIK Robben Ford's Dumble was loaned to him for some time, because even he couldn't afford the asking price. Dumble made it on spec and RF liked it, but it could have gone to someone else if RF hadn't liked it. There's a lot of info in the last eps of Guitar Wank podcast re owners tales of their particular amps. One ep did mention a firm Dumble recommended for repairs, and who didn't do direct rips of his designs,
It's not a Dumble, unless Howard met you, listened to you play and designed and built the amp for you, one particular artist. It just isn't. A second-hand Dumble isn't really "your Dumble" either. There isn't "a classic Dumble tone" there are many Dumble tones. Every Dumble amp is unique. It wasn't mass produced, they're all basically individual prototypes.
My take on the story is Dumble custom built amps for specific players very well. Who wouldn't want some genius building an amp geared to your playing style!! That said, if you don't play like the guy the amp was built for then it might not work well for you. I personally find amps I like the tone and gain characteristics of and then dial in by changing the pickups on my guitar which is a lot more affordable. There is no "ultimate" guitar tone, it all depends on what type of music you are playing, if you play country, rock, jazz, metal, etc you will probably want a different amp for each style and be happy if one can cover two or three of them with the same one but probably need to change your guitar. I'm not going to pay stupid money for an amp until I am famous enough to get an endorsement deal in which case it will be free.
I’ve played a few Dumbles (Lindley’s, Santana’s, Berlin collection , etc) and they are definitely a thing to behold. Each one different but great, like Ken Fisher’s Trainwrecks. I have zero faith that the Berlin/Swanson amps, if they ever get made, will have any more of the original Dumble magic than a Fuchs, Welagen, Bludotone, etc. if you want as close to a “real” Dumble vibe as you can get, buy an ODS from Jelle Welagen. No one does it better.
As for lead tones, all the tubes need to be selected in each spot. Internal PI and drive trims set correctly. Speaker selection is crucial. Running fx in the passive loop may not work without a Dumbleator. Single coil or humbuckers may require some circuit adjustments. John, it's sometimes more involved than just plugging a guitar in with the Dumble circuits.
Cheers John!! I see this video spawned several articles in very notable US Guitar Publications with you being mentioned as having broke the news, nice job mate 🤟🎶
With all the parameters in the Fractal system, I think you could build a virtual Dumble from quite a few of the Amps in their system. Eric Johnson summed it up in 89 he called it a HIGH POWERED TWIN. he had a steel string singer.
money grab, but there will be many buyers depending on the price. I'm a Marshall amp player, though I have a Mesa, Engl and Fender. My Fender is a '76 Super Twin. It's loud and versatile, and close enough to a Dumble tone for me as someone not looking for a Dumble tone. Amazing cleans, crunch and smooth leads when you get the power section working hot. I think the ST sounds more like a SSS than ODS which is why the ODS fans don't bother with them...which meant I got my ST at a great price, it still as the original speakers and Fender USA 6L6 power tubes, though it it needs one or a few caps replaced. I'm sure Bonamassa, Ford, Johnson, etc. could get great tones from a Super Twin
It’s not a real Dumble unless Howard Alexander Dumble himself made it. And since he passed away, there will never be another real Dumble made. They will all be clones. Just because someone bought the company name, patents, and old schematics, does not change that fact.
Considering the legend of Dumble and all that, it'll be like anything else. There'll be a ton of this is awesome when they come out, but then there'll be a bunch of they're nothing like the originals after a while. Another cash in on a name that has some legend attached.
For those saying a Dumble won’t be a Dumble unless it’s built by the man himself then what about Marshall? Originally built by Jim Marshall in a shed somewhere in the UK until he’d sold enough to employ other people to help him build more. Today there are many, many thousands of Marshalls around the world. If the schematics exist and they’re built to exactly the same spec then it’ll be a Dumble amp. The guy wasn’t a mythical wizard. He was an engineer who built amps. They’re just amps, for heaven’s sake. Look at the BS surrounding the Klon. Andertons have pretty much proved that you can’t tell a Wampler Tumnus from a Klon in a blind test. It’s all utterly crazy.
He made amplifiers for individual players. Which means that no two are identical. And after all these years, the component values will have drifted. So there is no way of knowing what they were originally.
I went to a bonammasaa show and there was so much plexi glass around the amps it was like being at a lobby of a bank. 😂. Needless to say it made the sound sterile in the auditorium
Price is one thing. Waiting list/backlog is another. I have a Fuchs HRM clone. It works beautifully with a Strat and I agree the cleans are stellar but it takes a bit to dial in the drive sound. With my LP the drive was really flubby. Boss GE-7 to the rescue. It made a huge difference.
A little like a Formula 1 car only works when the tires and the breaks are up to temperature (extremely hot)… Dumbles and really any higher wattage amp sound their best when they’re moving a lot of air. For bedroom players or anyone that isn’t able to run them hard (and therefore loud), what makes them great is going to be lost. If you want the thing you hear live and on albums, you better not have neighbors.
Controversial opinion: I’ve never heard a Dumble. Most, if not all of us here have never heard a Dumble. We’ve heard recordings of Dumbles, which insert into the equation- a microphone, a human to conduct the recording, and speakers/headphones to reproduce the sound. Guitarists obsess over anything that seems mystical, mythical, and magical. I’m sure they’re great amps, but maybe we should focus on circle jerking something a little more tangible. I’d suggest Atlantis for starters
It will be interesting to see what comes of this. However, I’m damned happy to have the orange UA pedal and just sold my Revv amp to get a Fender FR-10. So I’ll have a gig ready ‘Dumble’ rig for under $1000.
Dr Z makes the Z Wreck amp that was designed with help from Ken Fischer. Does it sound like an original TrainwrecK? Don't know as I haven't heard a Trainwreck in person, but the Z Wreck sounds great in person.
As an ancient Grinch I can assure you that my substantial hearing loss will not allow me to differentiate tones to that level. I think most people only care about music at a entertainment level and few people can really distinguish the sound quality difference.
