If you ever find yourself guitar shopping with Mark Tremonti and momentarily lose site of the Alter Bridge and Creed guitarist, fear not, you will invariably find him in the amp section. Though, be warned, he might be in a trance.
The guitar amp has that kind of effect on him, because Tremonti is a self-confessed addict, and in a recent YouTube interview with American Musical Supply, he shares the story behind his life-long love affair with Dumble amplifiers, why this is all Paul Reed Smith’s fault in the first place, and how he beat a lawyer to the punch to bag one of the best Dumbles he has ever owned.
“I love guitars, obviously, but I am much more of an amp collector,” explains Tremonti. “With amps, man. Each one you buy pulls that certain something out of you. I’ve got a room at home that just has racks of just amplifiers. I like going in there and just looking at them!”
Tremonti is laughing but not joking as he shares this information. Talk of amplifiers and the search for the ultimate Dumble will have him glaze over. It all started when Paul Reed Smith let him play through a 50-watt Dumble combo onstage.
“I was like, beeline right to it,” he recalls. “Plugged it in, every setting just sounded incredible – something I had never heard before. It did the rock thing but it had just this incredible, just great lead tone. That gave me my addiction.”
Tremonti and Smith are long-time collaborators. PRS supplies Tremonti with his signature guitars, his own range of tube amplifiers – including the MT100 head that forms such a crucial part of Tremonti’s live and studio sound. Smith personally betrothed this Dumble 50-watter to Tremonti and yet somehow this amp still managed to slip through his fingers.
“Paul was like, ‘I promise I’ll give you that one day.’ Never did. Never got that amp,” says Tremonti. “I wanna hunt down who has it, because that was the one that made me addicted to them.”
Given the prices that Dumble amplifiers exchange hands for, especially since the death of Howard Alexander Dumble in January 2022, the appeal of these amps can be limited. Not many can get their hands on one let alone part with a six figure fee.
Here, Tremonti does his best to explain all the hype. “You plug into a great Dumble and it is this awe-inspiring warm feeling you get,” he says. Dumbles, to me, are the best amps ever made.”
Tremonti says he now owns four but has had six or seven, and he justifies it by the fact that each has been an investment, making him money after he sold them on. He didn’t get along with all of them and maybe that is part of the appeal, too, the search for one that gave him the same feeling when he played through Smith’s.
The first Dumble that Tremonti bought was “too bright and hard and stiff” and was sold six years later. He bought another one that sounded amazing in the shop but had too much low-end once he got it home.
He had better luck with a Dumble-modded Fender Deluxe – “a great little mojo machine” – and a modded Bassman, and he had all the luck when he rocked up at a swap meet where he found one of the best-sounding Dumbles he ever owned. And, better still, he beat a non-muso collector to it who had no intention of ever playing through it.
“He kind of rubbed me the wrong way,” says Tremonti. “These are the guys who are keeping these things out of musician’s hands – they’re just trying to make money off them.”
This guy, whom Tremonti recalls saying that he was a lawyer, had a Dumble for sale on for $165,000, and was expecting to pick up another at the swap meet. He let slip that that was an older guy coming, and that he had a Dumble, serial number 91 – crucial intelligence that Tremonti made full use of.
“So I walk around this thing and about an hour later on this little stand I see this little brown Dumble and this older gentleman there,” he says. “I said, ‘This wouldn’t happen to be Dumble #91, right?’ He said, ‘Yes it is.’ ‘Don’t sell it to this guy over here! He’s not going to play it. Sell it to me.’”
This was soon after Dumble’s death in 2022. Tremonti bid over the odds, explained why. The amp was his. “That was one of the best Dumbles I’ve ever had,” he says. “Right after I bought it I went to Joe Bonamassa’s show and he was showing me his onstage collection and he had Dumble #92. There must have been something in that batch.”
Tremonti has had a crammed schedule these past few months with Creed’s reunion tour, but has found the time to finish his solo album, The End Will Show Us How, which is scheduled for release on 25 July.
If you are looking for an example of Howard Alexander Dumble’s audio engineering magic in practice, look no further.
Tremonti told MusicRadar that he got his hands on a very special Dumble Overdrive Deluxe that is believed to be an Overdrive Special prototype, and it is all over The End Will Show Us How, contributing to the “best-sounding album” he has ever made.
I love everything Dumble but when I got it, it blew me away. What it's best for is like an over-driven percussive [sound]… I got a lot of use out of it
Mark Tremonti on his Overdrive Deluxe
“It’s an Overdrive Deluxe, not an Overdrive Special,” said Tremonti. “So when it was in the mail I was like, yeah, it’ll be cool. It’s just a cool thing to have. I love everything Dumble but when I got it, it blew me away. What it's best for is like an over-driven percussive [sound]… I got a lot of use out of it. Anything that's not full-bore, high-gain and anything that’s not clean I used that Dumble amp, and it’s just beautiful – I love it.”
Indeed, Tremonti tells AMS that this Deluxe is the best Dumble he has ever owned. Check out the full interview above and subscribe to the AMS YouTube channel for more.
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