Dumble Overdrive Special Head

Knobs, lights. tubes and an on off switch. Line cord.

This is a piece of overrated equipment-PERIOD! I A / B d this head with a Radio Shack Mini Amp. (See my review for this amp under RADIO SHACK) Both amps driving 2 Marshall Quad cabs loaded with QUAM 12" speakers-(their finest speakers with the highly sought after whizzer cone.)
The Radio Shack Mini Amp produced a spine tingling, shimmery tone; rich and full with tons of overtones and harmonics. By contrast the Dumble was a pig. I soaked it with gasoline and lit it up. I was disappointed, to say the least!
Guitars are: Gibsom Super 400, 1952 Les Paul (SN 00001) prototype, Fendor Stapocrapster and Semens Rectal Dickulator model 99.
Couldn't get a decent sound out of it. I tried but in the end I couldn't get the dickulator up. So I watched it burn in my basement, until it was a pile of ash. Piece of total garbage.

After burning in a sea of gasoline soaked flames, it wouldn't even turn on. I took a baseball bat to it while it was smoldering and that had no affect in trying to get it to work. Very fragile.

I called Howard Dumble. Caught him on his cell phone while he was pinching a loaf in his Las Vegas hotel room. He said he quit making the amp because he could not come close to the tone of the Danelectro Honeytone or the Radio Shack Mini. Then I heard a single gunshot through the phone line. The next day there was a story about Howard Dumble in the newspaper. He had fired his .44 Automag several times into the toilet bowl, attempting to neutralize a 16" tapered fecal excrement log, which had dangled precariously from his own selfish, non-technical anus just moments before the shooting, and which he claimed was the incarnate spirit of Elvis Presley. What does that say about support? Obviously he'd rather ruminate over the size, shape and spiritual condition of his own Fecal Matter than fix an amp!!
What goes on in Vegas stays there, including Howard's Elvis emulating turds and his service acumen. What a pity.

I play the piccolo and drums in a three piece suitcoat of paint band aid. We do all sorts of music from yugoslavic folk ballads to super heavy bloody and gutsy death and gerbil to rectum METAL. Mostly in a religious setting. I bought the Dumble because I had read somewhere that it was. But it wasn't. I roasted a yak over the smoldering carcass of the Dumble and had a big Yak attack. I would buy it again.

ca. 1983 Serial No 0094 (Carlos Rios Dumble is 0093 it has similar features).

The Amp sounds fantastic, organic, full dynamic - you can get all those Larry carlton / Robben Ford Sounds with this Amp. Great Clean Channel and trademark overdrive Channel

I use this amp live and was the main Amp for my new CD Gregor Hilden "Blue In Red". Check out the sounds on www.gregorhilden.de

I think there is no customer support until you don't are Larry or Robben? But have not tried to get in Contact with Mr Dumble

just fantastic

This was serial number 174 I believe. It had a clean channel and a lead channel. It also featured a boost which I believe worked in both channels. It is versatile enough to do SRV, Van Halen, and Santana and all points in between. Jazz, funk, fusion, prog rock, pop, classic rock, blues etc. -AMAZING. It featured 50 watts with two EL34 output tubes. It had 3 12AX7 pre-amp tubes.

I played the amp with humbuckers and single coil pick ups. The amp did equally well with both. It suited my musical style perfectly because it did whatever you wanted it to with ease. Clean and overdriven this amp was nothing short of AMAZING.

This amp is built like a tank. I would never worry about it breaking down in any way. Sure, with anything made with electrical components there is a chance of failure. I beleive Mr. Dumble is a fiercely intelligent individual and probably designed this amplifier with the finest components that man can make. Who cares when the tone sounds this good. I would take my chances.

I did not purchase this amplifier, so I can not answer this question.
I am sure Mr. Dumble would honor a warranty to the original owner of this amp. I have spoken with some of his business friends and they spoke VERY highly of Mr. Dumble.

I have been playing for 17 years. I record at home only. I have played tons of amps, and own many as well. I would rate this as one of the best amps I have ever played or heard. However, it is not just about the sound it is also about the feel. This Dumble was one of the most intuitive amplifiers I have every played. It would allow me to do ANYTHING I wanted to do on it. Mr. Dumble has truly designed the best sounding amplifier I have ever had the chance to play. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to play it. It was probably one of the most exciting days of my life. The thing is, I know there are better Dumbles out there and that I cannot imagine.

