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The fun fact is that LC got his amazing tone plugging his 335 directly into a Fender Tweed Deluxe. He cranked the amp’s volume until it *just* started to break up and used nothing other than playing dynamics to control the amount of overdrive hitting the speaker.
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02-11-2025 12:20 PM
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I’ve never seen definitive info confirming this, but several articles over the years have suggested that his Deluxes were modified. I’ve never seen him say this in an interview or article, though. So if anybody has facts, please share.
Originally Posted by Fusionshred
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True -he talked about the amp but never mentioned whether it was modified. The only thing he said was that the cigarette burns were not from him. So he got the amp used… so who knows! Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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There is an interview with Donald Fagen I believe. Where he flew Larry Carlton to N.Y. to record on his Night Fly solo album. And when Larry arrived without his Tweed Deluxe. They flew in his amp separately before recording,Lol!
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Originally Posted by jads57
I saw that interview, as a matter of fact, there's a least 3 more video clips I've seen of Larry talking about his Fender Tweed and how he dialed what he called "the sweet spot" during various recording sessions over the years. They would add effects to the mix after the recording. This is a well know documented fact.
Cheers,
Arnie...
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New Dumbles have been made. Baxter of Casino Guitars played one at NAMM (from 09:58). Originally Posted by starjasmine
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Love the Beard! Securing Intellectual Rights? From whom and to what end? Again sorry to be so suspicious,but all I can say is Bad Juju follows Howard Dumble,and it continues,Lol!
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I am always suspicious of people who claim to be preserving the legacy. Profit is never far away.
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They have to produce a few in order to protect his TM or copyright, whatever. I doubt you'll see more than a few made per year. So it's just kind of BS if you ask me. Originally Posted by Litterick
Surprised more jazz guys aren't into the steel string singer type amps, they have a great clean tone. But you gotta crank it up to get the best of it.....
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So at least the older Jazz Guys, never were that into gear.And certainly don’t need 100 or 150 watts nor the heavy weight to cart around a heavyweight amp.
Since most are interested in a Clean Platform they like myself are satisfied with non tube light weight amps to gig with
Most of the famous Dumble owners are geared to louder venues as well as a great Overdrive channel. SRV and possibly Eric Johnson were more interested in the Steel String amp with very high power rating.
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My cleanest and loudest amplifier experience has been the Fender Twin Reverb, a 1968 version that I had and used in the late 60's, early '70s. It had JBL Lancings that nearly blew my eardrums out with my SG Standard playing the awesome music of that era until I discovered Jazz and put EV SRO 's in it. I sold it in 1980. Great amp. Way too heavy. And for my style of playing jazz, too much.
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I read somewhere recently that his daughter(s) sold the rights to his name, as well as all of his schematics and diaries and such. I kind of skimmed through the article though, I didn't read it like there would be a test Originally Posted by Litterick
If I can find it again I'll post a link. But I did get the impression that the magic 'under all the epoxy' was definitely detailed and sold with the name.
Dumble
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Dumble had kids? I never saw anything mentioning he had a family in any articles about him. But he was a strange character to say the least. When I bought my OD Special in 1980, he claimed it he couldn’t ship for several weeks due to terential rain storms.
So he sent me a Polaroid of it,Lol!
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Hey Joe, Originally Posted by Average Joe
So what you'd do with a Loop-a-Lator (Dumbleator), is turn up the output on the amp, and then using the drive (input) volume and output volume on the Loop-a-lator (dumbleator) set the desired volume. Any volume pedal would just be run through the buffered effects loop along with other pedals, normally.
The Loop-a-lator (Dumbleator), is tube-based, with a drive volume and output volume
LOOP – A – LATOR
“The Loop-a-Lator is a single rack space all tube impedance matching device that allows you to use your passive loop equipped amplifier to its fullest potential, by placing your time-based effects after the overdrive.
The Loop-a-Lator input takes the large signal from the preamp out on the amp, and converts it to a lower impedance signal that won’t overload your guitar effects input at the Send. The output of the effects are then fed to the Return of the Loop-a-lator, which amplifies that signal back up to what the power amp in wants to see at the Output.
The Loop-a-lator can be run at unity gain, with both knobs around 11:00 and use the amps Master Volume to control the level, or you can actually turn the amp up to the “sweet spot” (YSMV), reduce the Drive control to about 9:30 and use the Loop-a-Lator Output control as your loudness control.”
Now, how the effects loop was built on your Rivera amp, I have no idea... but check the Loop-a-lator (Dumbleator) design v/s yours to see if you get the same functionality out of it?
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I come here to escape Dumble nonsense that is nonstop on other guitar forums. What do I find?
Go research how many truly iconic songs were recorded with a Dumble. Iconic meaning charting, beloved, influential.
