Initial impressions from about an hour of play time...
Amp: Synergy SYN-30C Combo
Module: Synergy OS Module
Effects: Line 6 Helix Floor (in 4 cable method)
Guitars: Custom Shop Fender '56 Strat, Custom Shop '60 Gibson Les Paul
Other modules owned: Friedman Dirty Shirley, Soldano SLO, Metropolous Metroplex
Let me preface this by saying I've never played an actual Dumble Overdrive Special (as I doubt many have), so I'm basing my impressions on the module as it stand on its own, not as an exact recreation of a DOS.
That said, here's my thoughts...
This is a very upper and lower mid-focused module. It reminds me of a cranked Fender Deluxe Reverb with a Tube Screamer hitting the front-end, but with tighter bass and more compression.
The treble and mid controls are VERY powerful. Bass is quite active as well, but the treble and mids will be your go-to tone controls for shaping this preamp. The treble is your standard fare in terms of what you'd expect it to boost/cut - it's just it has A LOT of boost/cut available. The mids are clearly lower-mid focused, so think punch, girth, and weight. Bass is bass.
The bright switch definitely brightens things up and adds a pleasant cut to the tone. To me it sounds more presence based than treble. The deep switch sounds like it's scooping some mids and adding some lows. To me, this switch was not overly useful as it tended to make the low-end too overpowering. The jazz/rock switch is VERY powerful and adds a lot of boost and mids. I think it sounds great on rock with single coils and jazz with humbuckers as the rock setting gives single coils weight without mud and the jazz setting gives humbuckers more clarity.
The clean channel has a pretty high amount of headroom. It won't start getting hairy until about 3 o'clock on the volume (gain) knob. At this setting it just starts to break up with normal playing and you can get some grit by digging in.
The overdrive channel/controls work as follows: OD Ratio controls the volume of the overdrive channel and OD Level controls how much overdrive is introduced.. So think volume and gain respectively. The control are somewhat interactive so experimenting with different values between them can create different textures.
There's a master volume that allows you to control the clean and od levels in relation to each other. Finally there's a global presence control to round out the tone-shaping options.
For this module I found the blue channel to be less bright and more bassy than the red channel. I found it a little difficult to dial the preamp in to have a balanced tone across both channels. I had to use some fairly aggressive low cuts and parametric eq tweaks via the Helix to even things out - more so than the other modules I own. I also found the overall perceived volume of this module to be lesser than that of the other modules I own. I say perceived because of the thick, mid-heavy nature of the preamps tone. It could be tricking my ears into believing it's quieter do to the suppressed high-end. The module is also quite touch sensitive and very immediate in its response. I found the pick attack and response to be very similar to my Mesa Mark V in that regard.
Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about this module. I like what it's doing in terms of thick, rich, honky midrange (in a good way - think the tone of a fine horn) but I'm curious how it's going to sit in a mix with a band and another guitar player.
I'd love to hear some feedback from other owners of this module to see how our notes compare!
Amp: Synergy SYN-30C Combo
Module: Synergy OS Module
Effects: Line 6 Helix Floor (in 4 cable method)
Guitars: Custom Shop Fender '56 Strat, Custom Shop '60 Gibson Les Paul
Other modules owned: Friedman Dirty Shirley, Soldano SLO, Metropolous Metroplex
Let me preface this by saying I've never played an actual Dumble Overdrive Special (as I doubt many have), so I'm basing my impressions on the module as it stand on its own, not as an exact recreation of a DOS.
That said, here's my thoughts...
This is a very upper and lower mid-focused module. It reminds me of a cranked Fender Deluxe Reverb with a Tube Screamer hitting the front-end, but with tighter bass and more compression.
The treble and mid controls are VERY powerful. Bass is quite active as well, but the treble and mids will be your go-to tone controls for shaping this preamp. The treble is your standard fare in terms of what you'd expect it to boost/cut - it's just it has A LOT of boost/cut available. The mids are clearly lower-mid focused, so think punch, girth, and weight. Bass is bass.
The bright switch definitely brightens things up and adds a pleasant cut to the tone. To me it sounds more presence based than treble. The deep switch sounds like it's scooping some mids and adding some lows. To me, this switch was not overly useful as it tended to make the low-end too overpowering. The jazz/rock switch is VERY powerful and adds a lot of boost and mids. I think it sounds great on rock with single coils and jazz with humbuckers as the rock setting gives single coils weight without mud and the jazz setting gives humbuckers more clarity.
The clean channel has a pretty high amount of headroom. It won't start getting hairy until about 3 o'clock on the volume (gain) knob. At this setting it just starts to break up with normal playing and you can get some grit by digging in.
The overdrive channel/controls work as follows: OD Ratio controls the volume of the overdrive channel and OD Level controls how much overdrive is introduced.. So think volume and gain respectively. The control are somewhat interactive so experimenting with different values between them can create different textures.
There's a master volume that allows you to control the clean and od levels in relation to each other. Finally there's a global presence control to round out the tone-shaping options.
For this module I found the blue channel to be less bright and more bassy than the red channel. I found it a little difficult to dial the preamp in to have a balanced tone across both channels. I had to use some fairly aggressive low cuts and parametric eq tweaks via the Helix to even things out - more so than the other modules I own. I also found the overall perceived volume of this module to be lesser than that of the other modules I own. I say perceived because of the thick, mid-heavy nature of the preamps tone. It could be tricking my ears into believing it's quieter do to the suppressed high-end. The module is also quite touch sensitive and very immediate in its response. I found the pick attack and response to be very similar to my Mesa Mark V in that regard.
Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about this module. I like what it's doing in terms of thick, rich, honky midrange (in a good way - think the tone of a fine horn) but I'm curious how it's going to sit in a mix with a band and another guitar player.
I'd love to hear some feedback from other owners of this module to see how our notes compare!
