Dumble circuits are very guitar sensitive

[nickm57]

I think balance your guitars first.
Different strings to dull the bright guitar etc... use pickups that don't have a massive difference in output. A Tele bridge can easily be close to a PAF in output.
The Amp will then pick up the difference in tone of the guitars.
You can't do it Electronically, it's the guitars construction.

If you run a Ibanez Jem then a Dano, you may have to tweek the amp, but...

I run Les Paul, Tele, Strat and 12 string Electric and can find a spot on the amp were all the guitars sound relatively balanced. I don't record like that but live everything is a bit of a compromise.
Nick

[Steven_nl]

I have the same experience with my OTS.
I find it hard to switch from one guitar to the other. Getting a balance is difficult. (one of the advantages of a digital amp)

My Tele (Kinmanns) sounds awsome. Seems to fit the amp. My Strat with EMG's sounds terrible. My Strat with Texas Speicals doesn't sound great. Hamer with humbuckers sounds pretty good.
Mixed bag. Different pre amp tubes seem to have an influence on the results as well.
I wonder how people like LC and Rf seem to swicth effortsly. Or maybe they don't?

[greiswig]

My D'Lite is pretty sensitive to the guitar being used, which I think is just because the ODS doesn't mask the actual sound of guitar and strings under a huge thick layer of distortion. It's enough, but not too much.

I like hearing strings. And pickups. And different guitars.

[ayan]

I have the same experience with my OTS.
I find it hard to switch from one guitar to the other. Getting a balance is difficult. (one of the advantages of a digital amp)

My Tele (Kinmanns) sounds awsome. Seems to fit the amp. My Strat with EMG's sounds terrible. My Strat with Texas Speicals doesn't sound great. Hamer with humbuckers sounds pretty good.
Mixed bag. Different pre amp tubes seem to have an influence on the results as well.
I wonder how people like LC and Rf seem to swicth effortsly. Or maybe they don't?

In ten years of playing these amps, the only pickups in a Strat that have worked well with my amps have been the Kinmans. Humbuckers seem to work all around, and I have a Tele with Fender Noiseless that sounds great no matter what you plug it into...

My two cents,

Gil

[Steven_nl]

In ten years of playing these amps, the only pickups in a Strat that have worked well with my amps have been the Kinmans.

My two cents,

Gil

That is reasuring to hear. I thought it was me

[erwin_ve]

Since my leaddress was done right, it sounds good with single coils and humbuckers.
Before that; single coils were buzzy, and wanted to get rid off the highs. Now I actually turn the treble a bit more up with a correct leaddress.
my 2 eurocents.

[Gitarrmongot]

Interesting Ayan! I have exactly the same experience. The only pickups in a strat for me that works are Kinman Blues set. Have just bought a Tele with no-name pickups and they really sounds terrible. Do anyone have suggestions for pups that works in a tele (with the above in mind). Do I have to buy Kinman for this one aswell?

[ayan]

Interesting Ayan! I have exactly the same experience. The only pickups in a strat for me that works are Kinman Blues set. Have just bought a Tele with no-name pickups and they really sounds terrible. Do anyone have suggestions for pups that works in a tele (with the above in mind). Do I have to buy Kinman for this one aswell?

Well, I got a Tele with Vintage Noiseless and for some reason, those work well. The neck pickup is pretty dark sounding, but I never use it. The bridge pickup sounds great through my amps. In contrast, a Fender Noiseless in a Strat sounded bad on the bridge position.

Gil

[talbany]

I find in general if you can get these amps to sound good with a set of single coils.. the humbuckers generally come in to play nicely..


Tony VVT

[Max]

I have the same experience with my OTS.
I find it hard to switch from one guitar to the other. Getting a balance is difficult. (one of the advantages of a digital amp)

My Tele (Kinmanns) sounds awsome. Seems to fit the amp. My Strat with EMG's sounds terrible. My Strat with Texas Speicals doesn't sound great. Hamer with humbuckers sounds pretty good.
Mixed bag. Different pre amp tubes seem to have an influence on the results as well.
I wonder how people like LC and Rf seem to swicth effortsly. Or maybe they don't?

In ten years of playing these amps, the only pickups in a Strat that have worked well with my amps have been the Kinmans. Humbuckers seem to work all around, and I have a Tele with Fender Noiseless that sounds great no matter what you plug it into...

My two cents,

Gil

Hi Steve, Hi Gil, Hi all

as you see I am still wondering:

Why are you that sure, that your disliking of the sounds you get out of certain kinds of pickups with your ODS clones is a result of the general charakter of "Dumble circuits" and not a result of the specific combination of the specific circuit, parts, layout, tubes, cables, speakers,..., of your specific Dumble clones?

