AdmiralB
Inspired
On the topic of Dumbles, it's interesting to me how the ODS is (IMO, obviously) seemly almost certainly responsible for the direction the Mesa Mark series took.
I was given a copy of an ODS schematic back in the late '90s - it came from a somewhat well-known boutique amp maker (he has product modeled in the Axe, AAMOF) who once worked as a tech in a large electronics shop in LA, and he found it in a filing cabinet. I redrew it in AutoCAD and for a long time it was the only ODS schematic out there on the 'net.
Anyway, it's notable how much the Boogie Mark II resembles the ODS. Remember, the original Boogie (Mark I) was a BF Fender preamp with an extra gain stage stuck in front - the distortion was mostly happening in front of the tone stack, the added triode was smacking what used to be the input stage.
But the Mark II added two gain stages, AND moved them after the tone stack (and in front of what used to be the tone stack recovery stage). Very different tone and feel. And exactly like the ODS.
I've mentioned this several times, and Steve Kimock - who apparently worked for Mesa on and off around that time - swears he never saw any Dumble product until after the Mark IIs were well along. But Randy was also doing repairs while Boogie was getting running, and it seems totally likely to me that he'd have been asked to work on Dumbles, since Alexander was/is so notoriously hard to contact.
Oddly enough, I greatly prefer the Mark II and later Boogies to the Dumble sound. I've only played one real Dumble, but neither it nor any of the models in various devices make it happen for me.
I was given a copy of an ODS schematic back in the late '90s - it came from a somewhat well-known boutique amp maker (he has product modeled in the Axe, AAMOF) who once worked as a tech in a large electronics shop in LA, and he found it in a filing cabinet. I redrew it in AutoCAD and for a long time it was the only ODS schematic out there on the 'net.
Anyway, it's notable how much the Boogie Mark II resembles the ODS. Remember, the original Boogie (Mark I) was a BF Fender preamp with an extra gain stage stuck in front - the distortion was mostly happening in front of the tone stack, the added triode was smacking what used to be the input stage.
But the Mark II added two gain stages, AND moved them after the tone stack (and in front of what used to be the tone stack recovery stage). Very different tone and feel. And exactly like the ODS.
I've mentioned this several times, and Steve Kimock - who apparently worked for Mesa on and off around that time - swears he never saw any Dumble product until after the Mark IIs were well along. But Randy was also doing repairs while Boogie was getting running, and it seems totally likely to me that he'd have been asked to work on Dumbles, since Alexander was/is so notoriously hard to contact.
Oddly enough, I greatly prefer the Mark II and later Boogies to the Dumble sound. I've only played one real Dumble, but neither it nor any of the models in various devices make it happen for me.