anyone been inside a bludo robben ford amp, or the real 102?

[toner]

just curious if anyone has compared them to the layout everyone is using. what are the differences? my personal clone 102 the lead sounds too high gain to me, i'm wondering if the layout if 100% correct or there could be some small detail thats not right. thanks!

[talbany]

The layout is close enough!..I cannot really tell you why.
If I were you I would be more concerned with parts selection, tolerances, lead dress than what's on my layout..

BTW..Even if you had the real 102 in front of you when you built yours it would more than likely sound,respond and feel,different than the one you just built.. Welcome to building Dumble Amp replicas....

Tony

[rogb]

I have had conversations with one of RF's techs who plays thru #102 regularly during setup/soundcheck and he assured me that no clone he has ever heard or played thru was even close. In his opinion we are all wasting our time.

Maybe the case, but I still love playing thru my builds Probably because I don't want to sound too much like RF

I would love to be able to play #102 with one of RF's guitars and see how much difference there is, if any?

[norburybrook]

the few clips I've hear of Robbin playing through the Bludotone sounded fantastic, I would not have been able to tell it wasn't his Dumble.

I think the fact Larry Carlton now uses Bludotone's exclusively sums up the whole debate. Remember Larry is the guy who junked his Dumbleator as he said it sounded crap so he's very picky about his sound.

I agree with Tony that 'our' Klones are close enough not to matter.

The biggest difference is the player, not even the guitar.


Marcus

[Structo]

Yeah Robben has a unique style.

His picking (light attack) and fretting all combines to get that tone.

Remember he can sound the same even with a Pro Reverb backline or red knob Twin.

He used to use a ZenDrive and Fender amps when not playing 102.

[norburybrook]

funnily I have a Zen drive and it's very close to the OD of a Dumble, I sometimes A-B on the clean channel of my 102 with the Zen drive and the OD on the 102, they're surprisingly close.

I take a Zen drive on a grab and go gig every time along with some kind of clean boost and TC hall of fame, 3 pedals and you're good to go with a half decent rental fender.

Marcus

[jam-mill]

I have a Wampler Euphoria clone that does a pretty decent d-style sound.

[MKB]

I just finished a 102, and am willing to accept it isn't near the original, but all the tonal goodies I was wanting from the amp that I heard in Ford's tone (warmth, smoothness, clarity, dynamics, pop in the notes, the snarl that happens with the bridge pickup when he digs in) are present in my 102. So I'm mighty happy with the results, and I don't really care that it's not an exact copy.

There is lots of good info on these forums that helps you tweak your clone to match your playing and guitars. In my case a simple 0.02uF in parallel with a 10meg resistor, in series with the OD input, made a world of difference in the OD tone and really dialed it in. That isn't a circuit you usually see in ODS's, but it massively helped this particular amp.

I also have a carefully constructed Zendrive clone (went to great pains to get the same parts), and have extensively compared it to this clone's OD channel, and the clone is far better sounding than the Zendrive. No comparison.

[groovtubin]

During TWEAKING w/wires HANGIN in the air, once in a while a jumper lead wil FALL into a ZONE, and sound INCREDIBLE for just a few moment, i`ve had this happen for real ONCE, n that was a 12 volt wire in just the right position against a V1b lead wire! I got VELVET NO FIZZ BARREL WARM sustain, it was incredible, magically delicious...course it WAS unstable so bk ta drawing board, Had says that if u took the amp apart u couldn`t fig out how he did it.... I blv the magic is in controlled oscillation/rfi interaction, n a stable way...much like the lore of a really good trainwreck, well, they are all great i suppose! Again like TB says LEAD dress!

my .02, go ahead n shoot me i could care less!

jim@Omegaamps

[mhartman]

From what I hear, the layout here iis from the Bludotone. Build it and be satisfied. The rest is fairy dust.

[hitchcaster]

The layout is close enough!..I cannot really tell you why.
If I were you I would be more concerned with parts selection, tolerances, lead dress than what's on my layout..

BTW..Even if you had the real 102 in front of you when you built yours it would more than likely sound,respond and feel,different than the one you just built.. Welcome to building Dumble Amp replicas....

Tony

I have a Quinn 102. it's the same as the layout, cept for the bridge rec/PT deal.... there is however a cap and pot added on the overdrive section... need to pull it out again and look, The HF mod maybe.... is that in the real 102? curious what the difference is.

[bluesfendermanblues]

My 102 definitely needs the HF trim. Same with 183 and classic - however, the movement of wiring magic seems interesting.

[talbany]

Something to consider

Acording to Robben he had Alexander build him an exact replica of his 102 as an extra back up amp..At one point was a combo (gold script I believe) later put into a black head..14 min into it Robben says HAD did everything he could to duplicate 102 and yet it's still fairly obvious Robben prefers 102

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO-QZNeIBYU

Why because it's an instrument and very rarely (if ever) do 2 of them sound exactly alike..AFAIK 102 at one time did have the HF taper when it was a low plate classic later removed..Many that have had the opportunity to play 102 say the amp was (without the D-Lator) a very bright amp..
Apart from all that! play 1 amp for over 30 years and get the gift of exploiting all of it's wonderful nuances....

Tony

[jam-mill]

During TWEAKING w/wires HANGIN in the air, once in a while a jumper lead wil FALL into a ZONE, and sound INCREDIBLE for just a few moment, i`ve had this happen for real ONCE, n that was a 12 volt wire in just the right position against a V1b lead wire! I got VELVET NO FIZZ BARREL WARM sustain, it was incredible, magically delicious...course it WAS unstable so bk ta drawing board, Had says that if u took the amp apart u couldn`t fig out how he did it.... I blv the magic is in controlled oscillation/rfi interaction, n a stable way...much like the lore of a really good trainwreck, well, they are all great i suppose! Again like TB says LEAD dress!

my .02, go ahead n shoot me i could care less!

jim@Omegaamps

Jim,

I actually had an intermittent connection in the shielded cable run to the OD level pot. After moving the amp from gig to home, etc. sometimes the OD sounded amazing; nice and warm, no fizz, every pickup combination on the strat sounded great.

After fixing the section of cable, I spent the better part of 2 days trying varying resistor values to approximate what was happening and could not reproduce it. Probably should have glued the wires in place or something!

All that to say that there are so many interactions inside the d-amp that can make or break the tone. Probably why HAD spent such a long time building/tweaking each one!

-jack

[lovetone]

Hi Jack

Are you saying that the faulty connection was with the inner core or the shield?

Geoff