Guess What Amp I Just Bought

luke said:
I've played four Dumbles. Each was unique, and two sounded like shit IMO.

Howard/Alex built his amps to the customer's requirements, so each has it's own voice. When you go to copy one, of course the question is, is it one of the good ones?

A cheaper and easier way is to get a Bruno Super 100 clone. Tony took apart the four Dumbles Gene of Ultrasound owned. He tested every single part in each amplifier and documented the results. Tony builds the clones as exact copies of the originals. I've had three of these clones and they were fantastic and better than the two shitty real Dumbles.

You don't buy a real Dumble without playing it first IMO. If you can't afford to fly to the amp to try it, then you shouldn't be a customer.

The moral is always the same, not all Dumbles, 1954 Strats or 1959 Les Pauls are heavenly. Some are, most are average for their time period, some suck from the get go and other aged poorly. Don't let the hype consume you.
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There is something to this. I once got the chance to play (INSERT VERY FAMOUS GUITAR PLAYER NAME HERE THAT I AM FORBIDDEN TO SHARE)'s Dumble Overdrive Special.

The clean channel was amazing but very beam-y (on purpose/designed), a sloppy player would sound terrible on it. I think there were metal film resistors or something I was told.

But I really did not like the overdrive channel at all on this particular one. That did not sound anything like Robben Ford's or David Lindley's or Sonny Landreth's overdrive sound, for example (and those are all a little different but all Dumbles). So, they really do vary, he built these for each player. And you do have to dial them in. The tonal variations can be pretty broad too with the bright/mid or deep/rock or jazz switches.

Can't wait to hear the results once Cliff has done the MIMIC process!
 
Sweet acquisition!

Several years ago, intrigued by the Dumble lore, I began researching his amps, finding many of the links that have been shared in this thread. I decided I had enough information and hubris to attempt my own version of the circuit, with reasonable results. I built in the Skyliner mod and Dumbleator fx loop circuit, but gave it a 50 watt EL34 power section.
After the build, I realized that, while the resulting amp sounded good, had a pleasing and sensitive mellow gain sound and a colorful clean channel, I really had no reference other than YouTube videos and the recordings of Dumble players to compare the sound to see how "close" i was. And even so, Dumble's practice of voicing the amps to their prospective owner and accounting for the sound of a given player's "fingers" would make any attempt to "clone the Dumble sound" a fallible pursuit. So I ended up voicing it to my own ears with a HSS strat and a Scumback 12 speaker.

It's been mentioned that some Dumble's sounded "better" than others, and I'll be interested to hear the recordings of Cliff's amp. Underscores that fact that the whole is greater that the sum of parts and that "good tone" is highly subjective.

One of my reasons for purchasing the Axe-FX II (got mine last month!) was to realize the tones of various amps without having to either buy the amp or build the circuit. I welcome the addition of a model of Cliff's new ODS100 as an additional reference!
 
Maybe some parameters will be exposed allowing us further voicing options on this model with its cascaded gain stages (assuming) as well as HRM or not etc. The beauty of the axe is it's flexibilty so it seems logical we can possibly digitally "voice" this amp model to us with digital versions of hardware changes that Howard may have used.
 
A replica would not be the same collectorwise anyway.

A players amp? Yes.
A collectors amp? No.

The Dumble`s are both... But it would be like owning a Ferrari. Cool to own and drive on a track, but if it broke down i could not afford to fix it. And pretty "useless" on any road that is without traffic and a smooth surface.
I would not dare to take a 55.-amp out of my house. Locked in a vault.... Like all treasures :)
 
iaresee said:
Hahaha. Good luck enforcing that. Once sold, is yours to do with as you please. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
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True, but only to a point... I do believe, and I'm no law expert here, but if the original owner signed a contract with Dumble, they have removed themselves from the 'protection' of a law such as this and have therefor bound themselves to the manufacturers stipulations.

Any lawyers here to further comment?
 
If Cliff models it, good luck mr.dumble proving it's the model from a dumbleamp from a random preset called "the 55K.SysEx"

when the Dumble models are all different and stuff. It's like saying "shotgunn" on a specific sound. How would you prove someone have broken the law by modeling it, when the model will never be the same? Maybe it sounds the same and all but the word itself modeling is like replicating and will never be the same.

I know it sounds silly but I'm just talking about the meaning of the words themselves. It may be identical, but it's not the same.. The only thing being the same would be itself. Woah.. that means mr.Dumble should sue himself.. eeeerh. I don't feel so well today.
 
According to HAD, transistors will never sound the same. Dumble suing Fractal for replicating his tone would be the most amazing endorsement FAS could ever get. He'd never win, though. Only the original buyer might get sued for allowing a 3rd party to disassemble the unit and reverse engineer it. I'm fairly sure FAS has no contract with HAD, though no certainty.
 
shotgunn said:
True, but only to a point... I do believe, and I'm no law expert here, but if the original owner signed a contract with Dumble, they have removed themselves from the 'protection' of a law such as this and have therefor bound themselves to the manufacturers stipulations.

Any lawyers here to further comment?
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Nope. You can't sign it away. Reference the Autodesk suit from 2007. They tried to use the DMCA against people selling their old copies (with the dongles) on the used market. Autodesk tried to say the EULA they agreed to forbade them to resell the software after they were done with it. They lost.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...autodesk-affirms-right-to-sell-used-software/
 
I'm sure FAS has much respect for Dumble. I've always wanted one, although to damn exspensive.
True, there's nothing to really sue about, besides if they tried, what an endorsement for FAS for its accuracy.
This would create even more sales.. lol
 
YetAnotherOne said:
As the above is only a matter of time it would be wise for Dumble to locate as many well-heeled cork sniffers as possible and go out in one last orgy of amp building glory.
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Aaaaaand now I have coffee on my keyboard. And my screens. And my desk. And my notebook...

:)

Is Dumble even building amps any more? I thought he was done a while ago?
 
So Cliff...

Have you got a chance to play this awesome new amp yet ?

I am curious to hear what you think of it !
 
Thomas Larsson said:
It is a circuit that most techs has seen a million times.
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...but only a few of them didn't understand the power of the little attenuator trimmer between clean and the OD circuit - about balance between the amplification rate and the biasing of a preamp triode stage - tube characteristic curves, and barkhausen's tube equation etc....
 
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