The amp I tried out was a head unit. I tried it at a local used gear shop in Santa Clara Valley, about 40 miles from Santa Cruz, where Dumble used to build his amps back in the day. This was about 10 or 11 years ago mind you. The amp looked like a prototype or someones custom project amp made out of a 1950's or 60's table radio tube chassis (maybe it was a Dumble clone). I remember looking at it and being thoroughly unimpressed with its appearance. Just your standard tone controlls, no reverb.

My buddy and I plugged in a 1980s or 1990s Fender USA Stratocaster with single coils. He played jammed a little bluesy solo or 2 with this setup and I jammed a few tunes through this thing for about 10 minutes at about volume 2. I think I butchered a Hendrix or a Zep tune throught this thing on the clean channal, not wanting to disturb the other folks in the music store. I knew Stevie played these things but I had no idea that Dumbles were friggin' museum pieces at that time. I was just a dumb college student checking out the gear my one of my favorite guitarists used. I remember thinking, this thing sounds OK, but I don't know what the hell the fuss is about, to me it sounded like my friends 60's tweaked bassman. I can play but I'm know virtuoso. When I did get paid to gig, it was when I played bass. I was surprised when this older due who looked and played like a seasoned musician walks up to and asks me what kind of amp I'm playing because it sounds so killer. I'm a little surprised at this, but this guy keeps going on how killer this thing sounds on the clean channal, I thought he was bull sh*tting me. The clerk at the store was a real professional and he tells me, watch this. He hooks up a beat 4 x 12 Marshall cab from I don't know the 70s or the 80s and cranks this thing to gig volumes and dials in the sound and starts playing some very good bluesy lead guitar and damned if this fucking science project of an amp doesn't draw a crowd of all the customers in the store. The overdrive on this thing just sang. I did see SRV three times live, so I did have something to compare this amp to. To me this amp sounded a lot like the amp on the intro of the SRV's tune, Stang's Swang. I'm partial to reverb and humbucker pickups but this amp sounded killer straight into the Marshall cabinet, dry, when it was cranked. To my ears, the clean channal was nothing to write home about, but some of the other dudes in the shop that day thought otherwise. I'd give the clean sound a 7, and the dialed in overdrive sound a 10.

I have no idea. Point to point amps are easily fixed. Also, I toyed with cloning one of these beasts and the parts seem to be a match of readily available caps, resistors, pots, used in
vintage fenders amps. This stuff is not rocket science.

I've been playing since 1984. My main guitars are a 1970s Strocaster, and a mid 90's Gibson SG special. My main amps are a Princeton Reverb and a late 1980s Fender The Twin. I have an old Big Muff, Rat and a DOD chorus, phaser and analog delay and an old Sony guitar Effects processor, Vox Wah and and Art Reverb unit but don't like them any more, occasionaly I'll use the Sony or the ART just for reverb on amps that don't have spring reverb. My favorite rig is the SG, no effects into the Princeton Reverb for clean and into the The Twin for overdrive.

If I bought this amp, back then it would have cost me around a grand back then, which I could not afford. A friend of a friend built a Dumble clone recently and it sounded very nice with my ART reverb box and an old Alnico Jensen speaker. I'd like have a good amp Guru build me a Dumble clone. I've seen the schematics on the web but I don't know if they were legitimate. I don't think the parts for the head would cost more that $300 to $500 bucks if you know where to look, and you're willing to recycle some old parts. A 10 or 15 thousand dollar amp is not going to sound that much better in my hands then a $1200 dumble clone. I loved the overdrive but hate the price that collectors have driven these amps out of the price range of 99% of the guitar players out there. Also, this amp should be used with a nice reverb unit in my opinion.

Other amps that have blown me away recently are the new Gibson GA15RV Goldtone (Made in England), my Princeton Reverb with a reissue Jensen, the Soldano Atomic 16, the Mesa DC 2 and I think it was a Marshall JCM series? that I saw Mick Taylor.

