Some hints about Dumble now

[Max]

What period of time did he use the Dumble?

As far as I remember he used this "blackface" ODS only for a short period of time (and only used in the clean mode, as far as I remember) between recording Texas Flood in 11/'82 (After this he was introduced to Dumble by Browne) and before he got his first Singer in '84.

That's what he said to Guitar Player in 1989 in regard of the ODS:

Q: "Are your Dumbles Overdrive Specials?"

SRV: "Steel-String-Singers. I like them much better."

His SSSs he used from '84 until he went to meet Jimi and Janis.

His SSSs with some 4x12 Dumble cabinets and a Vibro to drive the "Leslie" (Tony explained this in detail) have been his main "live" stage setup since he got the first "silverface" SSS.

When recording in the studio he often mixed other stuff with his Singers.

Later he sometimes added other "clean" Dumble amps to his live and recording setup. He sometimes used one or two "Winterland" amps (Dumble once reported this in an interview) and a "300-watt Dumble head" (Dumbleland 300SL?).

Let's hear something more from himself (Guitar Player 1989) in regard of the "In Step" rig:

"The last rig I used was when I moved into the big room, out of the isolation booth, and in there I had two Dumble 4x12 cabinets, two Marshall 4x12 cabinets - in other words two stacks - and the tall bathtub-style Marshall cabinets, one with four 15s, one with four 12s, then a 300-watt Dumble head, a 150-watt Dumble head, and two Supers on top of all that."

Cheers

Max

[Steven_nl]

Since this has morphed towards a SRV thread, here are some cool soundcheck videos of the silver SSS in action. January 1986
Audio is the monitor mix.

Kind of a fun way to hear the raw sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx8UrvGtsaQ turns the SSS amp on at 0:58, Rude Mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U42dzt6V ... re=related Ain't Gonna give up on love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBbTnO3y ... re=related Soul to Soul.

Awesome movies tnx a lot!!!
I don't know much about amp building and I'm no Dumble specialist so maybe I souldn't be here, but, to me that amp sounds a lot more like a Fender Super Reverb/Vibroverb. Oposed to the ODS which has that RF tone.
Is that what the SSS/Dumbleland amps were about? Getting a more Fender like tone?

[talbany]

"The last rig I used was when I moved into the big room, out of the isolation booth, and in there I had two Dumble 4x12 cabinets, two Marshall 4x12 cabinets - in other words two stacks - and the tall bathtub-style Marshall cabinets, one with four 15s, one with four 12s, then a 300-watt Dumble head, a 150-watt Dumble head, and two Supers on top of all that."

Cheers

Max

This one!! In Step

[jelle]

Later he sometimes added other "clean" Dumble amps to his live and recording setup. He sometimes used one or two "Winterland" amps (Dumble once reported this in an interview) and a "300-watt Dumble head" (Dumbleland 300SL?).

Cheers

Max

I have seen a pic where Tommy Shannon was playing a big black Dumble half stack that could be that very amp.

jelle

[Max]

"The last rig I used was when I moved into the big room, out of the isolation booth, and in there I had two Dumble 4x12 cabinets, two Marshall 4x12 cabinets - in other words two stacks - and the tall bathtub-style Marshall cabinets, one with four 15s, one with four 12s, then a 300-watt Dumble head, a 150-watt Dumble head, and two Supers on top of all that."

Cheers

Max

This one!! In Step

Hi Tony,

Yes, that's it (more or less). C. Diaz took this picture.

Cheers

Max

[Max]

Later he sometimes added other "clean" Dumble amps to his live and recording setup. He sometimes used one or two "Winterland" amps (Dumble once reported this in an interview) and a "300-watt Dumble head" (Dumbleland 300SL?).

Cheers

Max

I have seen a pic where Tommy Shannon was playing a big black Dumble half stack that could be that very amp.

jelle

Hi Jelle,

Yes, it can well be, that Stevie sometimes used Tommy's 300SL and talks about this one as being the "300-watt head".

