tbonesullivan

I believe if you purchased a Dumble you could arrange for it to be modded to suit your sound more, though generally Dumble himself did not like second hand sales of his amps, as they were all tuned to the player. His business model was indeed quite different, and as time went on he had more and more custom stuff like the HRM mod and other things. Just looking at the Ceriatone website shows 10 different "styles" of Dumble clones. Both Amplified Nation and Two Rock also have a good number of models, while Fuchs seems to have kept it a bit more streamlined. Still there are supposed to be some specific things that Dumble amps are known for, like the transparency, and the "bloom" of the overdrive.

Hmm, I may have to look into it then, to keep myself from buying some super expensive amp like a two rock, Amplified Nation, or Fuchs. Even the used prices are pretty insane on all of those. No free lunch on any Dumble stuff, unless I wanted to get something like a Ceriatone, but then you have the option of 20 different builds. And many of those I don't understand at all, like the HRM stuff, where there's apparently ANOTHER tone stack inside the amp, or at least that's how it was on the original dumbles.

I too am always kinda mystified by the "Dumble sound", which no one can quite describe. As his amps were ALL custom made for the customer, I'm not sure there really is a "dumble sound". It's more like a "dumble architecture", and usually I hear a lot of somewhat esoteric terms floated around any time someone brings them up. "transparent", "touch sensitive", "nuanced", and so forth. I've never played through a dumble, nor have I ever gotten a chance to play through a Fuchs, Two Rock, Amplified Nation, or any of the other D-type amps. Also even though I'm from New Jersey, I've never tried a trainwreck amp either, though there seem to be a good number of amps that are designed like those, including a bunch from Dr. Z. Most of the demos I have heard of the Enigmatic 82 sound very good, though many of them are well above my usual desired "tech level" I want to be at when playing guitar. I'm not the type that will sit there and tweak a ton of settings inside of an interface to get the most nuanced sound possible. UA's gear is great, but for someone who is kind of an analog purist, I'd rather have something like an Ethos overdrive, though those are definitely quite a bit more pricey than the UA.

I will definitely have to give the analogman stuff a look, and yeah, I have read about the interaction thing, which is common on the early designs, though I don't think the Big Muff has that, and for more people when they hear "fuzz" that is the first thing they think of. I will definitely have to give Analogman stuff a look, as I definitely have heard fantastic things about their designs. It is also very interesting the different ways that people use the same pedals. Like, is a fuzz designed to work with a clean amp, or one that is already fairly dirty? I see the same thing with a lot of "Marshall" type overdrive pedals, where half the demos I see are people running them into a plexi that is already breaking up.

I follow Psionic Audio (Lyle) on Youtube, and the number of Deluxe Reverbs that have passed through his shop cannot easily be counted. He's in the Memphis area, but that's close enough to Nashville not to matter. The Deluxe Reverb has been the go to for many pros for decades, with or without mods. In LA, people like Paul Rivera modded a ton. It's just a great playing platform for session work and shows. Everyone loves the half stacks... well these days no one needs those, if they ever needed them for smaller venues.

Honestly, I have never been a fig fuzz fan for my playing. I'm much more distortion and overdrive most of the time. I just find them more musical, though with Fuzz there is also a HUGE variety of different designs / sounds / textures. JHS pedals "Legends of Fuzz" series had SEVEN different pedals, and I know many who bought every single one, because in many ways it was far cheaper than tracking down the originals. Still, I dunno, I just can't bring myself to love fuzz. I love some songs made using fuzz, but part of my brain always goes "this would sound better with overdrive". Maybe I'm just not using the fuzz pedals right.

This is when I realize I have a whole bunch of 100 watt heads and combos because in that era, that was all they made. I'm happy to see more and more 50 watt tube amps that have full features, and even some 25 watters.

Most of their sounds are pretty Fender sounding, and since they formed in California, most likely Fenders and modded fenders were the weapons of choice, with relatively low levels of overdrive. Some googling brings up things like a Fender Twin and a Marshall JMP, and listening to a lot of their stuff just makes me think "tweed". There are some really nice tweed pedals out there, both analog and modeling, and might be best to look into those before going down the pickup rabbit hole. '59 pickups should be able to do Doobie brothers stuff just fine.

Man, what a streak of bad luck. I'm glad it just turned out to be a viral infection. Last friend I had who developed vertigo unfortunately won't be with us for much longer. As for the bandmates wife, mental illness is something that never really goes away. Especially after a very emotional time, like a wedding, they can be all over the place emotionally. Hopefully she can get the help she needs, either through therapy or medication, or both.