![]() ![]() “One of those bands was Little Feat, and Lowell George was playing an amp that didn’t sound very good or work well. “He’d essentially rebuild every instrument, including keyboards, so there’d be no downtime or issues with power in other countries,” said Drew Berlin, who, during a 30-year friendship, grew close to Dumble. Though it started as a modded Bassman, the amp evolved to become completely original, set apart not only for its sound but for the hand-measured and matched components, custom transformers, immaculate wire dress, and careful signal-path routing.Īfter moving his shop from Santa Cruz to North Hollywood, Dumble was hired by record companies to help musicians prep their gear for tour. The clean channel was cited for its transparent, responsive, “open” sound. It became widely viewed as the ultimate example of tube-generated overdrive – creamy, touch-sensitive, and with fat, harmonically rich tone. His first model, the Explosion, was made in ’69 in ’72, it became the Overdrive Special (ODS).Įssentially a two-channel/high-gain amp with 6L6 tubes (a handful were made with E元4s), Dumble told Robben Ford the first ODS was inspired by the blackface piggyback Bassman that Dumble saw Ford play with his brothers in The Charles Ford Band. In ’68, he backed pop-folk singer Buffy Saint-Marie, playing bass on tour, then used the earnings to buy equipment for his first shop, at his home in Santa Cruz. Dumble declined, opting instead to continue playing guitar as a profession while modding Fender amps for friends and other players.īetween 1966 and ’69, he began building original-design amps, beginning with a bass head called the Dumbleland. Ultimately, The Ventures deemed the amps’ sound “a little too much rock,” but they proposed a business partnership. Moseley then bought parts and turned Dumble loose building 10 solid-state amps, paying him $360 for his labor. ![]() ![]() The band’s guitar builder, Semie Moseley, fielded Dumble’s pitch, after which Moseley told him, “This is the best thing I’ve ever heard.” In ’65, Dumble built an unsolicited amp for his heroes in The Ventures. After graduating high school in 1962, he worked as a studio and touring player, working with songwriter Jim Webb. The project inspired him to build an amp for himself, based on Fender’s Dual Showman.Ī fan of Les Paul and Mary Ford, at 16 he started playing guitar. In a 1985 interview with Dan Forte for Guitar Player, magazine, Dumble said that in high school, he tinkered on Fender and Gibson guitar amps, which led to building a 200-watt public-address amplifier for a local youth baseball league, using a stockpile of electronic parts donated to the cause. The son of an engineer, Dumble grew up in Bakersfield, California, and was 12 years old when he started making transistor radios he’d sell to schoolmates for $5. He was 77 and had been dealing with heart issues including Atrial fibrillation (A-fib). Howard Alexander Dumble, iconic amp designer and builder, passed away January 16, 2022, after suffering a stroke. I consider him a really close friend I mean, like family.Photo by Michael Doyle. I think it might have something to do with the really warm relationship we both have. “ told me he’d got the idea to build the Overdrive Special from listening to me play through a ’60s piggyback Fender Bassman and cabinet,” Ford told Reverb in a 2017 interview. Robben Ford explained in an interview once that he would rent one whenever possible for his performances – later learning that it was he, himself who inadvertently inspired Dumble to create the amplifier. The Overdrive Special, a two-channel valve amplifier, would gain particular renown. Concerned with achieving the best results possible with his creations, the builder slowly gained a reputation within the guitar community for his extremely high-end builds. A post shared by Dumble Amps was one of the most celebrated builders in the world of guitar amplification, having built custom amplifiers for the likes of Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robben Ford, John Mayer and many others.īefore he was 21, Dumble began modding Fender amplifiers at home. ![]()
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