GearDump

After last nights roundup and the article on Alexander Dumble’s supposedly fantastic amplifiers I thought it only appropriate to revisit that subject matter with a look at two of the great dumble clones on the market.

Fuchs Audio ODS

The first examination is pointed at Fuchs Audio. Fuchs makes a range of other amplifiers and pedals but among them is the ODS or Overdrive Supreme (not to be confused with Dumbles Over Drive Special). This unabashed clone of a Dumble sounds fairly tasty too based on the clips I gathered on youtube. The Fuchs ODS actually comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. When I say a variety I mean it, the amp can vary from 20 watts all the way to 140 watts and comes in either a combo or stack version. It’s not clear what Dumble Fuchs got his hands on, but those guys have sure made a lucrative business out of it. Many discussion forums have been spent lampooning his handy work, but as they say, the proof is in the pudding.

Kind of like the Fulltone OCD, this amp has undergone some revisions over time. Several years ago they went into production on the SLX version of the ODS. The SLX changed some of the internals to modify the tonality of the amp. Fuchs offers conversion for pre SLX ODS amplifiers. There is also now an HRM Variant of the amp which allows for Post Pre-Amp EQ. Many Modern amps incorporate this kind of preamp for wider tonal shaping.

The Fuchs has some interesting options that may or may not be related to the actual dumble. For one it can come with an optional power supply to run pedals on your board. This little option costs an extra $200, but in some clubs where you only have a few outlets it could be a life saver. Fuchs also uses a fancy DC power supply scheme that apparantly reduces the background noise of the amplifier. That is certainly a nice feature that High Gain amps should really have! There is also a Triple Drive Supreme which is loosely based on the ODS SLX version. This is a 3 channel monster that incorporates Dumble tones into it’s channels. I have not heard any of these three amps except in clips and I must say, compared to a Dumble they are very close.

Overall it looks as if Fuchs has become interested in developing a product that goes beyond the standard Dumble design to incorporate more modern & luxurious appointments.

TWO-ROCK

If FUCHS is the king of ODS clones then Two-Rock is not a clone at all but something unique and different. Alexander Dumble crafts his amps by hand and takes many months to do it. Two-Rock offers handbuilt amps with about 1/12th the lead time. Finding a Two-Rock demo, or clips that don’t have John Mayer in them, can be difficult. Overal the amplifier does the Fender on steroids sound very well.

In the clip you can see how bell like and clear the clean tones on this amp can be. When cranked the amp never gets to gainy or saturated. SRV did use a Dumble just not an ODS. He had what he called “king tone consul” which was a Dumble SSS. The SSS is basically an attempt to make an amp with pure headroom right up until ten. SRV would often mix this with his overdriven amps to get more clarity. Anyway, This amp accomplishes the drive sound that SRV used a lot of the time with some clarity and snap that simply couldn’t be accomplished with only a Vibroverb. If anyone knows of better Two-Rock clips I’d be happy to post them up here (and get you some exposure!) because frankly there are hardly any of decent quality.

The biggest problem with Two-Rock is since they are still all hand made amps by a handfull of skilled artisans they are incredibly expensive. I have seen Two-Rocks go for upwards of $3,000 on Ebay. I know they do go for less at times, but that is an incredible price to pay to get a piece of Dumble’s designs. Also, almost everything in the Two-Rock line bares some Dumble resemblence, so even their tiniest amp which for a time was around 20 Watts is very Dumble-esque.

Two-Rock has some hefty endorsers. Joe Bonomassa has played through one and allegedly thinks the Fuchs is less forgiving. He has even gone as far to mention that his two-rock may be broken since it has very little clean headroom. John Mayer is the most obvious Two-Rock endorser though he also owns at least one Dumble amplifier too. He has interchangeably used Two-Rock and Dumble amps on stage, likely because he doesn’t want his Dumbles to be damaged during touring.

If what Bonomassa believes is true, the Two-Rock is the hard-rock version of a Dumble where the Fuchs is more versatile. Either way both amps are filled with Tasty tone and are at price points that induce mortgages.

