What does the #40, or other early Dumbles sound like?

[mike9]

I know the #40 is famous because it's degooped. I acquired a '59 Bassman reissue that's been built into a head and Jim Price at Omega gutted and did a build based on the #40 Dumble circuit. Basically he kept the tranny's and the chassis. It's running KT66's and is a very aggressive sounding amp - he upgraded it for me and tweaked the clean channel and the drive channel is incredible.

The control layout is Presence, Clean master volume, OD master volume, OD gain, Bass, Mid, Treble and Preamp volume. Runs a three button foot switch with Preamp Boost, Mid Boost and Channel switch. It also has a switch for Pentode and Triode use and a bright switch.

It's a great sounding amp - I'm running it into an EV SRO/12 in an oversized open back cab. Just curious what the early Dumbles sound like. Can anyone point me towards some clips?

[Funkalicousgroove]

Jackson Browne "Running on empty" Lindley plays #8 all over that album.

Early Steve Lukather stuff

Lowell George played a dumble on the Little Feat stuff


Some of the early ones are kind of harsh sounding.

[mike9]

Thanks - that's about what this sounds like - great singing lead tone & note bloom. Very touch responsive - this'll def make me clean up my playing - This doesn't sound that harsh - raw is more the word I'd use, raw and fat.

[Bob-I]

Jackson Browne "Running on empty" Lindley plays #8 all over that album.

Ahh.. the album that started my tone quest. Still today the"Running on Empty" solo is my #1 loved tone. Those screaming high notes just scream.

[Max]

I know the #40 is famous because it's degooped. I acquired a '59 Bassman reissue that's been built into a head and Jim Price at Omega gutted and did a build based on the #40 Dumble circuit. Basically he kept the tranny's and the chassis. It's running KT66's and is a very aggressive sounding amp - he upgraded it for me and tweaked the clean channel and the drive channel is incredible.

The control layout is Presence, Clean master volume, OD master volume, OD gain, Bass, Mid, Treble and Preamp volume. Runs a three button foot switch with Preamp Boost, Mid Boost and Channel switch. It also has a switch for Pentode and Triode use and a bright switch.

It's a great sounding amp - I'm running it into an EV SRO/12 in an oversized open back cab. Just curious what the early Dumbles sound like. Can anyone point me towards some clips?

Hi Mike9,

some more examples of "early" Dumble amps:

Early Rick Vito recordings like "Lawyers In Love" (Jackson Browne)

Steve Farris used #075 (built in 79/80, first one with ratio-control, presence control and "trigger" trim pot) on a lot of his recordings. Good examples can be found e. g. on Mr. Misters LP "Welcome To The Real World" (lot of fx, but you still can hear the wunderfull glassy "singing" highs, that sometimes sound like bottleneck, even without bottle.).

My ears allways had the impression, that there are at least four general "sound profiles" of the "silverface" Overdrive Specials:

- first generation (the small ones, with the "old" layout), like #004 or # 008. Still a lot of "Fender" inside, natural sounding ("raw" indeed hits the mark!) and still some way in the Dumbleland and SSS realm. For my ears, these are wunderfull amps in the hands of a gifted guitarist. In the hands of the less gifted these maybe can sound harsh, if you don't play them loud.

- second generation (sliding switches). More midrange and a bit less fendery. Smooth overdrive without snubbers.

- third generation (toggle switches). Again less midrange in the voice, but not as fendery as first generation

- "transition" models with "ratio" and "presence" like #075. Still very natural sounding and very glassy in the highs (depending on customer and eq settings). Wunderfull clear clean sounds. Clear and smooth singing overdrive with still a lot of highs but witout any harshness or "fuzz" (my ears).

But all this is just said in order to try a kind of a generalisation, because a lot of the "early" amps have later been upgraded by Mr. Dumble, and most of them have been made with small differences to suit the needs of the special customer anyway.

Cheers,

Max

[nickm57]

Is Jackson Browne "Call it a Loan" a dumble and with a bit of chorus?
my guess is yes.
Theres a nice grit on the clean intro guitar track but with clarity that Blackfaces don't usually have. I think the song is also a tribute to Lowell George another early dumble player.

