ROG's Umble - build report

[Bucksears]

Just finished ROG's Umble yesterday morning and having mixed feelings about it. The level of difficulty was about average with these trimpot distortions.
It's a GOOD sounding circuit, decent distortion, but if this is what a Dumble sounds even 80% close to, I can't understand the hype over these amps; OR........Howard Dumble is a marketing GENIUS for charging so much and simply letting the 'mystique' of it do the rest of the work for him.
Built on all J201's, it has quite a bit of gain (not like the Dr. Boogey, PUH-LEAZE!), but it's like VINTAGE high-gain, which it's supposed to do I understand. It's a bit mushy/muddy/fuzzy sounding if you don't have the eq just right so that it cuts through. Based on my observations, maxing the gain is not really usable. To get my 'sweet spot', I have the bass at around 50-60%, mids around 30%, treble at 80-90%, gain at around 60-70%. If the bass, gain or mids are any higher, it starts to muddy up; also the treble NEEDS to be a bit high in order to cut through.
I'm sure it's because my ears are used to the Dr. Boogey and JCM800, which are bright, tight, clear distortions; I'll let the Umble grow on me some more, but I don't know that I'll box it up. I was looking for a blues/rock lead pedal ala Andy Summers' 'A Piece of Time' from his 'Golden Wire' disc (He REALLY actually sounds a lot like EJ's 'violin tone' on that track), but the jury's still out on this one.
Again, it's not BAD sounding (I'm still not liking my DIY SD9 at all), but it's not 'case-worthy' quite yet; I'll play it some more and give it an honest listen for a while.
Boogeyman is next.

[JimRayden]

It's a GOOD sounding circuit, decent distortion, but if this is what a Dumble sounds even 80% close to, I can't understand the hype over these amps; OR........Howard Dumble is a marketing GENIUS for charging so much and simply letting the 'mystique' of it do the rest of the work for him.

Well, it's SUPPOSED to be a good sounding box, nothing more. It's supposed to imitate the amp's controls and capture a piece of its sound. You can't expect a realistic tube amp sim out of four J201's . It's just mostly the same circuit as the amp, with tubes changed to FET's.

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Jimbo

[Bucksears]

JimRayden,
Yeah, I know, it's just an approximation of the characteristics of the sound of that particular amp. (and for the cost, it gets DAMN close compared to actually buying all of the real-deals)
I guess I'm basing my review on how well the JCM800 and Dr. Boogey circuits emulate the sounds of the amps they're based on; and from THAT perspective, I guess that I'm a little surprised at the amount of talk that Dumble amps get.
I've never played a Dumble, so I can't REALLY compare the two, but I'll just let it go.
(Pauly Walnuts voice) "It's notta Dumble. But be that as it may, it is what it is."

[dpresley58]

The tone stack is what I like most about it. I'd built the Prof. Tweed with perfboard just before it and had problems biasing the trannies. Probably some sloppy soldering..

Anyway, I did the pcb layout and burned my own for the Umble. No problem whatsoever biasing this one. Fired right up first rattle out of the box.

The tone controls are as interactive as advertised. Like you, though, I had to spend some time with it before finding -my- sweet spot. I'll be doing more builds from ROG.