BTW: Tommy's 300SL is on all the vids posted in this thread:

"Berlin '83 part 1 and 2" Tommy plays it together with (and on top of) his Dumble cabinet

and on the youtube vids topbrent posted you can get glimpses of the 300SL in the background on the left of Stevies SSS rig.

Cheers

Max

[Noel Grassy]

Another thing if we want to take it to another level is to put a crimp in the component leads to allow for expansion and contraction so the component body is not stressed by tension on the leads.
I don't seem many amps being built with that detail.

Structo,
I saw an amp built this way once. All of the components had the exact same amount of extra lead and bend angle so it wasn't random or half-assed by any means. Several pro amp builders asked the poster what was up with the "little Zees" and stuff. Like his style of fabrication was some sort of noob signature.
He calmly responded with logical reasoning based on your idea Structo. The sound of forehead slapping could be heard throughout many amp villages that day my friends.

[Scumback Speakers]

That's another build idea that my amp designer (Jim Foote) got from Dumble as well.

The theory is that you orient the board layout to have equal spacing/distance from the caps/resistors/etc. In addition you put down some silicone sealant to mount the parts to your board (garolite in mine). While it stays pliable it also provides a cushion/shock absorber to the parts. Then the component and leads are positioned exactly in the same place so the leads are the same length on each side, so that they all have the same distance/travel for the signal.

I'd get into all the EMSR/ESR/etc crap if I understood all that eddying field, and how a certain type of component interacts with another component based on it's construction/capacitance/yada yada yada, but by the time Dumble was explaining all that to me I had reached my saturation point for the day and just rolled my eyes at him. He just laughed at me...and said "You'll never be a great amp designer, Jim."

I told him that's why I was working with him and Foote, I just wasn't that into it for circuits, sorry. I guess he figured my anal attention to detail for speakers/cones/etc would naturally follow into circuit designs.

He was wrong. I only have so much information I can cram into my brain. I guess he figured I'd eat all that info up, and if I was still going to make amps I should listen. By that time my amps were all pretty much done and Dumble was brought in to advise on a few things to improve them (which he did).

But there was some pretty convincing logic to the equal lenght/distance on the leads reasoning, so we did it.

[thyx]

Several pro amp builders asked the poster what was up with the "little Zees" and stuff.

The "zees" also, when formed a little tight, serve to hold the component in place so as to make a good electro-mechanical connection prior to the actual soldering.

[briane]

I learned about this "make a solid mechanical connection before soldering" technique as well from Dumble & Jim Foote

I used to do work on electron microscope assembly. Those guys had their soldering down, as even the slightest resistance in the joint would ruin the whole scope. Thousands of joints, all soldered under a microscope. Minimum solder was also accepted practice.

Old military guys. Their mantra was the electrons travel through the mechanical portion of the joint, owning to the fact that copper (or for us gold) had much better conductivity than the solder. The mantra there was the solder just keeps the wire from moving off the post, its the mechanical connection that transmits the electrons.

If we had a joint with a bad mechanical, we stripped it and started over. Solder was not a fix for a bad joint. I think dumble knows about this, and is following best practice, at least in general.

Does not mean lesser wont work, but best is best.

[Structo]

Yes the mechanical joint.

The old IBM mainframes used wire wrapped connections.

There is a small square post and you use a special little driver type tool that wraps the wire around the post.
You used a special wire to do it as well.
I asked a guy that was 100 times smarter than me what was up with that?

He said it was actually superior to soldering because as the wire is wrapped around the post, something happens at the molecular level that binds the two together and it won't oxidize.

I had the task of repairing a mainframe that had been in a fire.
I had to replace a couple circuit boards that were all wire wrapped, must have been over 1000 connections that had to be re-done.

[img:685:264]http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/tbc1411wire.jpg[/img]


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