Well I have had my Dumble 100 watt Overdrive Special for about a year now, so I think that I can give an honest review of the amp's performance.
First off the amp is a late 90's with the Skyline EQ aka Robben Ford mod. This amp has two channel's, clean/overdrive, each channel has a preamp boost that is footswitchable. This footswitching system is almost like having a 4 channel amp. The amp also has three toggle switches that drastically change the voicing of the amp. These are bright, mid, and rock/jazz. All of the controls on the amp are very active, and each little bit that you change a setting can be easily heard. The controls are pretty simple (unlike a Mark IV) to operate and getting a good guitar sound is pretty easy.
As for the versatility of the amp, I think that it will cover the gambit of any music style that you like to play, with the exception of modern heavy metal. It can do the old Van Halen or Randy Rhoads sounds pretty well because those sounds aren't considered that heavy anymore. The type of distortion is a lot different than what those guys used, (it's more fuzzy than grainy) but there's plenty of it to work with.
As for other stuff like the effects loop, it's pretty shitty to be honest with you. If you want to use a lot of effects you need to get a Dumblelator, I really don't know too much about the Dumblelator because I've never used one, but I think that it give back the signal that gets lost when you have alot of effects in your signal path.
Contrary to popular belief, the Dumble is pretty east to operate, and has plenty of power. Another misconception is that they are only good at one thing, which isn't the case either.
Overall it is a versatile, and user friendly amp. So no big complaints in this category.

I don't take this amp out on gigs with me because I usually have a few drinks when we play, so my amp also serves as a drink stand. Can you imagine it, dumbass ruins Dumble using it as a portable mini bar! I know that I shouldn't, but old habits die hard.
Now for the fun part, the sound.
I do use the Dumble for rehearsals sometimes and the difference between my Matchless (that I still love) and the Dumble is vast.
First of all the Dumble is huge sounding, it just fills up all of the nooks that can get left out in a power trio, even at a lower volumes.
The only way I can describe this is that the overdrive has a smoothness that I've never had before, but it is also crystal clear at the same time. You can hear every note in the chord that you are playing, so you get to play stuff that can actually be deciphered.
Where the amp really shines is on the guitar solos. The feedback is very quick if you want it to be, so I use a volume pedal and sort of swell into a solo sometimes. I would describe the sound as violinlike, it sounds cliche but that's how I would describe it.
The clean channel is acoustic sounding, especially with the bright switch on. Soloing on the clean channel is powerful, not weak sounding at all, and it is not flabby sounding at high volumes. Honestly it has more head room than ive ever used, it's amazing how clean the amp is a very high volumes.
Now it's time to talk about versatility.
In my band we play everything from Johnny Cash to Jimi Hendrix, so I haven't had any problem going from style to style. I will say however that if you want to sound like the real thing, I would bring acouple of different guitars to cover the different styles of music. Like say for example you are playing a Johnny Cash song, a Stratocaster will probabally sound too smooth through the Dumble, so you would want to use a Tele to get that cranky kind of sound. I know this is the case with alot of amps, but the Dumble seems more sensitive to it. I think that this amp really lends itself to the different sounds of each individual type of guitar.
Another thing that I think is interesting, is the fact that the overdrive channel is really (GodI need to think up some more adjectives. Maybe I can set the world record for using the word "really" the most times ever in a single article) quiet at high gain, so there isn't as much hiss in there.
That's about it really as far as sound goes.

I haven't had any problems with it yet, but I'm not worried about it.
It seems to be made well, so as long as I don't use it as an on stage portable mini bar I should be fine.

I think that he doesn't like anybody to bother him and he builds guns now, so I won't fuck with him.

Ok I'm getting bored writing about all of this shit, so I'll make this last one quick, I think.
I have been playing for 20 years now, and playing in bands fo 16 years. I am an amp junky. I like them better than guitars. I like the different kinds of sounds, colors, styles, and even smells. I am a very sick individual. My wife thinks that I'm totally nuts. We need a kitchen table and a new couch, and I buy a Dumble. She's cool though, she let's me play in bands and never gives me any grief over this stuff.
Meanwhile we eat every meal standing up, or on the couch, I'm not kidding, we really do.

P.S.
I will be man enough to play the Dumble live, and probally even set drinks right by it.
Otherwise what's the point of having a great amplifier if you can't share it with others.