A huge ingredient of Dumble's reputation is the custom tailoring of each amp for the artist buying it and e.g. matching input impedance to the guitars, customizing eq frequencies and taper, yada... Very few amps, e.g. the 12 ODS amps that went to Kitty Hawk, were not like that. And allegedly he performed these customizations at price points that some companies today charge for a custom tolex. You are only remotely comparable to the man, if you can do all of that and have the ear to even get there. Being able to ooze out Little Wing after painfully dissecting it bar by bar for a decade does not make one Hendrix either.
For Little Feet, try Spanish Moon. Warren Haines does a great live version with all of the players having multiple solos(that gets a bit much) but I love the song.
Each Dumble amp was made for each player. Alex listened first. Then thought for ages about the circuitry. His thing was to make the perfect amp for each player. Also: If you sucked at guitar but had money he would never build you an amp.
Gain is like tomato sauce, most people over use it nowadays. What used to be considered high gain is quite clean by today's standard. This is why more younger guitarists are often surprised at how miderate some amps are, that were considered fire breathing monsters in their day ; and it is ,totally, the fact that people never used to mike up amps onstage, thst meant they were inevitably using them a good deal more loudly set. Today's guitarists perhaps aren't aware that they live in over-regulated, and highly restricted controlled lives, where the neighbours will complain about the drop if a pencil, and public rock performances are rarer than piped music,( meaning people are not used to every venue you'd go to in the old days being a loud noisy rock music experience. The rebellious spirit of rock music is just an intellectual concept now rather than the fun esrly rock days of the 60's and 70's, where it was acceptable to be wild and loud. This is becsuse they have been bought by the financial business interests that saw them coming, and don't realise that they have sold their soul in the process until it is too late. In the seventies two or three garages or rumpus rooms in every street in some suburbs would have a drum set and a few amps chugging away most weekends, because it was a normal way young people would be kept off the streets and occupied in something they enjoyed, and didn't cost anything to have fun.
@@jimsalman7257 Well, that's true, and just as with motor bikes, if you give a young man something powerfull, don't be surprised if he pushes it to extremes and overdoes it. I often used to think that while I was tolerant of fairly loud music, I thought that too often most guitarists would always play too loudly ( why? Because they had the power and they could). Also ,before the advent of electronic tuners, most bands would be not only too loud, but also be too out of tune. That didn't mean that I was stupid enough to do that, and always pkayed liudly, but in moderation. Nowdays, as with everything else , no one has a chance to develope their own judgement or good sense of what too loud is, because the whole of life is so regulated they never have the chance to learn. I used a Marshall 100 watt plexi for fifteen years without ever miking it up, and my gigs varied from outdoor concerts to restaurants and weddings, but I had mastered the use of something called a volume control. My hearing is undiminished to this day, and it is because I played in bands because I loved music ( which means using your ears to balance your levels within a band sound without a mix engineer), and I was motivated to create music rather than to show off how liud your amp can go. I've often seen Ferraries driving dliwly through city traffic because they have an accelerator and don't have to go at full speed all the time. The people who have brought about the necessity of volume regulations in society are those who abused the privilege of their situation for their own ego's sake, and they are the ones that are now deaf... not me! You get idiots in all areas of life, and many of the people who used to play in bsnds weren't even interested in music,... they just saw it as fun...( they should have played rugby instead, but more pretty gurls used to hang around watching bsnds, so thst was mostly the reason they were involved. I didn't mind the attention I got either, but I got mire enjoyment from the love of combining sounds in a way that mysteriously moved people) Just as the idiots who drive too fast cause me to get a ticket if I accidentally run over 30 mph ( or 50 kph), the idiots who played to loud ( probably because they were more concerned with getting drunk) have spoiled life for the rest as usual by not putting music first, but that doesn't excuse going to the opposite extreme and taxing you for breathing or for doing it too loudly. Most of us are fine despite former excesses, and can still hear well,... thise that don't have nothing of musical value to contribute anyway and are better off retiring.👍🎸
One other Dumble clone builder is Glaswerks. I have one of his Overdrive Deluxe. Its killer! I have seen pictures where Joe B owns and was recently touring with two different ones.
Long distance love, is only one of several Little Feat tunes that are way above average. Little Feat is sometimes an aquired taste that is worth aquiring, but their career is quite varied. I would recommend some of their early albums and some of their later ones, but it's worth finding out for yourself, becsuse much of their stuff has varied greatly according to who was in the band at the time.
Amazing stuff as always my friend. I was wondering if you'd make a video showing how to play EJ's "Alone with You" specifically around the middle of tune right before it drops back down.
I did get to play a Dumble ODS 50 watt single 12 combo amp at the SongBirds museum in Chattanooga Tennessee ..... I played a legit 59 Les Paul through it for about 10 minutes. The biggest characteristic I noticed was how single notes would "bloom" and just seem to fill the entire room with sound even though it wasn't that loud. It was very clean and very touch sensitive as well. Since then I have purchased the Ampliphonix and Gain 50 watt head from Amplified Nation .....similar characteristics but certainly not the same as the Dumble in my brief experience.
The guy that builds Trainwrecks might be doing a good job, but I have heard one, and it didn't really sound like a real Trainwreck to me. The cloners of both Trainwreck and Dumble amps are doing a better job of capturing the magic IMHO. I know Jelle Welagan, and his Dumble amps are killer. I never really liked the Dumble drive tones, but the smooth cleanish tone is wonderful, and Jelle's amps nail it. Trainwrecks are easier to clone than Dumbles as their schematics are much simpler. Even I have built a few TW clones (2 Expresses and one Rocket), and they sounded great to my ears. It will be interesting to see how much the new Dumble amps cost, which models they have recreated (they were all a little different due to HADs tweaking to the taste of the buyer), and how close they are to the original amp that inspired it.
Right. Only Ken could build a Trainwreck like only Alexander could build a Dumble. There's a lot more to building an amplifier than just following a schematic...
I’m lucky to have clones of each and I would likely build a Ceriatone ODS clone if I lost one. I might even try to build one without the OD channel, or something less ODS … okay, I want a SSS clone kit to feel “complete “.
Your Dumble Helix tone is just as good. I’d be hard pressed to find someone who can tell a real difference. So the Helix has endless options, at now $899 for an LT (which I have) or $200k. Total waste of money IMO even if you have that to burn.