Or can't it be that yor disliking of certain pickups is not a result of using a clone of a Dumble ODS but simply your personal taste in regard of pickups?

Gil, did you have the same experience when you played #124, or did you like the pickups with #124 that you don't like with your clones?

Or, if you like the sound of those "disliked" pickups with some other amps (Marshall, Boogie, Two Rock, whatsoever), why don't you use those with in combination with these pickups instead of a dumble-clone?

Please let me repeat (without throwing vegetables at me) why I wonder that much about what many of you report in your posts in this thread:

- Many of you posted that they liked the sound of this german guitar player Gregor which - as far as I understood - he got with humbuckers a n d singlecoils. Gregor (or any other user of an original ODS), can you tell us about your experiences with different guitars and pickups.

- Could some of you perhaps point out to me a life recording of LC or RF where I can hear how their sound gets worse because they switch from a humbucker to a singlecoil guitar?

- How do you explain the legion of Dumble-Users (Lowell George, SRV, Eric Johnson, LC, RF, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Farris, Rick Vito, Todd Sharp, John Mayer and so on) that did/do get great sounds out of their Dumbles using singel coils.

How does this fact correspond to your believe, that "Dumble curcuits" in general do work well only with special pickups (best with humbuckers, as far as I understand many of you)?

Cheers and greetings to all

Max

[nickm57]

I use a Tele Antiquity. I've some rewound Strat re-issue pickups at around 6 ohms on vintage wire, and the Duncan PAF antiquity all these work well.
None of them are hot, I'd say the PAF would be around or even less than what the old fender Texas specials were.
I'm yet to find a noiseless pickup that sounds like a single coil, including kinmans(they are from Australia) you get close but not quite, it's either the noise or the sound.

I don't think these amps react well to high output pickups.

Edit: (or my version of the amp) I'm sure Mr Dumble could get a Ibanez Jem working with one.....But I just would not want to play it....


Amps like to see a certain impedance to sound their best.

A note on RF, saw him play with the Elite and a Tele, both guitars sounded balanced, but I would say the variation in output is not that great between these 2 guitars.

If LC uses a buffered volume pedal before the front end? that would account for the way he can swap guitars.
Nick

[Max]

Max, perhaps Funk can chime in, but to paraphrase him, LC used to send his amps to Dumble every time he got into a different guitar...

Gil

Hi Gil,

one more question:

If you think the reason why LC or RF have fine tones with many differnet kinds of different pickups is not due to the general character of their amps but due to such a kind of "finetuning":

If taht is the case it should be easy to do the same with your clones and finetune them (you have several, isn't it?) for different kind of pickups and guitars. Why could you not solve the problem by such a finetuning, if you think that is the way it must be done?

All the best

Max

[ayan]

Hi Steve, Hi Gil, Hi all

as you see I am still wondering:

Why are you that sure, that your disliking of the sounds you get out of certain kinds of pickups with your ODS clones is a result of the general charakter of "Dumble circuits" and not a result of the specific combination of the specific circuit, parts, layout, tubes, cables, speakers,..., of your specific Dumble clones?

Or can't it be that yor disliking of certain pickups is not a result of using a clone of a Dumble ODS but simply your personal taste in regard of pickups?

Gil, did you have the same experience when you played #124, or did you like the pickups with #124 that you don't like with your clones?

Or, if you like the sound of those "disliked" pickups with some other amps (Marshall, Boogie, Two Rock, whatsoever), why don't you use those with in combination with these pickups instead of a dumble-clone?

Please let me repeat (without throwing vegetables at me) why I wonder that much about what many of you report in your posts in this thread:

- Many of you posted that they liked the sound of this german guitar player Gregor which - as far as I understood - he got with humbuckers a n d singlecoils. Gregor (or any other user of an original ODS), can you tell us about your experiences with different guitars and pickups.

- Could some of you perhaps point out to me a life recording of LC or RF where I can hear how their sound gets worse because they switch from a humbucker to a singlecoil guitar?

- How do you explain the legion of Dumble-Users (Lowell George, SRV, Eric Johnson, LC, RF, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Farris, Rick Vito, Todd Sharp, John Mayer and so on) that did/do get great sounds out of their Dumbles using singel coils.

How does this fact correspond to your believe, that "Dumble curcuits" in general do work well only with special pickups (best with humbuckers, as far as I understand many of you)?