Not that many. David Lindley on Jackson Brown's Running on Empty. Chris Cross' first album. SRV with a SSS on his first album.
These come to mind. Great tone for sure. Of course, those guys were great players, weren't they?
But the vast majority of iconic parts in all amplified electric guitar music was with other amps - mostly Fender, Marshall, Vox, and Ampeg.
Dumble fetish is strange.
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Those who were privy to Dumbles had to wait for years, so their careers depended on more common amps. When a Dumble finally arrived - to a Finnish friend with U.S. voltage specs - it was too precious to gig with. Rather, a Home God or pension fund.
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They were unique, each one made for an individual guitarist. Most amps are made on production lines. Originally Posted by DRS
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Each brand has its unique sound. I've played a few Two Rock amps (very expensive Dumble style amps, at least some of their models), have an original Zendrive. They were great, very high quality amps, and Zendrive is a great overdrive if you compare it with other overdrives in that style. But personally I'd rather have a Hot Rod Deluxe or something.
They are a very specialized type of sound that you either have a use for, or you don't.
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No matter how great any piece of gear may be, it’s ultimately the player themselves. And with gear of all sorts being at the best levels ever. People need to put Dumbles,1950’s Les Pauls, D’Angelicos, etc. into reality perspective.
Im 67 have played and collected almost all of the valued unicorns since I was 15. Dumbles, Vintage Gibsons,Fenders, L-5CES, Byrdlands, Marshall Plexi, even odd Viellete Citron boutique,etc.
Sure fun to have owned,but don’t really miss any longer.
My point is while many of these were wonderful tools,they were never the magical bullet! Almost always the best musicians I ever met or heard,never spent that much energy on their instruments.
Look at a Birelli Lagrene for example.
I think we now live in a time of where you are judged by your acquisitions almost as much as your actual abilities of your job.
Kind of a bummer, since to be honest the music or compositions are at such an all time low. Not the musicians,but the actual songs themselves. I can’t imagine anyone from Wes Montgomery,Jimi Hendrix’s, Jaco Pastorius,etc being so limited by their gear choices,Lol!
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Hey Alter, I played on a "backline" Hot Rod Deville III the other night. It was great. And I opted to use the "Drive" channel, not the "More Drive" for mild OD on a blues/rock gig. I liked it a lot. I know these amps are not well liked, but I don't understand why - I think most people don't know how to get good tones on them.
I used to own the 2-12 model, and I worked with it to get good tone.
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Well there is also the phrase ‘all the gear and no idea’. Outside the world of internet guitar forums, the playing is thing that speaks. Originally Posted by jads57
The fetishisation of the dreaded Toan is usually in the realms of hobbyists who want to sound like player x. T he gear companies cater to these people because they have money.
Sound is important to musicians of course, and I do think some working guitarists are really interested in that stuff, especially those playing in covers bands, but with the advent of Axe FX etc a lot of this stuff has shifted to the digital realm. These days sound engineers look at you funny if you ask to have your amp mic’ed up.
OTOH in the jazz guitar realm we may aim to emulate other players we like, whether it’s by buying an L5 or buying whatever delay pedal that Kurt is using that week, but the expectation is broadly that you are aiming to find your own thing. At least that’s how it seems to me. Obviously the L5 is a legendary jazz guitar not just based on one players reputation.
… I would say that rocking up to a gig with professional looking gear with Gibson or whatever on the headstock can send a positive signal. OTOH if you then can’t play, it won’t help lol.
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I always get worried when a musician especially a drummer shows up with too much gear,Lol! It usually is not a great sign of things to come unfortunately.
And occasionally I’m pleasantly surprised,but that’s the exception!
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Also, the non of the players you mentioned above played exotic customized instruments. Nor did most other guitar musicians that are still remembered for their exceptional playing years after they are gone. Originally Posted by jads57
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I believe Gibson made a special L-5CES one pickup and plywood back for Wes Montgomery. Jimi Hendrix had Roger Mayer make special pedals and well Jaco P decided to rips the frets out of his Jazz Bass one day and epoxy the fingerboard himself Lol!
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I mean a lot of this is down to the fact that it’s never been a better time to buy inexpensive gear. The big boys have to justify their premium price with other means than just features and the build quality of the instrument. Professionals aren’t choosing Fender or Gibson that much these days anyway.
I think a lot of the market are people of my age and older who associate those brands with prestige, but if you are young player, you’ll be looking at Ibanez etc, especially as they seem to care about artist relationships with people who aren’t rock stars. Actually even with rock stars… I’ve heard some stories lol.
Of course people like Dumble are somewhat different because he was a one man band building stuff on his own for people he wanted to build for. It doesn’t sound like he over charged for his amps. It was about the art for him, and how his amps would help the artists make music.
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