A Dumble amp not made by Alexander Dumble makes little sense as he was what made the amp so special. I guess his family/estate does not need the name and company if there is no revenues from it so makes sense in a business sense.
This is the thing I find so weird about the deep dumble fans: the secrecy. Cordy can't share someone's amp settings because they were shared in private? It's amp settings, right? Not login passwords.
It's a weird boomer thing. My parents were the same way. Trying to learn anything from that whole generation was like pulling teeth. They knew the secret and you weren't allowed to. Absolutely childish.
Now they all sit around and bitch about every generation since and wish for a King in an election to bail them out of their own intellectual laziness and cowardice. So much for all those ridiculous ass Vietnam era protest songs
The Dumble name will bring a premium price and that's before knowing if it's any good or not. I doubt many of us will be able to afford it. Also, the hype around these amps in general is overblown imo.
I wonder if they are mostly going to use the Dumble brand to litigate against the clones, profilers, etc, for monetary gain. Like patent trolls, kinda.
With the advent of the high end clones and pedals, I’m not to sure of the market for these. Of course they’ll be for the well heeled with plenty of disposable income, which isn’t necessarily what working guitarists are today. Club gigs typically don’t pay well. Perhaps I’m wrong in that assessment, but I digress… I just don’t see these types of amps at all ( the expensive clones) at gigs. I see digital floor things, Katana’s, Fender Tone Masters and the occasional Marshall. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with this.
To be honest with you I almost always fast-forward through most of your playing introduction once I get the jist of what you’re playing, but I listened to this whole one because I think the sound of a Dumble makes you play completely different or maybe just a thought of *this is a dumble* so maybe I need to be more expressive than usual.
A second run will be a crime upon the original amp owners and a scam upon the new buyers. No matter what the new amps cost it is just the use of a historic name.
Dumble's aside you should really dig into Little Feat, those early records are legendary.
I've got a collection of those early albums and they're great. 👍
@@RhettShull I have an LF Tribute band .. I transcribed alot of the guitar parts and solos off Feats Don’t Fail and Columbus.. pretty sure he was using a Dumble for Columbus by 77’.. not sure about the earlier albums however.. a lot of his earlier sound was Massenburg apply multiple 1176’s I believe.
Waiting For Columbus is is one of the only true live records officially released. Meaning no overdubs, etc.
Think Live At Leeds from The Who is one of if not the only other that isn’t messed with
@@Eric-z6f search for an interview with Bill Payne and in it he tells how LG went to a studio and replaced a lot of the vocals and his guitar parts…it’s weird I know but you can sometimes hear his original slide parts from the stage mic’s way in the background and then the overdubbed guitar comes in super loud.. also there is a few RUclips’s from that tour where it’s an audience recording and he bails on alot of the higher vocal Melodie’s..having said that what an awesome musician…
Came here to say this same thing, don't sleep on Little Feat! They were incredible
I knew Howard (before he became Alexander) and liked him quite a bit. He was always nice to me - told me lots of stories and we even jammed together at the Alley, the rehearsal studio in North Hollywood where he had his shop at the time.
He lent me an overdrive special for my first recording project in LA (I think it was around 1982). I spent a week with it; it was great, but too much like a hyper-clean twin with a great distortion pedal added on for me (either clean as a shiny whistle or that great David Lindley overdrive).
I used the studio's old plexi and 4x12 for most of the tracks.
Maybe I just wasn't ready for it... it was a long time ago. But at the time the sound didn't work for me... it's sad that I was broke, though... he would have sold it to me for (I think it was) $1250 and I just didn't have it.
He was a great guy, like I said... among the nuggets he told me that I recall: about the Roland JC120 : "it has a really great clean sound; too bad they make it with such garbage parts..." and, "the only amp that impresses me is Hiwatt..." (about the original Harry Joyce wired ones...) "a great, innovative design, and reallly well made..."
ahhh the Alley...I miss Shiloh...I knew those guys from the time I was 19 until I was in my late 40's... sooo many memories there...
I agree with Dumble. I went to a Guitar Center and they had a HiWatt in the vintage room. It was in mint condition. I played though it and the sound blew me away. It was super clean but didn't sound like any other amp I ever heard. I wanted to buy it but it was over $5,000.00 which was way more than I could afford.
@kennylyon1934 I knew him as well - I'd been up to his house, played a bunch of great stuff, hung out ... He was a wonderful guy and got a bad rap from a bunch of Internet misinformation. Sadly, he's gone, and moving forward so are his one of a kind creations imho.
@@TheZenguitarguy Shiloh! Cheerfully walking in with the old-style coffee pot full of "alley grinds." And Bill (was it Bill? It's been so many years...) Yeah, it was a great place. Do you know Freebo? He's the guy I rehearsed there with: a band with him, Mike Rogers and Gary Mallaber... It was Freebo who introduced me to Howard.
@@EnJoony Yeah, he was a really interesting guy and very cool. And he was a pretty good player, too))
I played that blonde Dumble that Robben owns pictured here. I was thinking of getting one but Robben's amp didn't get clean enough for me so I was considering getting a Steel String Singer. I have a friend that was good friends with Dumble so he was going to hook me up with him. At the time that amp was going for $5,000 US and considering that a full blown handwired Boogie was about $800 US, that was a pile of money and this was in the early 80's. All Dumbles are built specifically for the player. There's a video where Larry Carlton talks about how he and Robben switched Dumbles and they couldn't get the tone they were looking for with each others amps. Personally I didn't really care for Robben's amp all that much but I like pristine cleans and that amp didn't do it for me. My friend had a falling out with Dumble so the amp never happened which is a shame because I keep my gear in pristine condition and could have sold it and paid off my house. Supposedly all of Dumble's amps have been blueprinted so there's schematics for all of them but I don't know if it's true or not. I've only seen two Dumbles. The one I mentioned above and another one that came into another friend of mines shop to get fixed. I was there when it came in and we took the chassis out of the cabinet and the electronics were all gooped up with this black epoxy shit. It was gross and disgusting. I asked my friend "How are you going to fix this?" He said "I'm not." He called the guy up and told him to take it back to Dumble.
