Joined: 21 Jul 2003 Posts: 401 Location: College Station, TX
Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 12:19 pm Post subject: Super Reverb envy
For the sake of argument (and because things are getting a little boring around here)...
If the elusive Dumble tone is modeled, as it has been suggested, after early RF using a big leg Gibson and a Super Reverb, why isn't the Super the subject of envy and awe as is the Dumble? You can buy a good condition mid 60s-early 70s Super for a grand, more or less, so why the fuss over the Dumble? Is it because they are out of reach of mere mortals? Is it just not cool to drag around a beat up silver face Super covered with smoke and beer stains? I have just been listening to "Sunrise" and thinking, damn what great tone - and not a Dumble in sight. Any thoughts?
Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Posts: 56 Location: Mesa , Arizona (Its a Dry Heat!)
Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 12:48 pm Post subject: Super Reverb Envy
Hi have a '66 Super Reverb here and it does sound wonderful. But to be honest any more I am a little leary about taking it out of the house. I am always worrying whether or not someone at the club is going to spill a drink on it or worse. As far as the Dumble being modelled after the Super, I am really not sure. I find the Super Reverb is great with single coils and gets a little "farty" with Humbuckers. But that is my personal opinion. I did recap the Super a couple of months ago (filters and bypass) and that helped a lot to tighten the sound, but the buckers still can get the amp to woof.
I had a 64 Vibroverb (with 15" JBL) and I sold it for $150.00 about 1988. That was a great amp (huge full tone), and NOW I wish that I had never sold it. Live and learn, what I learned is that I will never sell another piece of musical gear that I acquire.
Glasman _________________ -------------------------------------------------------
Playing Bass, one thump at a time.
www.glaswerks.com www.tsjband.com
-------------------------------------------------------
Joined: 21 Jul 2003 Posts: 401 Location: College Station, TX
Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 12:51 pm Post subject:
Is it really louder than RFs Dumble? What about all the posts about how loud he is on stage - loudness does not seem to be the issue? How do they compare output-wise anyway? And forget the floor-toys, I'm talking about full open guitar to amp, do not pass go, nothing in between.
(and if you had a Dumble would you even need or want stompage tools?)
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 3:17 pm Post subject:
TF, I think you hit it in your first post. Howard walked into Barney Steels and heard ROBBEN playing a SUPER400 through a Super. It was this sound that stuck in his head when he went back over the hill to Santa Cruz and started playing with amps.
So, plugging a Strat or even a LP into a Super isn't in the same field. It's that really centered midrangy thing that pushes the fundamental note out ahead of the overtones that makes the Dumble voice.
It would be fun to plug an S400 into the Dumble and see what happens. I suspect that too much of a good thing would still be too much.
So, maybe if you could bottle Robben and a large jazz box, you might resell SR's for $20,000 _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 6:06 pm Post subject: Re: Super Reverb envy
telefunk1 wrote:
If the elusive Dumble tone is modeled, as it has been suggested, after early RF using a big leg Gibson and a Super Reverb, why isn't the Super the subject of envy and awe as is the Dumble?
IMHO, one reason is because the SR is just too damn heavy to carry around! I do love the sound of a good SR (DR, BM, etc.), but they can be kind of farty without some minor mods. You can tune the bottom end to taste, but there isn't much you can do about the weight.
On Homework and Peace, Love and Understanding from Keep on Runninig, it sounds to me like Robben is using his Strat and SR. I used to have a '67 SR and it sounded great.
With a few small mods any blackface or silverface(tube amps of course) fender can be made to have that nice midrange Honk of a Dumble, I have a modded twin that you'd swear was a Bastard child of H.A.D and leo fender. Some simple casters on the bottom of a heavy combo certainly eases the strain of moving it, fitting it in your car is another story!!!! _________________ Resident Gear Hound!
Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 12:40 pm Post subject: Re: Super Reverb envy
telefunk1 wrote:
I have just been listening to "Sunrise" and thinking, damn what great tone - and not a Dumble in sight. Any thoughts?
Some killer tone that....and the one from "Discovering the Blues". However, I would say that it's different from Robbens modern Dumble tone.
________
Ipod games
Last edited by marinblues on Tue Mar 01, 2011 10:00 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 21 Jul 2003 Posts: 401 Location: College Station, TX
Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2004 12:16 pm Post subject:
Honkin' and woofin' - sounds good to me...
Good point, Marin, and actually I picked up Sunrise at the same time as the Ford/Spoon CD Live at Notenden. His tone on that CD (circa 1991 or so with the Dumble I am assuming?) is really brittle and harsh. I much prefer the Sunrise tone if I had to pick one over the other.
So the Super is too heavy? Have you ever tried hoisting a Quad Reverb? 4-12s and a Twin head in one handy package - hernia on 4 wheels. But if it provides "the tone" isn't the weight worth it?
I think the Super, more than most Fenders, really adapts itself to the type of guitar. It is one of the few that can sound good with just about anything. SRV got his early sound with one (then 2, then...). First time I saw him in a little club he had one black face Super and he sounded better than when he had a ton of amps and stomps all over the floor. And then RF can get some incredible tones with a big leg.
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:51 pm Post subject:
Super's are too heavy? OMG, a Twin with JBL's is a chiropractic bill waiting to happen? Boy, us guitar players have turned into wimps.