Nick

[heisthl]

Steve Farris used #075 (built in 79/80, first one with ratio-control, presence control and "trigger" trim pot) on a lot of his recordings. Good examples can be found e. g. on Mr. Misters LP "Welcome To The Real World" (lot of fx, but you still can hear the wunderfull glassy "singing" highs, that sometimes sound like bottleneck, even without bottle.).

Max

In '74 when I was in college I played in a battle of the bands in Fremont NE, Farris was there in a band called "Dog Breath" I think he was still in high school, great player even then.

[butwhatif]

Mr Lindley also liked to use efx, like a purple peaker, so the tone wasn't entirely the amp

[Funkalicousgroove]

My friends 76 Overdrive Deluxe (supposedly used to belong to Mr. Dave, no way to confirm though)NAILS the "running on empty" lead tone with my '35 bakelite ricky, and NAILS the "mercury blues" (el rayo-x) tone with my '59 national dynamic(although I think he plays a supro with the string-through-pickup thing), the one that really gets me is that cool rotating speaker/phaser thing on "You love the thunder."

Any Idea which songs he's using the purple peaker on? I'm a Lindley FREAK, now I gotta go get a Purple peaker! Thanks for the tip!

[kleinm]

Any Idea which songs he's using the purple peaker on? I'm a Lindley FREAK, now I gotta go get a Purple peaker! Thanks for the tip!

Funk - PM sent.

[Hotrod Ford]

My friends 76 Overdrive Deluxe (supposedly used to belong to Mr. Dave, no way to confirm though

Hey Brandon,

regarding the Lindley connection and that early OD deluxe amp ,
OK here is the correct info for you,

as you may remember I told you earlier that this was my old amp, I sold it to Steve Mesple back in -97
and it turned out after a conversation with Dumble in the later 90s
that this amp was never owned or played by Lindley,
Lindley had his own ODS amps back then and those were also specially set up just for him,
(the actual rumour was when I got it was that he had loaned this OD Deluxe amp from Dumble at some point, but that was obviously never so)

so I am affraid there is no Lindley connection to this amp !

this amp was originally given as a gift by Dumble to a local player in Santa Cruz in the mid 70s, and he especially liked it since it it had less gain than his other ODS from around that time ,
I also found out that this amp was really a lab rat that Dumble put togheter with showman trannies in a scrapped deluxe chassie, it was also squeesed it in a really small combo cab but it got so tight with those big trannies and speaker in there so instead it got a head cab, (that head cab later got smashed in an accident and it was glued together but later on a new cab was built by another owner in the 80s) and it was then covered in brown tolex in the 90s,
thats the story as far as I know

[Hotrod Ford]

Ooops , double post

[Hotrod Ford]

double post

[stratcat62]

Just something I saw that made me curious. In the current issue of Fretboard Journal magazine there's a great interview of David Lindley done by Ben Harper. There are pictures of both of his ODS amps, #2 and #8 I believe. Instead of the Rock/Jazz switch, they both had Mic/Guitar switches. Does anyone know anything about these? It would seem to lend credence to the idea of Lindley's Dumble being a 'bigger, louder version of a Deluxe'.

[bluesfendermanblues]

My friends 76 Overdrive Deluxe (supposedly used to belong to Mr. Dave, no way to confirm though)NAILS the "running on empty" lead tone with my '35 bakelite ricky, and NAILS the "mercury blues" (el rayo-x) tone with my '59 national dynamic(although I think he plays a supro with the string-through-pickup thing), the one that really gets me is that cool rotating speaker/phaser thing on "You love the thunder."

Any Idea which songs he's using the purple peaker on? I'm a Lindley FREAK, now I gotta go get a Purple peaker! Thanks for the tip!

Easy to build eg. PCB from Tonepad (I have no interest in this company, but Pena is easy to deal with - have bought many PCB's from him)

http://www.tonepad.com/getFileInfo.asp?id=92

Just an idea for ya