Hey
why not use a podxt. It has all those sounds ;-). I know... I own serveral. LOL I gues in here that's blasphemy hehe. Luckily Scott Lerner had used one as well so I'm ni good company.


I must say I found ChrisL's answer a bit worrying. I am used to switching from a clean sound to an overdrive sound. The thought that the single tone stack is to limited for that, bothers me alot. I have ordered a Wampler Ecstacy to go with the new amp. I'll keep you posted.
It's (almost?) my turn to get my OTS so....

Do not worry Steven...lol.  The OT's tone stack is far from limited. In fact, it is quite the opposite case.  I play strats and teles pretty much exclusively and tend to lean towards the Philip Sayce kind of groove and sound (in my mind at least).  If I were to use the Overtone for clean and dirty I would need a switch that simutaneously toggles the bright, and mid-boost with the channel switch.  Not to mention I still don't actually have a footswitch....lol.....I got one of the first OT's.
 That's fine though as I have always used an a/b rig for shows and it's what I'm used to.   Plus, I love the contrast between this combination of quality amps.

Hey Chris

well I'm used to my PODXT setup it's very very versitile in that respect.

Good tip Didn't know Philip Sayce yet> Nice sound too.

Not so much the SRV tone as a certain other SSS user who also uses T** R*** amps (I think you know who I mean)...

Nice tones indeed pickmaster.  They possess the depth of tone of a good Fender amp but with something a little more. Very nice and rich.

Btw, is that your L6-S in your avatar?  I had one back in the mid to late 70s.  It played like a dream.

Thanks again.

How does an Overtone sound??? does it deliver fender cleans?

You gotta include the guitar and speakers in the answer to that question. Type of speaker has been discussed above, which leaves guitar and pickup to be described.

Guitar/pickup use
When I use a strat (fender 54'pickups) or a tele (Vintage RI 52' pickups), I use the neck or bridge pickup for lead and the middle positions (2 +4 on at strat, 2 on a tele) for the rythm sounds.

The middle postions are "scooped" whereas the neck/bridge are more mid boosted,  which help me create the sounds I need.

When I play rythm, I don't want the guitar compete with the singer voice or other bandmembers playin solos. The scooped middle positions heop me to take a step back in the sonic picture. Wise versa when engaging a solo I wish to fill in the space that the singer or soloist just obtained, the neck or bridge positions help me fill up a little more space.

This is how I do it, no matter what amp I play !

Overtone versus fender
When you buy an Overtone/dumble you're probably inspired by Robben Ford and wish to recreate the RF sounds. And the Overtone does indeed provide thaose sounds. However, I have seen RF playing in Copenhagen a number of times and often he don't even bring his Dumbles overseas, but play rental Fender twins plus a tubescreamer for solo. Fender amps (super, twin, deluxe, bandmaster etc) in general have scooped mids (like the middle positions on your guitar), which tend to lag a little middle for solo. The tubescreamer fills in the space by giving a pronounced midboost. So if you wnat real fender cleans and a RF/dumblesque OD tone use a twin with a tubescreamer

The Dumble/overtones on the other hand has much more middle - they're much more flat frequency wise and not scooped like fenders. Therefore, I find that in order to get a unmodified, regular Overtone to produce fender tones, you have to do engage the bright AND turn the middle down to 1-2 and use the clean channel.

I've experimented a lot with my Overtone to resolve this puzzle and have settled for the following modifications to give me both good (sort of fender) clean sounds and at the same time nice rounded OD tones:

- a 47pf on the (input) volume
- change the bright cap to 47 pf
- a 39pf on the master volume
- increase the snubbers to 2 x 470pf
- add a 2nf+470k trimmer across the OD ratio (od master vol), which lets you reduce the OD treble
- maybe add a 4,7M resistor and a 47nF capacitor to the input of the OD, just before the 220k

And use the following settings with a strat or tele:
Volume 7, bright off, mid off, rock on, treble 5, mid 5, bass 5, gain level 7, ratio 5, master any, prec 6,

And the following with a Les Paul
Volume 4, bright on, mid off, rock on, treble 6, mid 5, bass 4, gain level 5, ratio 5, master any, prec 7,

As I've said, you'll get both excellent cleans and very nice OD
- off course you have to adjust some of the od treble off on the cap/trim mounting on OD ratio control
- If the bottom end of the sounds gets too fuzzy in OD mode, you might add the Gill Ayan mod to the OD channel, which is adding a 4,7M resistor and a 47nF capacitor to the input of the OD, just before the 220k.

I use either a single 1x12" Celestion 12G65 or a 2x12" Celestion both with oval hole in the back.

IMHO this setup in combination with using your pickups as described above will provide great RF/Blues tones.

Pickmaster......


THANK YOU!!!!

this side of the amp was a myth until now....

ive heard how its cleans are amazing and glassy like a blackface and can really hit that traditional blues tone.  but none of the soundclips (bar one or two using special boost pedals) exemplify that side of the amp until you posted this.


tell nik to give you a present, you have just made him at least one more sale when the time is right to spend the money...

I don't think the assumption that everyone looking at buying a Dumble type amp are looking for a RF sound is accurate. I'd never heard of him until I stumbled on this place after researching the OTS. Personally I'm more interested in the tones created using Dumbles (and D-type amps) by SRV, John Mayer, Matt Schofield, Jo Bonamassa. RF never came into it.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant, just gets to me sometimes how into RF a lot of people on here are...

That said, thanks for the advice on mods to the OTS to tweak it closer to Blackface tones...