The Dumble Overdrive Special has been one of the "Holy Grail" guitar amps for many years. So what are the chances of you getting your paws on one? It is thought that there may only be around 300 original Dumble amplifers in existance with the asking price now from $20,000 - $50,000! That's probably not an option for most of us, so what can we do for that Dumble tone? Well, we'll make our own won't we :-)
Here's a great clip of an original Dumble Overdrive Special in action:
There are quite a few kits out and about these days, one of the most widely known and reviewed as "the best" is the Ceriatone Overtone Special which can be found here: http://www.ceriatone.com/productSubPages/OTS%20Series/OTSMain.htm
Here's a layout for the Overtone Special 50 (A Dumble Overdrive Special 50W Clone):
The Kits at Ceriatone are fairly well priced. Obviously if you can find your own suitable donor chasis you'll cheapen up the build considerably!
Here's a demo video of the Ceriatone Overtone Special in action:
They do sound pretty sweet, really smooth and break up so nicely with single coil pickups. If I had the cash I think I'd be going for a DIY Dumble build asap!
There are a great set of instruction videos on youtube created by Tony McKenzie which document his building of a Ceriatone Overtone HRM kit, here they are for you:
He's also reviewed the amp too, check out his site here: http://www.tonymckenzie.com/ceriatone_hrm_review.htm
awesome!
ReplyDeleteI am sure Ceriatone makes a great kit, the only issue with Ceriatone is that shipping will cost you a mint. The kit is 1255 with the head cabinet and weighs 44 Kg for all components. My guess is that with packaging you are closer to 50 Kg's total. The lowest price shipping charge they have for 50 KG's is $375 bucks which is nuts. Plus you will have to pay import duties on it as well. It is due to the fact they are in Malaysia, if Ceriatone really wants business to take off they should setup some sort of warehouse in the US to have his kits shipped out of the US.
ReplyDeleteIt appears as thought the heater wiring was red and black on this build... it's suppose to be green... people should stick to the accepted standards instead of their favorite color. It makes troubleshooting safer and easier.
ReplyDeleteInteresting... Where do you get this accepted standard from? I've seen all kinds of colours used for heaters, and other functions, working on various tube gear from many different decades. Basically, you should never assume anything; it gets tiresome from repetition, but there are plenty of ways to injure yourself or ruin your gear any time you open up a tube chassis. But from basic principles, if I saw heaters wired with two green wires (or any other single colour), I'd tend to guess that the heater power is AC; seeing red and black would, conversely, be a strong hint that heaters are powered by DC. So maybe there's method to the madness?
Delete(Me again)...So from a quick glance, looks like heaters are in fact AC; so much for my "strong hint". However, even still, there can be a valid reason to use different colours for the two heater wires, as this allows one to manage the phase of the AC going to adjacent tubes. It's a fine point, but some have suggested you can reduce hum a little by not just connecting the heater phases randomly (as they used to do, with the two twisted green-or-whatever wires). Still, I'd probably choose some other "favourite colours" than black & red, due to the aforementioned implication of DC power (and the usual use of red for B+, i.e. high voltage). Schematics and voltmeters are your friends.
Deleteits been a few years since your post in 2014, but I checked with Ceriatone and they have a 'distributor' list. I called a couple of the distributors here in Massachusetts, and they didn't have Ceriaton'es on their web site, but did say they could get them, so they have some kind of deal.
ReplyDeleteThis would be a fun project from scratch. Chasis and all. Take the challenge to find the parts somewhat locally.
ReplyDeleteThannks great blog post
ReplyDelete