Robben tone

[greiswig]

I know, I know...just what we need, another post asking about Robben Ford's tone. Bear with me if you can, or delete the posting if you must. I'll survive.

I threw "Handful of Blues" on the CD player last night, and tried to cop RF's tone from my Tele. On my D'Lite build, with the OD trimmer set at about 10:00 and the clean volume set to about 2:00, it seems like I have to either dime the Drive knob or engage the PAB to get the kind of grit that he does. Oh, and I end up wanting to roll the treble knob back a fair amount. Is that "normal?"

[heisthl]

I would have to hear a clip.
According to some the tone is in the fingers (couldn't resist the Gear Page comment)

[Normster]

The last time I heard Robben play, he had his input volume at 12:00, Gain at 11:00, Level at 11:00, and Master at about 12:00. I assume it was an HRM with seperate masters. He used PAB a lot for his lead tone (both clean and OD) and generally disengaged the PAB for rhythm playing.

[Zippy]

Norm, was that with Baker (humbuckers) or Tele'? Or does he use both guitars with the amp on the same settings?

Thanks.

Yes, I'm hung up on this issue. I want to dial in an amp for a G&L semi-hollow Bluesboy (Duncan "Seth Lover" neck p/u, G&L MFD single coil bridge p/u).

[Structo]

You might try it with the OD trimmer up a little higher.
When I have run it down below 11:00 it just seemed to lose something.
I run mine around 11:30.
I play strats and teles thought the strats have humbuckers in the bridge.
Are you running 6V6 power tubes?
Tell us a little more about your build and if you have modded anything past the stock values.

[Structo]

Double

[Funkalicousgroove]

Here is a pic of robben's amp from that era, I'm pretty darn sure it was a non-HRM skyline EQ in those days. Also, "Rugged Road" is double tracked with a clean guitar.

[greiswig]

I would have to hear a clip.
According to some the tone is in the fingers (couldn't resist the Gear Page comment)

Not much tone in my fingers, I'm afraid. Hence the lack of clip postings.

Tom, this has been modified pretty heavily from stock D'Lite: 6L6's, Brandon's OT, Bluesmaster PI and presence, .022uF + .05uF coupler between CL and OD channels, lots of changes to dropping string to bring voltages into range, 220k/150k plates on both CL and OD channels, plus a lot of dogears' recommendations in the power section.

Thanks for indulging me with comments, all.

[kleinm]

Don't forget a Dumble-ator + delay. IMHO, those two things are critical pieces of the puzzle that are not mentioned very often.

FWIW, I have the settings on my D'Lite quite similar to Brandon's pic, although I like the mids about where the bass is, and then the bass is a hair lower than the mids. I like my input volume a little higher, too. Recently, I've also grown to like the Presence up around 1 or 2 o'clock.

EDIT - I just noticed the Presence is pretty high in this photo, too.

[llemtt]

Norm, was that with Baker (humbuckers) or Tele'? Or does he use both guitars with the amp on the same settings?

That's the question! Robben plays live (last time I saw him last summer) with both tele and humbuckers (with/without coil tapping) without touching his amp settings but even in the clean channel the overall volume was always the same: how he does?

His amp wasn't miked and P.A. amplified.

He never touched his volume pedal (and, excluding volume swells, he never does for what I know).

Does he use clean for humbuckers and clean+pab for single-coils?

Does he use different programs with effects in the loop?

Is his amp configured differently from other ODSs?

Does he use his "thouch"?

cheers
teo

[greiswig]

Don't forget a Dumble-ator + delay. IMHO, those two things are critical pieces of the puzzle that are not mentioned very often.

I've often heard this, and while I definitely hear some heavy reverb, I don't hear what I would call a delay or doubling effect. Is it the reverb we're talking about here?

I gather the D'lator can act as a bit of an extra gain stage and really hit the PI hard?

[kleinm]

From what I've seen, Robben doesn't even tour with a reverb unit anymore. He has the Dumble-ator and a TC2290 in his rack, no more Lexicon or Chandler reverb. Its usually just a subtle slapback type echo.

[Bob-I]

I would have to hear a clip.
According to some the tone is in the fingers (couldn't resist the Gear Page comment)

I know this often said and laughed at, but somewhat true.

I took one of my prized Dumble clones to a jam awhile ago. One guy, who plays amazing 2 handed tapping only style, sounded like the amp was broken. he handed the guitar to another guy, who played a combination of picked and tapping, and it sounded amazing.

What was really odd was both of these guys played Vetta's , shared patches and got consistant (shitty) tones from them.

Another guy, who plays a Dual Rectifier sounded exaclty the same through the Rectifier and my Dumble through his 2x12 V30 cab with the gain on my amp cranked. I couldn't get it to sound right at all.

I had a somewhat heated discussion about Dumbles at last years NY amp show about modifying your touch to get the most from a Fuchs. He argued that you shouldn't need to change your touch for an amp, until another guy chimed in saying "So you play a Les Paul and a Strat the same".

I really feel that your touch has a ton to do with getting the most from a Dumble, far more than other amps like a SLO or Rectifier, or even a Super Reverb.

JMO and not meaning to turn this into a gear page thread.

[greiswig]

I know that touch has a strong impact on tone. Personally, I have never heard the same person playing the same guitar through vastly different amps as "sounding the same" tone-wise. Similarly, I've never heard anyone say that I get that "Dumble mid thing" going when I'm playing through my Bad Cat. It's a different animal, and the tone is different. Another example is that you will never get that "Rugged Road" gnarl out of a Strat bridge through the clean channel of a Dumble, no matter how close you get your touch to RF's.

So yes, touch is part of it...as are speakers, guitars, and everything else. And when one has the same guitar, same amp, same speakers as someone else but they can't get the same sound, tis logical to attribute the difference to touch.

[Luthierwnc]

I've found that players will do whatever they have to so they sound like themselves. At a certain level of competency, the issue is whether the amp is helping them or they have to fight the thing.

There is some anecdotal evidence for this. For the last couple years I have organized an Ampmoot here in Asheville with local homebrewers and some classic amps. In '07 we had some builders drop out but all the good guitarists made it so I changed the format to suite the crowd. Almost every guitarist insisted on using their pedal board through the amps they played. The result was that the tweeds didn't sound a lot different than the Dumbles. You could also tell who was playing no matter what they played. We had a really good time but I'll change the protocol this year so people can hear the amp first.

Back to the first paragraph, you need to give these D's some time before you can declare a winner. When someone plays a Boogie-through-a-phaser-through-a-screamer-through-a compressor riff into the clean channel of an ODS (preferrably in another county ) they will wonder what all the hype is about.

Food for thought, Skip