1986 Dumble OverDrive Special

By Dave Hunter
Vintage Guitar
34
November 2015
Dumble OD Special: Niko Matses. Amp courtesy of Chuck Matses.
1986 Dumble
Overdrive
Special
• Preamp tubes: three 12AX7
• Output tubes: four 6L6
• Rectifier: solid state
• Controls: Volume; switches
for Bright, Deep, and Rock/
Jazz; Treble, Middle Bass;
Overdrive Level and Ratio;
Master and Presence
• Speaker: originally an ElectroVoice 12L (owner has swapped in
various modern replacements)
• Output: approximately
100 watts RMS
T
he exalted amps of Alexander Dumble have been legendary since he
began building in the late ’60s, and have become more so over the
course of the past decade, with several notable “boutique” makers launching
their own lines on the backs of Dumble-inspired designs. It’s a rare thing,
then, in the face of all this tone worship, to come across an original-owner
Dumble, and to be privy to the full backstory of its acquisition.
With Dumble amps selling for several tens
of thousands of dollars today, it seems utterly
mindblowing to hear of the process of ordering, paying a price in the low four-figures, and
receiving a custom amp a few months later.
But, don’t blame owner/VG reader Chuck
Matses – he was simply in the right place at
the right time.
In 1972, Alexander Dumble was developing a reputation for making unusual tube
amps in his home workshop in Santa Cruz,
California, when he soldered together the
first Overdrive Special. The model would
remain his flagship through the years even
as his Steel String Singer, Overdrive Reverb,
Dumbleland, and a few other variations also
ended up on major stages. Some people talk
of the clean side of the Overdrive Special as
having a “Fendery” signature, and, indeed, the
first gain stage and tone stack have elements
in common with the larger blackface amps,
but it’s a highly evolved “Fendery” at the very
least. And what they’re really known for, of
course, is their overdrive – a high-gain tone
produced by running the clean signal into a
further gain stage (post-preamp) with its own
Level and Ratio (blend) controls, rather than
merely chaining together cascading preamp
stages, as so many high-gain amps do.
In 1985, Dumble was interviewed by Dan
Forte for Guitar Player magazine. “It’s a
different kind of signal handling,” he said.
“In the Overdrive, I approach gain levels
that are extremely intense; within the linear
region, I have a signal gain capability of
one million. So if you stuck 10 microvolts
in, you’d get 10 volts back. And I do it
with stability, and it’s still very musical.
The best way to approach an Overdrive is
real slow. Walk up to it, look at the knobs,
have it turned down real low, and then get
a feeling for it. Learn what to do with your
fingers to make it respond well. If you walk
right up to it, it has a tendency to absolutely
frighten some people. The secret control on
the Overdrive’s panel section is the Ratio...
which controls how much overdrive is fed
back into the circuit. If you turn that up,
it’s Rock City.”
Personality-wise – for most Dumbles, but
the Overdrive Special in particular – think
thick, creamy, chocolatey overdrive, singing
sustain, an abundance of harmonic content,
loads of texture and dimensional detail.
Feel-wise, think über player-controllable
dynamics, and an immediacy that lends a
wired-to-your-fingertips playing experience. If you feed off the swampy compres-
November 2015
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Vintage Guitar
sion of a laboring tweed amp, a Dumble is
probably not for you. If you’re into raw and
vintage tones more than the elevated and
refined, probably not. But players such as
Robben Ford, David Lindley, Larry Carlton,
Eric Johnson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John
Mayer and Sonny Landreth have all made
hay via the Dumble sound, so there’s clearly
a little something to it.
As for the conception and birth of this
particular amp, let’s have Matses tell the story.
“I have always been a huge fan of Jackson
Browne and David Lindley. It was after
hearing Dumble amps at close range – Rick
Vito’s Dumble on Jackson’s Lawyers In
Love album tour, and Lindley’s Dumbles
with his El Rayo X group – that I wanted
to own one. The tonal blast was from
another world – at high volume, it seemed
very three-dimensional and a bit difficult
to describe with words.”
Floored by the experience, Matses went
to the man himself and got the ball rolling.
“In 1986, I sent Howard Dumble a letter of
inquiry about ordering an Overdrive Special
combo. A week or so later, the phone rang.
My wife answered and said, ‘It’s Howard [as
he was then known] Dumble on the phone.’
Well, we had a nice 30-minute chat about
amps and music. I told him I was a big JB
and DL fan. He liked that.”
Dumble sent Matses his order form, which
the prospective client immediately filled out
and returned with a bank check for payment
in full: $2,150.
“I asked how long it would be until I
received the amp, and he told me I’d have it
in about five weeks. Well, I received it after
what seemed like an endless five-month
wait. After all the stories we’ve heard over
the years, I guess I was lucky. Lindley told
me that his rhythm guitarist from El Rayo
X had to wait a year.”
For all of Dumble’s reputation for being
gruff bordering on off-putting, Matses says
he was friendly and easy to work with. The
tube-amp guru offered to let his new client
send his choice of covering for the combo,
and when Matses suggested python-skin
vinyl like Lindley’s amp, Dumble politely
explained it couldn’t be done; that was an
exclusive look reserved for the slide-guitar
star. Instead, in a friend’s auto-upholstery
shop, Matses located a leopard-skin material
originally used for Arctic Cat snowmobile
seats. He sent it to Dumble and, though Alexander had meanwhile gone to the trouble
of securing David Lindley’s permission
to use the python skin, client and maker
decided they loved it, and the covering went
on Matses combo, as well as several other
Dumbles of the era.
“I received the amp via Federal Express in
December of ’86,” Matses concludes. “I will
never forget the sight of the driver opening
the rear door of the truck, exposing the Anvil
Vintage Guitar
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November 2015
case with a special surprise inside. Over the
years, it’s been a joy to play, as well as to just
look at. The amp always sounds spectacular,
and really shines in a band context.”
And that is how it all went down.