Drew Berlin was extremely close with Dumble and was most likely blessed by Alexander's estate to do what he's doing. He has access to all of Alexander's amps, parts, notes etc. What he doesn't have, or will ever have, is Alexander's ear for crafting an amp for a specific tone/player.
One of the very amps, that almost no one has tried or will likely ever get to try, is the JCA Circuits G.R. 1.6. Absolutely amazing combo amp.
Wife: what happened to the Timmy's college fund?
Husband:Timmy's a bone head, we both know he's never going and I need a real Dumble amp.
Timmy will understand.
Timmy can work at McDonald’s. Also somebody has to mine Lithium for your silly disposable battery cars🤨
Should take Timmy and boost the dumble amp with him. He needs to make himself useful.
TIMMEH!
@@randall9000 and the Lords of the Underworld!
Two-Rock Amps, which take inspiration from Dumble are next-level amazing. They're literally the best 6V6 or 6L6 amps you can buy...
John, great video and one of my favorite things is hearing you play at the start of the videos. Your content is great and would love to see a video of you talking about your fav artists. Have a great weekend and hope the gigging and family are doing great.
Great Stuff. Little Feat is AMAZING!🤩 Joe Bonamassa said he was gonna send Lowell’s Dumble on the road with LITTLE FEAT to have on stage with them again 🤘🤠💜
All those great albums singles and concerts that were made without a Dumble in sight.
Yeah. I'm not sure how all the "best tones" only come from gear that is rare and expensive. It reminds me of The Beatles lyric "He's got to be good lookin' cause he's so hard to see". The gear is next to impossible to find and afford, so it must the greatest thing ever, but it's not. EQ pedals are awesome and readily available though.
I was able to play two Dumbles over the 35 years I've been playing, and almost twenty of building and repairing amps. One was a 100W skyline and the other was an HRM. I had no idea what i was playing the first time (and to be honest i wouldn't have known much of a difference at the time), the HRM was about 15 years later. I've both owned and built a score of clones, and have playes several others.
I love the ODS cleans, and i like the OD channel at lower to mid gain, but I'm not really into the higher gain settings, at least on the Skyline tone stacks. I've been enamored with fuzzy gain tones. I've discovered that i prefer the HRM for higher gain settings. I find the OD channel on the HRMs to bea lot more dynamic, to the point that they can be difficult for players to wrangle if they're not used to that type of response. They're like a second instrument.
Oh Boy !! Have you got some fun times to come catching up with Little Feat ...
Dixie Chicken, Willin', Fat Man In The Bathtub .. and loads more
Also check out Lowell George's work with Robert Palmer - "Sneakin Sally Through The Alley" is an Excellent album.
EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES. Literally none of my 100 favourite guitar albums were recorded using Dumbles. The list would probably extend to the top 1000 if I could be bothered to look into it. They are nice sounding amps. Like Marshalls and Fenders are nice sounding amps. And that's it. No magic. No secret tone. Just amps.
Yeah but the JCM800 2203 is still the king of amps....
This only represents your thoughts in your world.
@AmericanNationalist852 - Think what you really mean is that the JCM800 2203 is your *favorite* amp. Otherwise your on a island with a only a few that would agree it’s the “best” amp and best is subjective anyway
@@Eric-z6f Silly & American think the world revolves around their likes & dislike!
Probably many of them were, you just don't know it. They are much more widely used in studio sessions than commonly reported.
Just to add names to the people that build amps based on dumbles that are worth considering: Welagen, Bludotone, ERSO amplification (genius dude!), ceriatone, gazzi, Sinewave amps etc
Good to know
is the dumble pedal any good?
Amplified Nation builds great Dumble stylesd copies
If you listen to Robben interviews, he says he didn't use the overdrive (much). He used the clean, but if you watch, he steps on the Zen Drive. And if you really watch, its his hands. Tons of people are theoretically mor knowledgeable than he is. But they don't sound like that through a Fender (which he ends up using on the road from rental). When Robben plays blues like he has been doing so much lately it is great, but when he plays Fusion, It is MAGIC. This is coming from a guy who was offered the job of doing the Roger Coreman B Horror movie score before Robben and then Larry. Make no mistake, Robben has a special gift for Jazz fusion- Miles heard it. Robben made his ledged on Fenders. I used to live on the North Hollywood side in Studio City a block over from Laurel Canyon Blvd. All of them were shopping in the Food King. I would network at 2:30a there because it was easy to pick up gigs like that. You go where the Fire is if you want to roast your weenies. My store of choice was Valley Arts. My Diatribe is almost pre-Dumble. These are great players who when where the fire was at that time.
Yes, he did say that! the reason being is because, he didn’t like pumping effects into a dirty amp. He also said in that interview in the studio he would use the amps gain. I think he also said he didn’t want to carry the rack gear anymore. Which allowed him to use effects loop allowing him to use the amps gain channel live.
Tough gig. Truth is, the dumble infamy isn't about magic amps, it's the fact that a good few of the greatest guitarists play them and the scarcity makes the hype grow. If they become readily available people will realise they're just another good amp that works great for some and not for others. Same as when Klon made the KTR. No one wanted them and they could be had super cheap on eBay because likewise the Klon is just a decent overdrive like several others. If they just bring the brand back and don't try to make it a continuation of the lauded amps of the past then fair enough.
That sounds logical. Thanks for the explanation!
Exactly 💪just hype
But that’s fame...not infamy
I keep wondering why someone doesn't mass produce the amp with the voicing/circuit. There isn't mass produced amp with the ballpark clean sound.
Yeah, and Dumble charging a small fortune at the time only added to it. If these folks played a solid state Crate, those would be stupidly expensive now.
Alexander is dead = there won't be any more Dumble amplifiers - only clones built by someone else that have a Dumble logo slapped on them.
Didn’t Alexander Dumble refuse to take an apprentice? There’s no way he wrote down all of his trade secrets for someone else to copy after he died. Like you said, these will be well made clones with a logo stamped on them
It’s time to move on! I’m more interested in what we will do, not in what we have done.
This pretty much sums it up. It will always be considered a clone.