Edit: I just found some great information on Bonamassa’s Boards. He explicitly says don’t bother spending $40,000 on a dumble and talks about some of the clones he’s used:

I like the Two rock amps for a very direct tone. I prefer the custom signature reverb 1 with the presence knob over the CSR 2 with the contour. I dont know why but I do. They do a very good ^ type of tone. Not a lot of lows or highs but great mids that blend well with the Marshall Jubilee. I have two of them and I actually like the European one better. Its a little cleaner. Joe and the guys over there are really nice and helpful. A very honest amp. You hear your good days and you hear your bad days very clearly. The VanWeelden is a bit more true to a Overdrive Special I think. Its rounder and has less gain, although Peter makes this pre amp called a gainland which is so great. Peter’s amp is top notch and built like a tank.. You must get the Twinklelator though. The compression that the outboard tube effects loop creates is beautiful and so Robben Ford ish.. The Carol Ann is the same situation a most expertly built Dumble style amp that is does the full saturation with high articulation thing. The main difference between Alan’s amp is that he uses EL 34s instead of 6L6s. The Red one with the Eric Johnson tweak is my favorite of the two I have. Its all what you like. The amps that I have described are not cheap but do that thing very well. I will say that “Thing” is not for everybody. Some people prefer less articulation and more compression, some dont like all that midrange that you get. I hope this helps… I will say this. I just played a gig with Robben Ford and he had his Dumble ODS and TC 2290. I also saw him with two reissue twins and he sounded the same. Great!! Save $40,000 on a real Dumble that may or may not be authentic and buy yourself a nice 3 series BMW. Girls will dig the car better than the black box with Vox grille on it.
Just my thoughts
Thanks Joe Bonamassa

You can view the post at: Joe Bonomassa’s Official Forums

The video above was posted by Johnhguitar on youtube. He does a reasonable job of demonstrating it’s tones so I’m borrowing it. Thanks John!

The Rivera R30 or Thirty-Twelve is a tone machine plain and simple. As with all Rivera offerings it is heavily dependent on tubes with a proper bias setting. These amps can be found on Ebay for reasonable prices. The R30 is a bit like a Fender amp with EL34’s in the power amp. The amp features two channels with totally seperate volume and tone controls. The clean channel has a notch switch that takes the amp from bassman to blackface in an instant by shifting the mid range of the amp. Both channels also feature a footswitchable boost control.

The remarkable thing about this amp is it’s versatility. With the clean channel pre-amp volume at a reasonably low level it has a warm clean sound. With the pre-amp volume boosted the amp easily gets into vintage overdriven lead sounds that are not far from SRV. The notch switch adds a little personal dimension to the amp. Unfortunately the Notch switch is not footswitchable though, that would have been a nice addition. The boost switch adds a bit more punch and volume to the amp. Some players have mentioned that it actually adds more preamp volume without 12ax7 saturation thus adjusting the amount of powertube saturation we here. Whatever the case may be the “ninja” boost is a welcome addition to this amp’s tonal arsenal.

The Gain channel is pure unadulterated British raunch. I don’t own a Marshall and with this in my closet I certainly don’t need one. At higher Gain’s it sounds very JCM-800 like. With the gain switch it gives me a quick lead boost when needed. Honestly, I don’t use the gain as much on this side since I have a lot of overdrives and fuzzes that I enjoy using but when I have, I have not been dissappointed.

The only place where this amp falls short is in it’s cabinet dimensions. Even Rivera has acknowledged this since the new Chubster is virtually the same amplifier in a different cabinet.  If you are looking for boutique tones and great build quality with a tiny price tag I highly suggest a used Rivera.

Paul Rivera is an Amp legend. He designed many amps for Fender, participated in construction at Mesa Boogie before they became mass produced and even designed some of the popular and successful Yamaha solid state amps in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Paul is a nice guy to talk to, and if you call Rivera you might actually end up on the phone with him. During Paul’s tenure at Fender he designed the last set of Amplifiers that were hand made. That period was just before the Red Knob era and the sale of Fender back to it’s workers. Many of those amps are highly soughtafter, particularly the Fender Superchamp (Champ II) and Deluxe Reverb II among others.

I have tried to avoid buying Tubes at major chain stores simply because I have never had good luck with groove tubes. GC normally only carries Groove Tubes or Mesa in store. Sam Ash has only ever had Groove Tubes as long as I have shopped there as well. The other day I was in Sam Ash and saw that they actually carried tubes from JJ electronics. I have never really used JJ tubes save for in my old Classic 30, and frankly I wasn’t impressed but I figure I would give them a try.

When I purchased my Rivera it came with some joker’s idea of good tone, two horribly mismatched Groove Tubes with the number 5 written on the label. They were so bad that after the amp had been used for a few hours, one would only get mildly hot while the other would blaze.

When I installed the JJ’s I didn’t bother to do a Bias check since I assumed that any tubes would be better. These did the trick marvelously. The fender side of the amp exuded those sweet cleans whilst the British side ranged from JTM-45 snarl to JCM-800 crunch. Ironically I had never enjoyed turning this amp up since on the Brittish side it just seemed to get louder with less saturation. The moment I got the master volume to 8 I realized what I had been missing. This amp can really saturate and sound fantastic. Those Rivera clips on youtube simply don’t do them justice.

I was really impressed that the matching of these tubes was fairly close as well. I’ll update after I do a Bias!