"Dumblizing" a Rivera era Fender

[mojo]

I have a Rivera era Fender Concert that I like pretty well, but not in love with it. I've toyed with the idea of modding it to Dumble-like specs. I've heard its a pretty good platform for that project - one of the major noncorrectable dissimilarites is the steel chassis rather than aluminum. Any advice, suggestions, etc. welcome. I have more familiarity with Trainwreck type circuits than Dumble. I have only moderate modding skills.

[jaysg]

Search on posts by Darkbluemuder [what does that mean?] and me. I'm not sure whether anyone else here has done it.

[mojo]

Thanks jaysg. I found your schematics and browsed several of your posts. Can you tell me some about the sonic changes after your mods? Have you had a chance to compare it to other "Dumblesque" amps? I certainly don't want to be hacking around on a perfectly good amp if I don't expect considerable improvement.

[jaysg]

Can you tell me some about the sonic changes after your mods? Have you had a chance to compare it to other "Dumblesque" amps?

Gawd, I wish. There aren't any Fuchs, TR, real Dumbles, et al, where I can get at them. I think it was well worth the effort. I have changed those circuits a lot since I bought the amp new. The amp is vastly improved, imo. I can tell from other's clips, that the basic non-HRM tone is there. I've learned so much from it that I can't regret any of the learning points along the way. I don't think it "sings" in the way that some guys describe. I think the basic topology is too different to achieve that, but who knows, right?

The amp itself, is a bit of a pita to work on. I used to burn wires and myself with the iron all the time. I had to develop all sorts of techniques with rubber bands to hold wires out of the way. Sometimes, I have to pull unrelated wires & components to get at a specific eyelet.

Don't know whether I mentioned it before. I built a head box for it. The thing's pretty heavy otherwise. Beyond that, I can always just dime the number one channel for a great BF tone. That wasn't happening until I swapped in a better OT. For the distortion channel, the swap wasn't significant. hth

[mojo]

Do you or Darkbluemurder have any clips of a Dumblized Concert I could listen to? I'm still in the stage of deciding whether to try redoing this amp myself, see if Fuchs will mod it (or maybe just sell me a board and some instructions), or selling and later buying something from Fuchs, Bludo, Glasman or someone else. I don't need it to "nail that RF tone", but I'd like to be a lot closer and suspect I could get it there without losing a wad of cash. I'm not in a hurry (I have about 3 other amp projects plus a day job that won't leave me alone).

[jaysg]

No clips from me, I'm afraid. If you go with Andy Fuchs, he will remove pretty much everything but the iron and will be able to use some of the pots. He'll replace the front panel too, iirc.