Robben Ford tone...

[jaysg]

I'm not sure how many people have seen Rob Livesey's story about meeting Robben Ford. There's some critical info on his tone, since everyone wants it, right ? Almost at the end, Robben says he rarely uses the OD.

http://www.ma.umist.ac.uk/rl/amps/Dumbl ... 202002.doc

back up to http://www.ma.umist.ac.uk/rl/amps and have some fun.

[llemtt]

Robben has changed a lot his playing style and live setup during recent years, now he uses his tele a lot and with his tele he almost never uses the OD and you can clearly recognize the power tubes overdrive with the boost engaged. So what he says in the interview is actually true.

It is a completely different way of playing from what he was used to do ten years ago, if you consider that period performances (videos or some concert you attended) he was using OD a lot instead.

Talking about RF tone is actually talking about a lot of different tones beacause he changed a lot during his career, the common denominator beeing Robben himself and this accounts for 70% or more of his tone regardless of amps, guitars, amps setting,...

Teo

[dogears]

I am not sure about this statement at all. I have heard that Robben doesn't use the OD without the boost. He still uses the OD quite a bit. I saw him a couple of years ago and you could both see and hear him using it. Gil Ayan watched him from on stage on another occasion.

Listen to the Jing Chi stuff. You can clearly hear the OD channel on numerous occasions. I have no doubt that he uses the clean and clean boost a lot, but he is also using the OD with boost. How about the Village Blues cut on the Coltrane tribute disc?? Definately OD.

He uses both is the bottom line.

The big question is whether he has a post OD tonestack or not....

[Funkalicousgroove]

Why doesn't anyone just ask him if is amp has separate masters?? That would answer the tonestack question. I met him a couple months ago, along with Larry Carlton, Sonny Landreth, and Eric Johnson in Copper Mountain, CO. We all hung around a bonfire outside the celebrity guitar auction and chatted, and the subject of Dumbles did come up, but more the amps in general than specifics. Robben commented that His amp always sounds great while Alexander is tweaking it (leads me to believe it does have the P-OD TS) but it always sounds like crap when he gets it home! Larry says Dumble has always treated him like gold, and he loves his amps, and has a special SSS. Eric says he sold his SSS because it broke and his techs couldn't fix it, and Dumble basically told him to pound sand.

[tonelab2]

I saw Robben playing at a club almost a year ago. I stood about 4-5 feet from his rig and he was using the OD channel . My ears are still ringing. He doesn't drive the input volume control or overdrive control as hard nowdays, also was using the dumbleator which may add to the sound (don't really know). I have a dvd on which there is a song where he switches from clean to OD and it is very subtle change, it's only at that point you hear the dirt kick in otherwise you woun't notice it. I guess it depends on which night you catch him, and how he's feeling maybe.
The important thing I did notice was the dumble head looked to be made from 5/8" material rather than 3/4". Another bit of useless trivia.
whether it's pine or ply is anyones guess.

[glasman]

Why doesn't anyone just ask him if is amp has separate masters?? That would answer the tonestack question.

At least his combo is probably a P-OD stack amp. The OD section is labeled Content and Volume. Not sure about the heads.

Gary

[llemtt]

Although Robben says his two amps are identical, the combo is a late (90) model while the head is an early 80 model that "maybe" has been upgraded to later specs.

I think the two amps are still in their original status with only minimal tweaking.

Does anyone knows exactly the sn of the two amps?

Teo