Every so often, I get calls for casuals on other things. My bass rig is two 2-10 cabs and a rack with a Crown amp in it. Every time I pull them out of the car I feel for the guys with 4-10 cabs. Ever lift an Eden 4-10? An Acoustic 360 bottom? An SVT? Think of the vehicles these guys need to haul those refridgerators around.
Then there's drums. Ever wonder why the drummer is the last to leave the gig? It isn't just folding up all those stands. It's the thought of hoisting them into the trunk. Especially after pounding away all night. I have one of those rolling golf bag things and it's always the last thing to go in just inside the tailgate of the truck. After heaving that thing in, I'd be happy with a Super Reverb.
In the good old days of my youth I played in a showroom that had a revolving thing in the middle of the stage. Obstensibly it was so that the Hawaiian dancer dinner show could swing their props around and the dance band (us) would be there all set up and ready to go. In reality there was barely enough room to set up a drum kit, so we had to pile and unpile our stuff six nights a week. Just because I used a MiniBrute on a serving stand didn't spare me from having to help with the Hammond organ, the Leslie, the Rhodes piano, Clavinet and the PA. Which consisted of two large 2-15 JBL cabs and the piece d'resistance, radial horns cast from 3" thick concrete that weighed around 250 lbs each. At least we didn't have any of that metalic horn "glare" _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 943 Location: Terra Firma, Ether Sea
Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 11:13 am Post subject:
telefunk1 wrote:
Mongo JBL cabs with the horns on top - that takes me back. What were we thinking, hauling those monsters around everywhere? The good old days...
You know how, when your kid complains about school, you pull the classic parent thing of... "You think you got it bad, kid?!? Let me tell you about rough! Now, in MY day............. "
Well, I always have to laugh when my son, out there on major tours such as Lollapalooza or OzFest and supporting high dollar groups such as Linkon Park or Korn, starts to complain about how tough things are, or how exhausted he is, or how screwed up and cheesy the venues, stages, production, and/or gear may be.
THAT's when I always launch into the ol' "Let me tell you how things were in my day, son..." routine.
"My boy," I says to him, with a cracked & withered voice, "I was there when Rock & Roll was born in the 50's and the 2 of us grew up together. When I was starting out, back there in the early 60's, there was no such thing as 'sound systems' or 'monitors' or 'micing gear'. All music came off the stage from the instruments or amps that produced it. Vocals were 1 or 2 singers sharing a mic into a guitar amp (or often, if more vocals were needed, 2 mics into the two channels of one amp).
"P.A. systems did not exist, until the Beatles toured stadiums and arenas in the U.S.A. and nobody, not even the band themselves, could hear anything. (For a good laugh, just check out the stage production on any of those concert videos of the Beatles at places like Shea Stadium.)
"Established audio/electronic ompanies then started commercially producing, in the beginning designed exclusively for vocals, small Public Address ("P.A.") sytems such as the classic Shure system consisting entirely of 2 small 4-8 8"/10" speakers towers (Altec, Lansing we're often the speakers of choice back then), and a cheap little 4 channel mixer board/40-60 watt amp, on a pole stand near one of the band members (so they could adjust the 1 volume knob [usually cranked wide open] and 1 tone knob for each channel and the 1 Master volume knob [usually cranked wide open] during their performance). You could fit the whole thing into the trunk or backseat of your car.
"But still, no one could hear the vocals or acoustic instruments (Or, if you could, it sounded so distorted/feedbacky that they were worse than useless).
"So the systems started getting bigger, often built by local custom builders. In the California central valley, where I grew up, it was a guy named Webb at Webb's Music, out in Antioch if memory serves me well. The coolest, loudest, most popular bands in my area were those that could afford, and were hauling around, Webb systems with 100 - 200 watt amps (WOW! What incredible, mind numbing power!!!) into huge wooden Voice-Of-The-Theater reflex cabs, at least 2 per side, with a couple of HUGE horns on top of each.
I remember carrying around a box of ceramic diaphrams for the drivers, as they were always shattering and having to be replaced, until crossover technology started to develop with Webb experimentally building external crossover units, custom hardwired for the needs of each individual band that owned one of his systems.
Unfortunately, though, little was done during those days to much improve the quality of mixers, other than to cheaply add a few extra channels. The physical size and volume of P.A.'s got bigger, but the quality of sound remained crude.
"If you were lucky, your band would somehow acquire an old used hearse to haul your gear around in.
"Eventually, as bands got louder, audiences got bigger, and stadium touring came into its own during the 70's, attention focused more on the quality and control of the sound as new companies developed and built big professional sytems, with monitors, to the point where they could handle micing everything onstage, running it all through a front-of-house mixer, and then back to the FOH mains. I believe I remember hearing, at some time in the early 70's, that the group Chicago were the first to officially take a tour on the road doing this, soon followed by Pink Floyd with their live 3D sound on the Dark Side Of The Moon tour."
My son always thinks I'm pulling his leg.
But us old geezers, we know how it was, don't we?
Anyway, such is the condensed version of my "History Of Music & Its Touring Production As I've Experienced It" speech. Thanx for jogging the bittersweet memories, Tele.
Yep, these here young whipper snappers today just got nooooooo idea of how easy they have it, by cracky!!!! _________________ B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)
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Live and learn, what I learned is that I will never sell another piece of musical gear that I acquire.