The circuit is the circuit and can be replicated 100% accurately. Wether or not its still a dumble is more of a philosophical arguement at this pount
@@csl4159 Nope, the circuits were all base line models tuned differently for a certain player. Without Dumbles ears tuning the amp to a certain player. There will only be clones of someone’s used amp.
@@csl4159 there’s no magical Dumble amp. The magic was Dumble tweaking A amp for your playing style. Which we all know probably won’t work for everyone in general.
I net Alexander a few times and my friend Jamie Kime knew him quite well and my other friend Joey Brasler who is now the VP at Fender new him very very well. The problem with the idea of making "Dumbles" is that without Alexander it's not really the same thing? His ability wasn't just the electronic components and the configuration of the parts that made the amp, but his ability to listen to an individual player and understand how they attacked the guitar and translate that into an amp that would respond in the best possible way to the way that player played. Like when you're at the optometrist and they say "better like this close or better like this?" And then they make adjustments. Just to put some components together and slap The label on the amp doesn't make it any more of one of his amps than any of the other contenders. I've played through several of them and they're all completely different, and the ones I played through didn't particularly suit my hands, which in my opinion made a lot of sense as they weren't made for me. I think that the hype around the expenses is out of proportion, but for the guys who tour and can afford it, good for them! For the rest of us find the tool that works and have a good life! Thanks for the great video as always !
Jamie is one of the best guitarists i've ever seen in person.
@@RezaMatix you should check out the podcast that he and I did forever. If you DM me, I will send you a link. He and I used to have this really great podcast called Guitar talk Way back in the day, lol and yes, Jamie is one of the best guitar players I know. John is also right up there. He’s one of my favorite players on RUclips right now
I agree with this but if they build a quality amp and slap the dumble name on it, they'll sell a ton of them I predict.
That's what I was guessing.
But I wonder what the differences between individual Dumble amps were. Did every one of a particular model have the same circuit configuration, and Alex's player-customized difference was a matter of slightly different bias points for the tubes, slightly different coupling capacitors? Or was it more fundamental, and he actually designed a whole different preamp from scratch for each player - possibly with different tubes and a different circuit topology?
@@Baribrotzer idk and neither does anyone else but if they have the schematics I'm sure they can build a decent amp. That along with the Dumble name should be more than enough to be successful imo.
Saying "They're building Dumbles again" is similar to saying "They're building Stradivari Violins again"...
My Rivera Clubster Royale Recording can roll from clean as can be to ragingly heavy. I have been very spoiled with this little guy. Picked it up for a great price and it has been the ultimate little tone box.
It would be interesting to see what their approach is for recreating these amps. If they have some notes that were never made public about the specific changes and tweaks to the original circuits that were made for each artist and why, and these amps are being designed for specific artists, this could be very interesting. If all we're going to see is basically what happened to Kustom Amps, where now it is just a relatively cheap amp with the logo that we are familiar with slapped on it, it's less interesting. I imagine there will be a general line available to anybody, regardless, but I hope some version of that first option is what we will see, because otherwise there isn't much of a point imo
I’ve played. Fuchs ODS 50 and an Amplified Nation Bombshell 6V6. My impressions echo JNC’s: amazing cleans, perfect cleans for me, but drive channels I didn’t love at first glance. In both cases, I spent all my time on the clean channel and was perfectly happy. I assume the drive channels might need EQing, maybe low settings, and maybe a lighter touch to “sound like a Dumble.”.
I played one of the JM-era Trainwreck “reissues” John mentioned, and THAT is the drive tone I like. I have no illusions it was on the level of an original Ken Fischer Trainwreck, but I’ll never play one of those. Without having tried lots of other wreck clones, I found the ‘touch sensitive clean to mean” stuff people talk about in that “reissue” Express.
I've recently acquired a Amplified Nation Wonderland Overdrive combo (Warehouse 65 speaker) and it's the closest I've come to getting that 80s RF Dumble lead tone. Excellent pick attack, note bloom and clarity all around. It was stated as being one of the best amps to couple with a Strat, and it is great (Suihr HSS) but my Suhr Tele sounds even better and my old PRS ('93) CE25 is better still. I've mostly played it on "half volume" and not pushing the Master much over 4, but I've tested it out (in an empty house) at full 50W with the master up and it's even more glorious. I needed to re-educate myself on the cascading thing and I like it best with less Gain and Drive (both around 3). Just a Lynhurst comp and Zvex SHO in front with an old Diamond memory Lane Jr. in the loop. AND the clean side is absolutely pristine. Not cheap but not crazy expensive either, around $3,500). Highly recommend.
I recently acquired a 100 watt AN Phoenix Fury (formerly the Overdrive Reverb) with a matching 2x12 and it's absolutely phenomenal. I was considering getting a Wonderland Overdrive or Bombshell Overdrive next. I'm also getting used to the whole cascading gain thing and will occasionally throw a Greer Lightspeed, Sure Shot, or AA Buckartie-Boo up front for more gain. A little picky about what drives it likes (I found those three to work best with it out of my own dirt boxes), but most of the time, it doesn't even really need any pedals. Also, I am still getting used to how touch-sensitive it is, especially since I'm heavy-handed! I can imagine the WO is likely just as touch-sensitive as well.
@@dannyllerenatv8635 It is! These amps have a certain high fidelity (?) that forces you to clean up your playing technique for sure. I may try other speakers just to see how it responds, but certainly not necessary.
I just purchased the same amp Wonderland OD v2. It is truly an instrument on it's own. Love how each guitar shines with it's own character. Honestly don't need any drive pedals but I have kept the Greer LS and the new Mythos Envy, TS type pedal. Not that it needs it but when on the drive channel I do like using the Suhr woodshed comp pedal. Strymon Bigsky mx and Timeline in the loop. It really comes alive master set at 4, at least for me. In my home studio when I need to keep the volume lower at night I run it through my OX Box. I don't really notice tone loss. Debating on a Bombshell or Phoenix Fury as my next purchase. Friends own Two Rock, those are amazing, like the TS1 and Bloomfield, but honestly Amplified Nation, IMHO is right up there.
@@TrevorrNourse I tried adding gain pedals in front of the clean channel to have a crunch rhythm thing but I found just rolling the volume back on my guitar (and maybe switching a pickup setting) works better for this. Truly less is more in this regard. Rock on!
