Ry Cooder's Borderline Special

[ayan]

IIRC, 224 is an HRM amp.

Gil

Billy / Gil

Thanks again for all your contributions.

224???????

[bluesfendermanblues]

Billy / Gil

Thanks again for all your contributions.

Ditto that!

[ToneMerc]

Thanks Billy

TM

[Dr d]

Thank you Billy and thank you Gil. This information has certainly changed my life!

[ampman1961]

224 is located here in SoCal. It belongs to an actor/musician. Nice guy. It's cosmetics are the same as 124 but the outline striping on the faceplate is gold rather than white. I also remember the logo script was gold also but it's been about 8 years ago since I saw it last. I need to go through my drives to see if I can find some of those old photos. It was heavily gooped with grey silicone.
There used to be a crappy video of me playing his 60 Les Paul through it, posted on youtube but I can't seem to locate it.
It'll turn up. Meanwhile, the mystery of these other two Dumble's I mentioned were photographed, very well. I may have given all of those files to my other friend. Let me see. I will get back to you on this.
Billy

[crbowman]

Thanks you Guys!
Your generosity, insight, and willingness to share info is what got me here in the first place, and what keeps me coming back. Can't thank you enough.

[dbharris]

Thank you Billy and Gil, the sharing of this information is very generous!

[ayan]

I played 224 about ten years ago when I sat in on this gig that the owner was doing in Hermosa Beach. The amp was in a combo shell then, Dumble had tweaked it maybe to a Blues Master? It was definitely an HRM. At the end of the evening, the amp was offered to me for $19K, which was a lot of money -- other HRMs were going for about $12K back then. Worst yet, I had already built several amps by then and liked mine better, so I didn't give it a second thought. If I knew then what I know now....

Gil

224 is located here in SoCal. It belongs to an actor/musician. Nice guy. It's cosmetics are the same as 124 but the outline striping on the faceplate is gold rather than white. I also remember the logo script was gold also but it's been about 8 years ago since I saw it last. I need to go through my drives to see if I can find some of those old photos. It was heavily gooped with grey silicone.
There used to be a crappy video of me playing his 60 Les Paul through it, posted on youtube but I can't seem to locate it.
It'll turn up. Meanwhile, the mystery of these other two Dumble's I mentioned were photographed, very well. I may have given all of those files to my other friend. Let me see. I will get back to you on this.
Billy

[rogb]

Fascinating info here! Thanks for sharing. Are there any photos of #224? It would be great to see how the front looks at least.

[ayan]

Here is the face.

G.

Fascinating info here! Thanks for sharing. Are there any photos of #224? It would be great to see how the front looks at least.

[rogb]

Wow that's great! Thanks Gil. it is a pretty thing

[ampman1961]

And when it came into my shop, it was in the form of a head. Gil stated the price correctly, which was the price paid for it. To me, 124 sounded better, much better. If the photos surface, I will share them. They are likely on another drive in my old PC and being a MAC user for the past 5 years, I rarely ever turn that POS on anymore. I will be sharing the other two Dumble files I spoke about. It will be a few days.
Here is an inside photo of the other ODS I spoke of here in LA. It was updated to the Skyliner version by Alexander, so it had two different colors of goop. Originally it had been black. I will show those later after I retrieve all of the files. This amplifier historical forensic stuff is pretty fun eh?
Billy Yates

[ampman1961]

Here's another one I dredged up of the same amplifier.
I may be wrong on the EQ board being Skyliner. Gil corrected me on this awhile back, but the trim board was added later. I forget as I don't really
dwell on these subjects as much as others. After focusing on building my own line of amps I tend to forget a lot of the minutiae. The black goop is original and I did not touch it as I told the owner doing so might ruin some of the provenance for future sale. He decided to keep it instead of selling it. Wise move. After I serviced and adjusted the trimmers to the clients taste, it has been told to me that it's one of the best sounding examples of this model. Joe Bonamasa loved it. No sale though, so he moved on. This one is the only other Dumble I have worked on that sounded better than 124, which to me is the grail amp so far in my experience. It's a 100 watter with all of the usual appointments, installed in a head shell with the matching EVM loaded rear ported speaker cabinet and footswitch. I believe I serviced the D'lator too. Somewhere I have the photos of that as well. I'll get this mystery sorted out including the serial number. Although some may already know this amp, I will not divulge the clients name and out of fairness, perhaps we shouldn't make that public if you do know.
More to come. BTW, I did remove the god awful FX loop buffer board shown in the photo. That piece of shit ruined the tone of the amp. I still have it and use it on my dart board.
Billy Yates

[steve_p]

Here's another one I dredged up of the same amplifier.
I may be wrong on the EQ board being Skyliner. Gil corrected me on this awhile back, but the trim board was added later. I forget as I don't really
dwell on these subjects as much as others. After focusing on building my own line of amps I tend to forget a lot of the minutiae. The black goop is original and I did not touch it as I told the owner doing so might ruin some of the provenance for future sale. He decided to keep it instead of selling it. Wise move. After I serviced and adjusted the trimmers to the clients taste, it has been told to me that it's one of the best sounding examples of this model. Joe Bonamasa loved it. No sale though, so he moved on. This one is the only other Dumble I have worked on that sounded better than 124, which to me is the grail amp so far in my experience. It's a 100 watter with all of the usual appointments, installed in a head shell with the matching EVM loaded rear ported speaker cabinet and footswitch. I believe I serviced the D'lator too. Somewhere I have the photos of that as well. I'll get this mystery sorted out including the serial number. Although some may already know this amp, I will not divulge the clients name and out of fairness, perhaps we shouldn't make that public if you do know.
More to come. BTW, I did remove the god awful FX loop buffer board shown in the photo. That piece of shit ruined the tone of the amp. I still have it and use it on my dart board.
Billy Yates

Hi Billy,
I think this is #104, correct?
Joe played it for a gig last winter at the Baked Potato in LA.
I mentioned it in a thread here: http://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... =bonamassa

UltrahookedonPhonix then pointed us to this thread with a gut shot:
http://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... hlight=104

Thanks for continuing to post this info.

Steve

[ampman1961]

Steve
That's the amp and it was never owned by Andy Brauer. That photo is one of my photos taken on my bench. You will notice the Pace soldering unit to the right and the rubber mat underneath the amp. What's frustrating is I cannot find the folder with all of the photos that I took. I gave them to one person That I know of. Oh well, it doesn't matter.
Thanks for posting.