Robben and his Rig

[dreric]

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/2 ... obben-ford

amp @ about 13:00

[andyhardy]

"16:35" the Dumble schematic is a fender bassman.
Hmm interesting

Nice piece except for the 1500 a ha's from the interviewer

[bluesfendermanblues]

Interesting clip and always an eye opener.

I tend to forget that artists (like Robben) think of gear in terms of color and tone and know very little (if not clueless) about the tech stuff, very unlike the rest of us. (...remember Eric Claptons remark about his built-in 25dB mid boost...'give me more compressor' or John Lennon who asked George Martin if he could make a DI of him singing )

Interesting points about the amps dependency on clean power supply and that the amp likes to see 122 volts and that power in the Valley is dirty and you can hear that on records.

Also a great homage to Alexander Dumble to have the best ears on the planet.....true that, IMO lets face it the rest of us are really just copy cats who follow his trails in terms of design and choice of components.

Regarding the amp. Nothing new, he say the output section is like a Bassman head (piggy back), but that's hardly a surprise to any on the forum.

[marcos]

What I find interesting is what Robben says about the
differences in tone of his two cabinets. I had the chance to play through
a real Dumble cab once(EVs), and found it to be unusually balanced, very tight
and even, much like Robben´s description.
There are plenty of copies of Dumble cabs out there, but so
far I have heard of nobody who makes them out of mahogany
ply, as HAD did.

Marcos

[bluesfendermanblues]

What I find interesting is what Robben says about the
differences in tone of his two cabinets. I had the chance to play through
a real Dumble cab once(EVs), and found it to be unusually balanced, very tight
and even, much like Robben´s description.
There are plenty of copies of Dumble cabs out there, but so
far I have heard of nobody who makes them out of mahogany
ply, as HAD did.

Marcos

I think Mesa Boogie has used mahogany ply or Marine plywood (since you use it for outfitting boats) for their speaker cabinets for many years. I had a caliber .22 in black tolex, that was made from mahogany ply.

I don't think marine ply has a special sound. IMO it's more a matter of the material having a higher density. Not that different from Baltic Birch ply.

Pine ply is a different story, much more lively.

[fabiomayo]

Interesting piece. I liked the Jonny Lang as well.

I agree... The eye opener is that many musicians aren't that hang up on the technical details of their gear and just go for whatever sounds good.

From that interview, it seems he uses the green switched #102 and another that is made to be very similar. Am I right?

Robben does know his fret size, though.

[CHIP]

A TC Electronics H.O.F reverb on his pedal board? Now that's getting down to my level.

[wokkel]

At around 14:30 Robben comments on the second Dumble amp he has and that mr. Dumble has tried to duplicate the first amp. Robben doesn't say it's interchangeble...

And the duplication is possible because mr. Dumble has pads (?).
My mind starts wondering how meticulous these notes are.
And how much they would go for on eBay, if ever in circulation.

And immediately after the pads(?) comment, Robben goes on about the 'great ear' mr. Dumble has. Now possibly implying that the sonic result might be achieved differently. Aahhh. Stop it. In three sentences we went from the 'it's all in the schematic and component choice' to the whole is more than the parts' dogma.

Robben is just messing with us.

[dreric]

Long before I really knew anything about Dumble amps, other than I wanted one, I had a long conversation with HAD on the phone. We talked for about 90 minutes. From the conversation I'd say that the mystique and mystery that Robben and his tech allude to is cultivated by HAD. IMO, the culture that surrounds HAD work and generates his prices comes from the man himself. In my conversation with HAD, there was A LOT of self aggrandizing and self promotion. Clearly Robben has had his share of this also.

[Tubetastic]

At around 14:30 Robben comments on the second Dumble amp he has and that mr. Dumble has tried to duplicate the first amp. Robben doesn't say it's interchangeble...

And the duplication is possible because mr. Dumble has pads (?).

He has: Specs

[Teleguy61]

I thought he came across as a very nice guy, which is his reputation I believe.

[Structo]

Thanks for posting that.
Always great to see what Robben is using currently.

[bluesy]

....to the Dumbleator?

[ayan]

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/2 ... obben-ford

amp @ about 13:00

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I'm curious about a number of things, not really related to one another, but here's what came to mind:

1. I have seen RF live twice using this particular rig and he played mostly clean, I think he stepped on the overdrive pedal maybe once all night. Anyway, my point is that with the delay and reverb on the pedalboard, he surely can't use the overdrive on the amp too successfully -- delay and reverb sound pretty bad if placed before distortion.

2. He keeps a patch cord from the Pre out to the Power in.

3. Don't understand the explanation about the Vortex boost. He says that because of that pedal it's as if the amp wasn't there. WTF??? Also, Rick says that the boost pedal is set so that with the volume pedal to the metal, the gain is unity. Not a boost per se it seems... maybe just a low impedance deal after the volume pedal to make the latter suck less tone? Who knows.

4. Robben says the amp sounds the same regardless of whether the master volume is on 1 or 9. Surely someone must have clipped off the 68pF brightness cap that amp had a some point. Regardless... really? I've never heard anything capable of doing that.

5. Interesting that they took measurements off LC's guitar and tried to copy them into RF's Epiphone. I wonder if they were referring to the location of the stop tailpiece? It looks like it's palced further back on the Epi, but maybe not as far back as LC's.

Cheers,

Gil

[wokkel]

3. Don't understand the explanation about the Vortex boost. He says that because of that pedal it's as if the amp wasn't there. WTF???

I thought he meant, as if the pedalboard wasn't there. As if he went direct from guitar to amp.