talbany wrote:Max
Looks like we're back at it again...
Personally I don't really pay to much attention to what Howie say's around a reporter or anywhere near a camera.. After the Marshmallows on the Football field and Crystal lattice comments.. I also remember him stating how he approaches phase inversion totally different than other designers (Do we really need to go there).. If you look at the 2 topology of Tweed and ODS Early ones there really aren't too many similarities or enough for me to believe that he designed the ODS to sound like an overgrown Tweed Deluxe..I do think there are some similarities in tone.. though I think most of them are purely coincidence..Or maybe he leaned in that direction in how he tweaked the final voice..Only he knows!!
I think he say's stuff like that so people will go yeah that would be kinda cool an overgrown whatever.. How many have tried the overgrown Deluxe Reverb stigma... Yeah we do this and that 4 6v's and it's a Deluxe on steroids... Not!!!!...I think allot of this is purely marketing BS...Looking at it from a designers standpoint I think the ODS came about through modding Blackface and other 2 channel Fenders.. Experimenting around with feeding one channel into another for more gain through a primitive switching system... Over the years tweaking then for different players sort of stumbled on a sound he liked ..( If you think about it you have to have some sort of sound in your head to solidify your design)... This is how I see it from a designers stand point.. It was revolutionary for the time and was one of the first to cascade gain stages so you gotta give him credit... Like I said just my opinion..
Tony VVT
I think it is rather usual that two different persons start with similar infos but end up with different conclusions:
For me his kind of "metaphoric" talk makes sense. If you ever had learned to sing in the way a tenor does e. g., you would know, how important it is in regard to different sounds to have some kind of "image" in your head to focus on. If you learn Aikido or Iaido or other bu-do arts these kind of images are sometimes helpful too. I think, I understand to some extent what he is talking about in this "marshmallow image"
As far as I remember, he indeed approaches "phase inversion" different in Winterlands, Dumblelands and SSSs then m o s t designers of musical instrument amplifiers did in the seventies and early eighties. The Dumbleland is no Sunn 2000S and the Dumbleland 300SL is no SVT and the ODS 150W is a different beast again etc..
If people here talk about "early" or "silverface" ODS they constantly mix up design features of amps from f o u r different generations of ODS with (for my ears) very different tones. First generation amps have many similarities in tone with tweed dlx amps. Second generation ODS are far more "midrangy" (for my ears) then first generation and less similar in harmonic structure to tweed dlx (for my ears).
From my own experience with his amps and cabinets there are only very few infos in the interviews, that I did not find in the sounds or designs of his amps.
And I don't think he is a "marketing" guy, as he seems not to be very stupid but makes everything "wrong" from a "marketing" point of view.
As far as I know the only "profit" of his "marketing strategy" up to now has been made by some lucky "collectors" and some of his customers who just did not do as - at least many of them - had signed to, when they ordered their amps and by some amp builders like TR who could built up a business on the fact, that he decided to go another road then Randy Smith. If he had been a "marketing guy" there would be thousands and thousands of original Dumble ODS and SSS etc. on the market and no musician or collector would be crazy enough to pay somewhere between 50 and 100 thousand bucks for a Dumble amp or 7.500 for a "Custom Signature Reverb".
No, indeed, for me, as one who has other sources too, it all makes sense what he tells in the interviews.
But I fully understand why you think different and respect your point of view.
Have a great new year for yourself, your families and friends and your business of course.
Max