I live 45 minutes from their showroom. I avoid it to protect my wallet 😂.
I've owned and gigged a Fuchs ODS 100 watt for over 20 years. First Fuchs was a mod he did for me. It's a great amp! It'll do whatever you need if you get to know it. Strangely enough I don't gig with it as much anymore cause it's so damn heavy! 😎 We do love our tools though don't we!
Kingsley also made a few Dumble clones, I am lucky enough to have one, and yes it sounds great.
AFAIK Robben Ford's Dumble was loaned to him for some time, because even he couldn't afford the asking price. Dumble made it on spec and RF liked it, but it could have gone to someone else if RF hadn't liked it. There's a lot of info in the last eps of Guitar Wank podcast re owners tales of their particular amps. One ep did mention a firm Dumble recommended for repairs, and who didn't do direct rips of his designs,
It's not a Dumble, unless Howard met you, listened to you play and designed and built the amp for you, one particular artist. It just isn't. A second-hand Dumble isn't really "your Dumble" either. There isn't "a classic Dumble tone" there are many Dumble tones. Every Dumble amp is unique. It wasn't mass produced, they're all basically individual prototypes.
True! 😎
This! They are custom voiced boutique amps. Highly doubtful any two are identical regarding build specs or the actual tones they produced .
My take on the story is Dumble custom built amps for specific players very well. Who wouldn't want some genius building an amp geared to your playing style!! That said, if you don't play like the guy the amp was built for then it might not work well for you. I personally find amps I like the tone and gain characteristics of and then dial in by changing the pickups on my guitar which is a lot more affordable. There is no "ultimate" guitar tone, it all depends on what type of music you are playing, if you play country, rock, jazz, metal, etc you will probably want a different amp for each style and be happy if one can cover two or three of them with the same one but probably need to change your guitar. I'm not going to pay stupid money for an amp until I am famous enough to get an endorsement deal in which case it will be free.
I’ve played a few Dumbles (Lindley’s, Santana’s, Berlin collection , etc) and they are definitely a thing to behold. Each one different but great, like Ken Fisher’s Trainwrecks. I have zero faith that the Berlin/Swanson amps, if they ever get made, will have any more of the original Dumble magic than a Fuchs, Welagen, Bludotone, etc. if you want as close to a “real” Dumble vibe as you can get, buy an ODS from Jelle Welagen. No one does it better.
I would be happy with finding a reliable tech to service my 1974 Princeton Reverb.
As for lead tones, all the tubes need to be selected in each spot. Internal PI and drive trims set correctly. Speaker selection is crucial. Running fx in the passive loop may not work without a Dumbleator. Single coil or humbuckers may require some circuit adjustments.
John, it's sometimes more involved than just plugging a guitar in with the Dumble circuits.
Cheers John!! I see this video spawned several articles in very notable US Guitar Publications with you being mentioned as having broke the news, nice job mate 🤟🎶
With all the parameters in the Fractal system, I think you could build a virtual Dumble from quite a few of the Amps in their system. Eric Johnson summed it up in 89 he called it a HIGH POWERED TWIN. he had a steel string singer.
money grab, but there will be many buyers depending on the price.
I'm a Marshall amp player, though I have a Mesa, Engl and Fender.
My Fender is a '76 Super Twin. It's loud and versatile, and close enough to a Dumble tone for me as someone not looking for a Dumble tone. Amazing cleans, crunch and smooth leads when you get the power section working hot. I think the ST sounds more like a SSS than ODS which is why the ODS fans don't bother with them...which meant I got my ST at a great price, it still as the original speakers and Fender USA 6L6 power tubes, though it it needs one or a few caps replaced.
I'm sure Bonamassa, Ford, Johnson, etc. could get great tones from a Super Twin
It’s not a real Dumble unless Howard Alexander Dumble himself made it. And since he passed away, there will never be another real Dumble made. They will all be clones. Just because someone bought the company name, patents, and old schematics, does not change that fact.
Considering the legend of Dumble and all that, it'll be like anything else. There'll be a ton of this is awesome when they come out, but then there'll be a bunch of they're nothing like the originals after a while. Another cash in on a name that has some legend attached.
For those saying a Dumble won’t be a Dumble unless it’s built by the man himself then what about Marshall? Originally built by Jim Marshall in a shed somewhere in the UK until he’d sold enough to employ other people to help him build more. Today there are many, many thousands of Marshalls around the world. If the schematics exist and they’re built to exactly the same spec then it’ll be a Dumble amp. The guy wasn’t a mythical wizard. He was an engineer who built amps. They’re just amps, for heaven’s sake. Look at the BS surrounding the Klon. Andertons have pretty much proved that you can’t tell a Wampler Tumnus from a Klon in a blind test. It’s all utterly crazy.
He made amplifiers for individual players. Which means that no two are identical. And after all these years, the component values will have drifted. So there is no way of knowing what they were originally.
Totally agree.
Not a correct analogy
I went to a bonammasaa show and there was so much plexi glass around the amps it was like being at a lobby of a bank. 😂. Needless to say it made the sound sterile in the auditorium
Two Rock cover that territory already tbh
Check out Waiting for Columbus to hear some great Little Feat.
Almost seems criminal to hear someone admit they know nothing of Little Feat. 😅
Price is one thing. Waiting list/backlog is another. I have a Fuchs HRM clone. It works beautifully with a Strat and I agree the cleans are stellar but it takes a bit to dial in the drive sound. With my LP the drive was really flubby. Boss GE-7 to the rescue. It made a huge difference.
So, high dollar amp fixed by $100 EQ? 🤣
A little like a Formula 1 car only works when the tires and the breaks are up to temperature (extremely hot)… Dumbles and really any higher wattage amp sound their best when they’re moving a lot of air. For bedroom players or anyone that isn’t able to run them hard (and therefore loud), what makes them great is going to be lost. If you want the thing you hear live and on albums, you better not have neighbors.
Controversial opinion: I’ve never heard a Dumble. Most, if not all of us here have never heard a Dumble. We’ve heard recordings of Dumbles, which insert into the equation- a microphone, a human to conduct the recording, and speakers/headphones to reproduce the sound.
