Love it or hate it (or sometimes both) the Dumbloid pedals by Shin’s Music are some of the most fantastic overdrive tones you can get. Shinichi Suzuki is probably “the guy” to go to in Japan if you have a Dumble amp that needs service or repair. In his years of working on these amps, he’s learned a bit of the magic that makes them so special, and has translated some of that aural magic into his Dumbloid pedals.
So what makes this pedal frustrating at times? For me it comes down to the Accent control and the fact that this pedal sounds SO good in many different settings. First lets look at the Accent control, which is essentially a sort of a presence control that also affects the transient response of the note. The transient response is the initial attack of the pick on the string that give a note “bite” and is a big part of the Dumble ‘thing’. However this control isn’t perfect as sometimes it creates and unwanted buzzing noise when playing lightly with lower gain settings.
Turning down the Accent control all the way completely solves the issue but also muddies the tone a bit. Luckily you can max the tone control to match and have all the beautiful singing high end back in your signal. I find these controls (Tone and Accent) live in the most harmony when set inversely proportionate. When the Accent goes up, the tone goes down, but keeping the tone above the 10 o’clock position.
The other “issue” is that I love this pedal as a slightly dirty clean boost; and as a medium gain tone shaper; and as a high gain singing lead tone. It sounds so good at so many settings that I have trouble picking just one. While the Chase Bliss Automatone can get close and give you presets, it doesn’t quite have the same magic. Luckily this can be solved to an extent by buying a Dumbloid Twin. Two Dumbloids in one box, with the optional boost circuit.
To sum up, like many great amps and other effects, the Dumbloid series of pedals require some work and playing around with to find the sweet spots, but when you do it’s simply magic.