What a fuckin' dud. A Mesa Boogie Mk IIB is a way better all around
amplifier in my opinion. About all the Dumble does that's nice is you
can get the overdrive tweaked to where a moderate increase in picking
energy puts you into the beer commercial zone and back out. I guess if
you're a jingles session guy doing beer commercials that's awesome.
But to me it is pretty ho-hum.
I'd take a good tweed Fender and a good OD pedal any day.
I know a lot of musicians, and none of them are using Dumble. They're
using Marshall and Orange and Mesa and Kustom. I think it's just
another case of you being in your own little fantasy world where
issues that don't really exist really piss you off.
His description of the Dumble matches what I've been told about the Mesa
Boogie! I'll leave the taste quotient of using a distortion pedal with a
Fender tweed to the guitar tone cognoscenti.
Stephen
First of all, the Dumbles supposedly number in the hundreds at most,
so they're not exactly revolutionizing the amp scene. They're
desirable because they're used by people like Clapton and Santana,
that's all. This is yet another example of a populist Bratzi hating
the things that are reserved for the very few. Who knew he was such a
leftist?
Second, there's the argument that the noises Bratzi made with a guitar
and a Dumble were probably worlds apart from the music made by those
aforementioned masters. So he can probably chalk his experience up to
user error. Knowing his taste in speakers, he's probably half deaf
anyway.
Bratzi got to play around with a fairly exclusive and rare item. Only
a real douche would then run full speed to the nearest Usenet forum to
brag about his disappointment. That why Art's comment about Jenn's
supposed fawning struck such a false note...it's tiring to listen to
what people DON'T like.
I know of no big names playing Kustoms, which were covered with
metalflake carny-ride tuck and roll covering and made in Chanute,
Kansas. They were back in vogue with punk bands a decade or so ago and
then died out (again).
Mesa, Marshall, hell yes. A lot of them.
IMO the can't-go-wrong amps are Vox AC30s (or good clones thereof),
small point-wired black and early silverface Fenders, and the THD
Univalve. Certain Marshalls like the JTM-45 are also pretty decent
stout all around performers. The Mk IIB Boogie is also a fairly
decent choice though a bastard to work on.
The other big penis amp out there besides the Dumble is the
Trainwreck, a minimalist affair made by a guy named Ken Fisher. He was
ill for years and shot himself dead awhile back. The Wreck is IMO also
overpriced, but at least it generally sounds pretty good no matter
what you plug into it or how it's set up. The Dumble takes someone
with the patience of a Connie era flight engineer to set it up and
really only does one thing well at the expense of everything else.
I said musicians, not big names. Real working musicians.
playing Kustoms, which were covered with
> metalflake carny-ride tuck and roll covering and made in Chanute,
> Kansas. They were back in vogue with punk bands a decade or so ago and
> then died out (again).
Naw, they have a definite following. How many live shows do you go to
in a year?
>
> Mesa, Marshall, hell yes. A lot of them.
>
> IMO the can't-go-wrong amps are Vox AC30s (or good clones thereof),
> small point-wired black and early silverface Fenders, and the THD
> Univalve. Certain Marshalls like the JTM-45 are also pretty decent
> stout all around performers. The Mk IIB Boogie is also a fairly
> decent choice though a bastard to work on.
>
> The other big penis amp out there besides the Dumble is the
> Trainwreck, a minimalist affair made by a guy named Ken Fisher. He was
> ill for years and shot himself dead awhile back. The Wreck is IMO also
> overpriced, but at least it generally sounds pretty good no matter
> what you plug into it or how it's set up. The Dumble takes someone
> with the patience of a Connie era flight engineer to set it up and
> really only does one thing well at the expense of everything else.
Yeah, but if that one thing is what the guitarist is looking for, your
point is moot.
> His description of the Dumble matches what I've been told about the Mesa
> Boogie! I'll leave the taste quotient of using a distortion pedal with a
> Fender tweed to the guitar tone cognoscenti.
I like my '62 Vibrolux a lot.
A high school friend traded a Harvard for a Hondo guitar before anyone
could talk him out of it.
Stephen