Guitarists obsess over anything that seems mystical, mythical, and magical. I’m sure they’re great amps, but maybe we should focus on circle jerking something a little more tangible. I’d suggest Atlantis for starters
Drew is the real deal. But I think this will be a tough sell. Robben Ford said in TPS that all the info on the builds died with him.
Strawberry Flats is a better song than anything Bonamassa has ever done.
incredible playing
I'm very interested in the Bludotone preamp pedals. It would be amazing if the new Dumble does a line of great pedals.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this. However, I’m damned happy to have the orange UA pedal and just sold my Revv amp to get a Fender FR-10. So I’ll have a gig ready ‘Dumble’ rig for under $1000.
Dr Z makes the Z Wreck amp that was designed with help from Ken Fischer. Does it sound like an original TrainwrecK? Don't know as I haven't heard a Trainwreck in person, but the Z Wreck sounds great in person.
Um...Dumble died with Howard. Love the Silver Sky
As an ancient Grinch I can assure you that my substantial hearing loss will not allow me to differentiate tones to that level. I think most people only care about music at a entertainment level and few people can really distinguish the sound quality difference.
I have a REdPlate Magic Dust. It's 15 years old and sounds fantastic.
I recently bought an SL AMPS from Hungary, a clone of the Robben Ford Dumble. It sounds absolutely amazing! If you're in Europe, check thiuse out.
A huge ingredient of Dumble's reputation is the custom tailoring of each amp for the artist buying it and e.g. matching input impedance to the guitars, customizing eq frequencies and taper, yada... Very few amps, e.g. the 12 ODS amps that went to Kitty Hawk, were not like that. And allegedly he performed these customizations at price points that some companies today charge for a custom tolex. You are only remotely comparable to the man, if you can do all of that and have the ear to even get there. Being able to ooze out Little Wing after painfully dissecting it bar by bar for a decade does not make one Hendrix either.
Lowell George... Used to play with Zappa!
For Little Feet, try Spanish Moon. Warren Haines does a great live version with all of the players having multiple solos(that gets a bit much) but I love the song.
I think this is a bit like someone buying the Stradivarius name and making ‘Stradivarius’ violins ‘again.’
Each Dumble amp was made for each player. Alex listened first. Then thought for ages about the circuitry. His thing was to make the perfect amp for each player.
Also: If you sucked at guitar but had money he would never build you an amp.
Jhon I played on an American PRS SILVER sky and was blown away. I have the se version but it's not the same.
Beautiful playing Sir
Gain is like tomato sauce, most people over use it nowadays. What used to be considered high gain is quite clean by today's standard. This is why more younger guitarists are often surprised at how miderate some amps are, that were considered fire breathing monsters in their day ; and it is ,totally, the fact that people never used to mike up amps onstage, thst meant they were inevitably using them a good deal more loudly set. Today's guitarists perhaps aren't aware that they live in over-regulated, and highly restricted controlled lives, where the neighbours will complain about the drop if a pencil, and public rock performances are rarer than piped music,( meaning people are not used to every venue you'd go to in the old days being a loud noisy rock music experience. The rebellious spirit of rock music is just an intellectual concept now rather than the fun esrly rock days of the 60's and 70's, where it was acceptable to be wild and loud. This is becsuse they have been bought by the financial business interests that saw them coming, and don't realise that they have sold their soul in the process until it is too late. In the seventies two or three garages or rumpus rooms in every street in some suburbs would have a drum set and a few amps chugging away most weekends, because it was a normal way young people would be kept off the streets and occupied in something they enjoyed, and didn't cost anything to have fun.
The upside is that fewer musicians nowadays suffer from hearing that's been shot to hell.
@@jimsalman7257 Well, that's true, and just as with motor bikes, if you give a young man something powerfull, don't be surprised if he pushes it to extremes and overdoes it. I often used to think that while I was tolerant of fairly loud music, I thought that too often most guitarists would always play too loudly ( why? Because they had the power and they could). Also ,before the advent of electronic tuners, most bands would be not only too loud, but also be too out of tune. That didn't mean that I was stupid enough to do that, and always pkayed liudly, but in moderation. Nowdays, as with everything else , no one has a chance to develope their own judgement or good sense of what too loud is, because the whole of life is so regulated they never have the chance to learn. I used a Marshall 100 watt plexi for fifteen years without ever miking it up, and my gigs varied from outdoor concerts to restaurants and weddings, but I had mastered the use of something called a volume control. My hearing is undiminished to this day, and it is because I played in bands because I loved music ( which means using your ears to balance your levels within a band sound without a mix engineer), and I was motivated to create music rather than to show off how liud your amp can go. I've often seen Ferraries driving dliwly through city traffic because they have an accelerator and don't have to go at full speed all the time. The people who have brought about the necessity of volume regulations in society are those who abused the privilege of their situation for their own ego's sake, and they are the ones that are now deaf... not me! You get idiots in all areas of life, and many of the people who used to play in bsnds weren't even interested in music,... they just saw it as fun...( they should have played rugby instead, but more pretty gurls used to hang around watching bsnds, so thst was mostly the reason they were involved. I didn't mind the attention I got either, but I got mire enjoyment from the love of combining sounds in a way that mysteriously moved people) Just as the idiots who drive too fast cause me to get a ticket if I accidentally run over 30 mph ( or 50 kph), the idiots who played to loud ( probably because they were more concerned with getting drunk) have spoiled life for the rest as usual by not putting music first, but that doesn't excuse going to the opposite extreme and taxing you for breathing or for doing it too loudly. Most of us are fine despite former excesses, and can still hear well,... thise that don't have nothing of musical value to contribute anyway and are better off retiring.👍🎸
Based on what I've learned about the man, I'm pretty sure Mr. Dumble would not approve.
It could make sense. Leo is not making Fender amps either, the Deluxe Reverb still sounds killer.
Sounds killer - but doesn’t sound like an old one
Dumble amps are much alive iff you can afford them, but to even TRY do a re-run off making this gems....... you need a docter! 😎
Seems like the same thing that happened with Trainwreck. JM building amps under the Trainwreck name with the family blessing.
