Guitar players will today be raising a glass to Howard Dumble, designer and builder of the amplifier which carried his name for decades whose passing has been announced. You may not have heard of him, but you will have heard the luscious sounds his invention created. Based on a souped up version of 60s Fender amps, he went way beyond a sound which was already pretty darn good. Customers such as Carlos Santana, Lowell George, Eric Johnson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robben Ford (whose Fender was the original inspiration for the amp), David Lindley, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt et al would wait months for their amp – there were a few different designs and each one was built by hand to the specific requirements of the player. Mr. D didn’t supply shops – allegedly people applied and he decided who got one. Second hand ones very rarely appear and go for 5 or 6 figures depending on their history. I’ve never even laid eyes on one, but luckily everyone can appreciate the tremendous sound they created.

For the curious, here’s some amp porn presented by the suitably reverent editor of Guitarist mag.