Cheers and greetings to all

Max

I will try to answer this as best as I can, and it goes without saying that all I can offer are my observations. I have built many Dumble clones of different types, and played a few of the real amps. I can make additional generalizations based on other amps I've owned over the years:

1. To me, Strats tend to sound great through Marshalls -- and I mean especially the older type. Coincidentally, my Strat sounds very nice -- and possibly nicest -- through my Blues Master amp. I find it very difficult to play a Strat that sounds good, with overdrive of course, on positions 2 and 4 AND the bridge pickup by itelf. When you get 2 and 4 happening, the bridge pickup can sound shrill. If you get a fat bridge pickup sound, positions 2 and 4 sound too dark. My observation also was that Strats didn't get along well with Boogie Marks I, II and III type of amps. And for what it's worth, when I played those amps, I played my 335 and on the neck pickup... Since switching to the D-style amps, I spend 90% of the time on the bridge pickup on my 335.

2. My Tele seems to be the most forgiving guitar I have ever played, it always seems to get a good sound.

3. I liked 124 with humbuckers, but as I've said repeatedly before, that was a pretty brown sounding amp. Not a clean sound in it, actually, but it was super spongy sounding with humbuckers. It needed new caps when I played it, Lord knows what it would have sounded like with fresh caps.

4. I like the sound of LC in Last Nite a lot. However, that rig included a parametric EQ which Larry used, and the guitar had active electronics in it. In the early 90s I saw LC play with 64 Strat (or whatever year it was) a lot, and I didn't like the sound he got at all. There is a live recording of LC in Japan at the Blue Note Tokyo playing the Strat and his Valley Arts signature. To me, the VA sounded way better. In the same era, his amp seemed to sound simply fantastic with a LP Special with P90s, and there is a video of a show in Montreral floating around where he plays that guitar exclusively.

5. In 2000, I saw RF play a Yellowjackets 20 year reunion gig, he was using a green combo on that gig. I have to admit I didn't like the sound of his Baker guitar through that amp too much on that occasion, but when he switched to the Strat, the sound was really raspy and harsh, not a good sound to me.

6. Of all the other players you mention, I can offer the observation that John Mayer (whom I think is great) plays almost clean. Eric Johnson derives his overdrive a lot from pedals, and his sound is so processed one is hard pressed to tell whether he's playing a Strat, an SG or a 335. Sounds the same to me. My beef with the D-style amps and Strats has always been trying to get a good honking overdriven tone out of the amps. Even the Mesa Boohie Marks sounded good with a Strat if one kept the gain on the low side.

My bottom line is mostly with Strats themselves in terms of overdrive, to be perfectly honest with you. Hard to get a great sound with them, but when the tone is on, it is magnificent. My favorite Strat sound? Ritchie Blackmore and Deep Purple Mark II, hands down.

Gil

[stelligan]

My beef with the D-style amps and Strats has always been trying to get a good honking overdriven tone out of the amps.
Gil

I LOVE THE TONE OF ODS AMPS!!!! *with humbuckers......

Being a Stratocaster player for more years than I care to admit, it is difficult to abandon those guitars. Very low gain settings work for me for single note soloing - yielding a very pleasing sustained tone. Much like the clean tone with a singing vocal character. When I crank the gain up(and I like a gainy solo tone), it is easy for the sound to become too harsh or brittle with a Strat for use as a solo voice. That treble bleed network at the OD works to tame that some, as do mid cap value changes. I guess I'll resort to putting humbuckers in my Strats eventually........ Or perhaps give an EL34 variant a go?

And to echo the original poster "Dumble circuits are very guitar sensitive":!:

I believe that is where the love/hate/addiction with these amps comes in - and why the builds need to be tailored to the player. That hi-fi, touch sensitive clean tone can be very unforgiving. As can that luscious OD. It tells you if you are holding a bad piece of wood that is set up poorly. I think it will also tell you "I don't like this guitar very much. If you want to keep keep plugging him in, you're gonna have to spend some time fondling my knobs and give me an orange drop necklace. And no more of those cheap resistors either.".

I do not think that every ODS that was made would sound good with every guitar or player. Even a so called "grail" amp paired with a marquis player with his rare instrument. Some pairings are magical - some are tragical.....

[Steven_nl]

Interesting Ayan! I have exactly the same experience. The only pickups in a strat for me that works are Kinman Blues set. Have just bought a Tele with no-name pickups and they really sounds terrible. Do anyone have suggestions for pups that works in a tele (with the above in mind). Do I have to buy Kinman for this one aswell?

I have Kinmans in my Tele. I think they sound very good in my Ceriatone OTS. Mind you I'm not an expert like the other guys here.