I'd rather have a vintage Fender
I'd rather have a 'Vette.
@@vorpalblades Dumble are literally modified BF Bassman Clones. You can get a real one from the 1960s for $1K at any shop with old gear lol
@@BOSSenjoyer Many amps are just modified Bassmans.
I was just talking about vintage gear in general.
@@vorpalbladesI'm in the 90s Vette-price range on gear myself. Some Mojotone kits are more attractive than anything boutique honestly.
yes recording engineers can change EQ's and other such to taste, or their taste.
One other Dumble clone builder is Glaswerks. I have one of his Overdrive Deluxe. Its killer! I have seen pictures where Joe B owns and was recently touring with two different ones.
Gibson Les Pauls are still made after OW Appleton passed away as well.
I just bought the Helix general presets, where do i find this preset? I'm not seeing it int he folders.
Long distance love, is only one of several Little Feat tunes that are way above average. Little Feat is sometimes an aquired taste that is worth aquiring, but their career is quite varied. I would recommend some of their early albums and some of their later ones, but it's worth finding out for yourself, becsuse much of their stuff has varied greatly according to who was in the band at the time.
Amazing stuff as always my friend. I was wondering if you'd make a video showing how to play EJ's "Alone with You" specifically around the middle of tune right before it drops back down.
I did get to play a Dumble ODS 50 watt single 12 combo amp at the SongBirds museum in Chattanooga Tennessee ..... I played a legit 59 Les Paul through it for about 10 minutes. The biggest characteristic I noticed was how single notes would "bloom" and just seem to fill the entire room with sound even though it wasn't that loud. It was very clean and very touch sensitive as well. Since then I have purchased the Ampliphonix and Gain 50 watt head from Amplified Nation .....similar characteristics but certainly not the same as the Dumble in my brief experience.
Yes, but is that the sound you want? If so, find someone who has cloned that particular amplifier.
A new amp is like adding up the price of components and labour to put it together times two plus taxes and that could be your price in store.
If all Dumbles are different what does this mean. I don't want a Dumble, I want a sound.
It means Cordy can make a video and create some content 😂
The clones I move played just have something about them … kind of like a king of tone they just have a characteristic to them that you just feel
They should build the quarter million dollar per member record advance from 1975 to go along with it 💀
John, I'm fairly new to your channel, who influenced your playing the most, especialy your use of sliding into note ? Thanks !
The guy that builds Trainwrecks might be doing a good job, but I have heard one, and it didn't really sound like a real Trainwreck to me. The cloners of both Trainwreck and Dumble amps are doing a better job of capturing the magic IMHO. I know Jelle Welagan, and his Dumble amps are killer. I never really liked the Dumble drive tones, but the smooth cleanish tone is wonderful, and Jelle's amps nail it. Trainwrecks are easier to clone than Dumbles as their schematics are much simpler. Even I have built a few TW clones (2 Expresses and one Rocket), and they sounded great to my ears. It will be interesting to see how much the new Dumble amps cost, which models they have recreated (they were all a little different due to HADs tweaking to the taste of the buyer), and how close they are to the original amp that inspired it.
I think you need to try an Amplified nation ODS and or SSS. I think it's the best of breed of the clones!
This goes the way of Trainwreck...one AD and one KF... the value was in the maker....
Right. Only Ken could build a Trainwreck like only Alexander could build a Dumble. There's a lot more to building an amplifier than just following a schematic...
I’m lucky to have clones of each and I would likely build a Ceriatone ODS clone if I lost one. I might even try to build one without the OD channel, or something less ODS … okay, I want a SSS clone kit to feel “complete “.
Your Dumble Helix tone is just as good. I’d be hard pressed to find someone who can tell a real difference. So the Helix has endless options, at now $899 for an LT (which I have) or $200k. Total waste of money IMO even if you have that to burn.
A Dumble amp not made by Alexander Dumble makes little sense as he was what made the amp so special.
I guess his family/estate does not need the name and company if there is no revenues from it so makes sense in a business sense.
This is the thing I find so weird about the deep dumble fans: the secrecy. Cordy can't share someone's amp settings because they were shared in private? It's amp settings, right? Not login passwords.
It's a weird boomer thing. My parents were the same way. Trying to learn anything from that whole generation was like pulling teeth. They knew the secret and you weren't allowed to. Absolutely childish.
Now they all sit around and bitch about every generation since and wish for a King in an election to bail them out of their own intellectual laziness and cowardice. So much for all those ridiculous ass Vietnam era protest songs
How many great recordings were made without a Dumble? A lot
If you want a great Dumbleesq amp get a FUCHS ODS!
Timing is interesting. So we should seeing 100-watt Dumbles on silent stages? 🤔
The Dumble name will bring a premium price and that's before knowing if it's any good or not. I doubt many of us will be able to afford it. Also, the hype around these amps in general is overblown imo.
The idea that Dumble amps are being manufactured “again” is pure hogwash. Those amps may be outstanding in their own right, but they are not Dumbles.
I wonder if they are mostly going to use the Dumble brand to litigate against the clones, profilers, etc, for monetary gain. Like patent trolls, kinda.
With the advent of the high end clones and pedals, I’m not to sure of the market for these. Of course they’ll be for the well heeled with plenty of disposable income, which isn’t necessarily what working guitarists are today.
Club gigs typically don’t pay well.
Perhaps I’m wrong in that assessment, but I digress…
I just don’t see these types of amps at all ( the expensive clones) at gigs.
I see digital floor things, Katana’s, Fender Tone Masters and the occasional Marshall.
It’ll be interesting to see what they do with this.
To be honest with you I almost always fast-forward through most of your playing introduction once I get the jist of what you’re playing, but I listened to this whole one because I think the sound of a Dumble makes you play completely different or maybe just a thought of *this is a dumble* so maybe I need to be more expressive than usual.
Making them again!
Thats a Dumb_le idea.
Watched that interview and completely missed that crazy bit of info.
A second run will be a crime upon the original amp owners and a scam upon the new buyers. No matter what the new amps cost it is just the use of a historic name.
One has to decide if he wants or not an amp.
11:23 yeah right...
So many clones. So little time!