Steve Trovato's Dumble

[ayan]

It doesn't say much about the amp, but what it says seems a little confusing.

http://www.stevetrovato.com/docs/vintage.pdf

Gil

[skyboltone]

I wonder if HAD even tells him the full story. Doesn't sound like what goes on inside is his forte'. Mojotone eh? The guy is holding a strat though....

[bluesfendermanblues]

Yea, it's a good one HRM providing extra boost . Could be due to the journalist not quite picking it up right.

[benoit]

I listened to some stuff on his myspace last night and he's and impressive player but I thought his tone was extremely bland. I don't know if they were recorded with his dumble or not but a d-style HRM dosen't strike me as being very suited for the country stuff he's doing. Then again it's possible I just haven't heard it in the right hands. Anyone else's experience say otherwise?

[ayan]

I listened to some stuff on his myspace last night and he's and impressive player but I thought his tone was extremely bland. I don't know if they were recorded with his dumble or not but a d-style HRM dosen't strike me as being very suited for the country stuff he's doing. Then again it's possible I just haven't heard it in the right hands. Anyone else's experience say otherwise?

I have to go listen to that. However, back in the 80s, Trovato w/Dumble + beat up Strat would give RF a run for his money tonewise!

Gil

[jelle]

It doesn't say much about the amp, but what it says seems a little confusing.

http://www.stevetrovato.com/docs/vintage.pdf

Gil

Hi Gil,

What do you think is confusing about the interview? Nice strat, BTW

Jelle

[ayan]

Hi Gil,

What do you think is confusing about the interview? Nice strat, BTW

Jelle

1. Trovato says the HRM gives the amp more output. Technically speaking, it has less output because of the additional tone stack loss. But that's neither here nor there, the HRM was not implemented to change the output.

2. Then he says says the HRM gives the amp more gain. I don't know of single example of an HRM amp that has any more gain than the non HRM amps. And, at that, the gainiest variety were the 70s amps with the simplified pre OD network.

3, And then he says "(the HRM gives it) a little more gain that LC or RF but less than Santana." Let's forget for a minute that, probably, in ascending gain rank order the list would probably be: (a) LC, (b) Santana, (c) RF, who is by far the gainest player of three. However... how about amp settings and internal trimmer?

4. We do know for a fact that all three guy's amps have the HRM in them.

In short, Trovato's words about his own amp suggest to me that he's a bit in the dark. Great player and a super nice guy, but his description of the amp is almost as intriguing as LC's tech's video about Larry's amp at LC's website (if you haven't seen that, it's pretty interesting... in terms of "WTF??????????").

On a separate topic, if the sound clips Trovato has in his myspace website were done using the Dumble, sounds like the mods killed that particular amp. 20 years ago that amp sounded beyond great!

Cheers,

Gil

[Structo]

Got a link to the techs comments on LC's amp, Gil?
Can't seem to find it on his site.

[ampdork]

I had some chuckles reading this as well. Part of me was thinking though that maybe Howard fed him some stuff just to confuse things out here for us. Why make it easy right?
I wonder what else is in Santana's amp. I kinda find it odd he would have HRM being such a feedback freak. On the other hand I guess there is no amp that Carlos could not make sing but I would kinda think he'd dig non hrm.
Does Howard even offer non HRM to his clients?
All in all it did kinda read backwards.
Still a good read. Thanks for posting it Gil.

[bluesfendermanblues]

Got a link to the techs comments on LC's amp, Gil?
Can't seem to find it on his site.

Try http://mr335.tv/ and look under => "tech bench" = >"amplification"

[ic-racer]

almost as intriguing as LC's tech's video about Larry's amp at LC's website (if you haven't seen that, it's pretty interesting... in terms of "WTF??????????").

Very curious. Here is a transcription of Larry's tech's descriptionn of Larry's Dumble with the LED style logo.:

On the overdrive section these two controls are triggered by a button on Larry's pedal board.

When those are engaged the tone has a 'bassier' or 'trebleir' aspect to it [pointing to the 'Level/Drive' knob].

And, of course the volume of the overdrive is controlled as well [pointing to the 'Volume' knob of the OD section]

The thing that got me is that his 'Level/Drive' knob has a mystery word under it. Perhaps it is something other than our well-known 'Level/Drive' control????

[ic-racer]

So, on one hand I am thinking that most musicians, even those that are 'equipment freaks,' don't really know how a tube works. So these customers are getting the "fragile harmonics" and "electrons in a vacuum" description of what's in their amps when Mr. Dumble tells them about the amp he made for them.

On the other hand...Mr. Dumble could be quite a few steps ahead of all of us, and we really have no idea of the circuits he put in these guys' amps!!!

[ayan]

almost as intriguing as LC's tech's video about Larry's amp at LC's website (if you haven't seen that, it's pretty interesting... in terms of "WTF??????????").

Very curious. Here is a transcription of Larry's tech's descriptionn of Larry's Dumble with the LED style logo.:

On the overdrive section these two controls are triggered by a button on Larry's pedal board.

When those are engaged the tone has a 'bassier' or 'trebleir' aspect to it [pointing to the 'Level/Drive' knob].

And, of course the volume of the overdrive is controlled as well [pointing to the 'Volume' knob of the OD section]

The thing that got me is that his 'Level/Drive' knob has a mystery word under it. Perhaps it is something other than our well-known 'Level/Drive' control????

One amp says CONTENT + VOLUME, the other LEVEL + RATIO. The thing is the tech's description of the "tone control" is funny and most likely off. Also, if I recall correctly, the guy seems to lose focus a bit when talking about that part of the amp.

Gil

[bluesfendermanblues]

Hi Gil,

What do you think is confusing about the interview? Nice strat, BTW

Jelle

4. We do know for a fact that all three guy's amps have the HRM in them.


Gil

I saw a picture of LC's amp inside - somewhere - but, how do we knot the RF has a HRM in his AMP ??????

I've build an amp without the HRM and when i use the 'settings', that I can see RF use on close-up pictures of hsi gear, I wouldnt expect him to have a HRM in his amp. (I tried the HRM in my amp only to fint it looses a lot of OD volume).

If RF use a HRM, I would expect his OD volume "ratio" control to be set much higher.

In more detail: on the pictures I can find of his amp, he is EITHER setting the input volume (next to the input jack) to 4, OD 'ratio' on 5 and OD vol on 5

OR

Input volume (next to the input jack) to 5, OD 'ratio' on 4 and OD vol on 5

Which indicate that he is not using a HRM, because I can pretty much make the same sounds on my NON-HRM amp with these mentioned RF settings ??????

[ayan]

I've build an amp without the HRM and when i use the 'settings', that I can see RF use on close-up pictures of hsi gear, I wouldnt expect him to have a HRM in his amp. (I tried the HRM in my amp only to fint it looses a lot of OD volume).

If RF use a HRM, I would expect his OD volume "ratio" control to be set much higher.

Well, how about this picture? I took it at a gig I did in which Robben played as well. These were the settings he used when the amp was rolled on to the stage. To me, this suggests an HRM amp.

Cheers,

Gil