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.
A definitive “Marshall-in-a-box” pedal from JHS that faithfully recreates the sounds of the JCM800, the Angry Charlie has been a staple in the high gain arena for a while now. In its latest incarnation JHS has added a full Marshall tone stack with Bass, Mid and Treble controls that both cut and boost. Turn down the mids and bask in the joy that is 80’s scooped metal, boost it up and enjoy more classic rock sounds full of mid driven sustain. All of the controls here are powerful enough to get a good variety of tones, as well as voiced in just the right sweet spots so that just about any setting sounds good.
The JHS Morning Glory is a low to medium gain pedal based on the Marshall Bluesbreaker, giving it a clear, smooth style that works great for both rhythm and lead playing. Version 4 has some reworked controls as well as the additional port to connect a Red Switch allowing you to switch between the gain settings using your foot during a live set. The difference in gain is not huge, so this isn’t going to give you the big step up an additional pedal or boost would provide, but more of a compressed thicker sound that is just enough to smooth out your tone when you don’t need the clarity and attack of the lower gain setting.
Now before you go and switch off the default treble setting, I implore you to give it a shot first as there is some method to the madness that is a treble booster. When the treble frequencies are boosted into an already cranked and compressing amplifier, something special and perhaps unexpected happens. The treble compresses even more, making it creamy smooth, while the rest of the frequencies get a boost as well bringing them up closer to the treble volume in the mix. The final results being a creamy over-driven amp that is perceived to have less treble. Go figure.