Universal Audio UAFX Enigmatic ’82 review – can the near-mythical Dumble Overdrive Special be captured in a pedal?
$399/£380, uaudio.com
There are thought to be around 300 Dumble amplifiers in existence. You probably don’t own one of them. Neither do I. But we all know the legend of these elusive ultra-boutique amps, renowned for their sweetly creamy midrange and loved by players from SRV and Santana to John Mayer and, inevitably, that notorious gear-glutton Joe Bonamassa.
READ MORE: Universal Audio UAFX ANTI review: is this 5150 emulation a full metal rig in one pedal?
Unless you happen to be a close personal friend of an extremely wealthy blues dentist, you may never have a chance to get close to a real Dumble, never mind play through one on stage or in the studio. What you might just be able to get your hands on, though, is the UAFX Enigmatic ’82.
The sixth entry in Universal Audio’s range of amp and cab emulator pedals, this unit claims to put those legendary tones at your feet thanks to digital modelling based on “exclusive access to numerous original Overdrive Special amps”. That includes a range of hot-rodding options and speaker/mic combinations, ensuring every possible base is covered in the quest for extravagant tonal luxury.
Image: Adam Gasson
What is the UAFX Enigmatic ’82?
First of all, let’s clarify what it isn’t: an overdrive pedal – there are plenty of ‘Dumble-style’ drive pedals out there, and this is not that. This thing is for plugging directly into a live PA or recording interface. The amp, the speaker cab, the microphone and the room ambience are all covered inside the box.
That amp, as noted above, is an Overdrive Special – the late Alexander ‘Howard’ Dumble’s most famous design. You can run it in three EQ modes – rock, jazz or custom – and through nine speaker/mic setups, along with a bypass option in case you’d rather use your own favourite IR.
There’s a three-way tone section plus, after a flip of the central toggle switch into ‘alt’ control mode, the ability to further tune the lower mids, presence and brightness. As with the other pedals in the series, you can store a single preset and call it up via the footswitch on the right, with more options available once you link a phone or tablet over Bluetooth and spark up the UAFX Control app.
And what are those added options? Well, first up you can load (and edit) a whole bunch more presets; but more interestingly, you’re free to play with different variants of the Overdrive Special circuit, including 50W and 100W models, and even experiment with the famous ‘HRM tonestack’ mod.
As is the way with UAFX pedals, the app generally works okay on iPad/iPhone but Android users shouldn’t get their hopes up. Almost incredibly, I did actually manage to pair the Enigmatic ’82 with my Google Pixel phone at one point, but that turned out to be an unrepeatable fluke. Guitar.com has covered the travails of the UAFX Control Android app at length previously, so while I won’t labour the point, be well aware that Cillian’s issues are not unique to them.
Image: Adam Gasson
How does the UAFX Enigmatic ’82 sound?
This pedal is the colour of a rich and gloopy butterscotch dessert… or, as some forum cynics have observed, something of a similar consistency that might appear at the other end of the digestive tract. OK, it’s divisive, but try to keep your mind on that first one if you can – because while the real link is probably to the tan vinyl covering of some original Dumbles, the Enigmatic ’82 really is pudding for the ears.
Nobody blows their life savings on a real Overdrive Special for the clean tones, so I won’t dwell too long on the ones that have been recreated here; but they’re nothing if not refined, with plenty of whump available in the bottom end and a sugary sparkle in the top. Even without resorting to the app there’s plenty of room for tone-shaping, and all nine cab/mic models are worth a spin.
But it’s when things get crunchy that the whole Dumble mystique starts to make sense. Everything at medium-gain settings is impossibly smooth and silky, but that’s not to say the mids have been smothered or softened in any way: it’s been said (by Robben Ford, no less) that one of Mr D’s first inspirations was the sound of a black-panel Fender Bassman being driven by a Tube Screamer, and there’s certainly some of that midrange push evident here. It is, in fact, uncannily Klon-like.
Image: Adam Gasson
This isn’t likely to be exciting news for punky thrashers or indie strummers, but if your chosen genre involves any kind of blues influence then step this way for the good stuff. While it won’t correct all your wrong notes, it will make you appear seven times more sophisticated than you really are. Touch sensitivity is phenomenal and every string bend has a kind of buttery elasticity – and I’m standing by that statement even though butter is pretty much the opposite of elastic.
You can push the gain right to the edge of fuzziness and it holds together well, but a more rewarding exercise at this point is to go a-tweaking. On the pedal itself, this can mean tightening up the bass, adding crispness to the treble or even pulling back the virtual mic for more room reverb; in the app, it can mean a whole lot more. There is no conceivable variant of Dumbliness that hasn’t been covered here, with everything from the gainier FET input option to the stiffness of a stronger power supply up for manipulation. Some of it’s drastic, some of it’s vanishingly subtle, but if you’re in the mood for this level of tonal tuning then it’s here for you and it all feels super-realistic.
Image: Adam Gasson
Should I buy the UAFX Enigmatic ’82?
Let’s rephrase that question: if it sounds so great, why has it only scored 8/10? Well, that comes down to the limitations that seem to be inherent in the UAFX amp emulator format.
Is it annoying that it takes about 20 seconds to boot up every time you plug it in, and that you can’t switch between live and preset modes without a momentary drop into silence, thus making real-time channel-switching basically impossible? Yes, a bit. Is it a shame there’s no headphone output for silent practice without a PC? Yes, a bit more. Will the whole app business be a big turn-off for a lot of blues-rock boomers who just want to plug and play? Quite possibly. And does the price seem a little high for a single-model emulator when others let you flip freely between Fender, Vox and Marshall tones? Well, you can make up your own mind on that one.
But if tone were the only consideration, I’d be calling on the governments of the world to install an Enigmatic ’82 in every home by Christmas.
UAFX Enigmatic ’82 alternatives
You want the sound of a real Dumble? Then simply buy a real Dumble! You could probably pick one up in decent condition for a couple of hundred thousand or so, subject to availability… otherwise, there are plenty of D-style amps around, including the Volt Amp Co Humble ODV 18 (£1,799), the Louis Electric Cobra ($4,495) and just about anything by Two-Rock or Fuchs.
At the other end of the scale, you do have the option of going fully virtual – there are Dumble amp plugins available – but you might prefer to keep things analogue by getting your gain from a D-voiced overdrive pedal. I’m a huge fan of the J Rockett HRM V2 ($224/£239), but its many rivals include the Cornerstone Gladio SC ($279) and the Wampler Euphoria ($199.97). One more idea: select the ‘round’ model on a Strymon Iridium ($399/£379) and just whack up the gain. It’s actually not far off.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
