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“The difference is all of the knobs work” Jason Isbell on the magic of the Dumble amplifier
“You turn the tone knobs and it sounds very different from number to number and that’s what I really fall in love with.”
Image: Erika Goldring / Getty Images
Jason Isbell has spoken about his love for Dumble amplifiers and what makes it “a good piece of musical gear” in his opinion.
Appearing on a recent episode of the Blamo Podcast, the singer-songwriter and gear connoisseur explains how the iconic Dumble differs from the other amps he’s used.
“If you’re on stage with a 1959 Les Paul running straight into a Dumble, you think to yourself, ‘If I don’t do something cool here, I’m gonna look like a serious idiot,’” says Isbell. “The thing about the Dumble, there’s not a learning curve like I expect.”
“You know, I had heard a few of them, played through a few of them before. But really, the difference is all of the knobs work — that’s the best way I can put it and that’s how I judge a good piece of musical gear.”
“You turn the tone knobs and it sounds very different from number to number,” the guitarist explains, “and that’s what I really fall in love with because if you got a Les Paul that’ll do that you can make it sound like a lot of different things. And with that Dumble if you bump the mid range up just a little bit you’re getting a very different sound.”
That said, the price for such a ‘very different sound’ don’t come cheap, with Dumbles being some of the most coveted and expensive boutique amplifiers on the second-hand market.
In 2022, a 1995 Dumble Overdrive Special rocketed to the top of Reverb.com’s most-watched list after being posted on the site for sale, featuring an eye-watering asking price of $175,000.