DE1200HD Noodling

Here is a little "Noodling" demo of the Kustom DE1200HD with Takamine B-10 acoustic. Everything is clean, direct from bass to the amp. The equalizer is set bass boosted at 1 o'clock, mid is flat, and the treble is boosted about 1 o'clock. Room contour e.q.'s are both flat. Takamine acoustic pre-amp is roughly the same, bass and treble both boosted a hair.

New Gear

 

(Kustom DE1200HD)

Wifey often remarked I have untreated ADHD, one of the ways it "may" show up is hyperfixation.

I really like my Kustom Deep End DE300HD hybrid amp, solid state with a tube pre-amp. The problem is that I had a complete misunderstanding of headroom, I did not know an under-powered amp compared with the speaker can at high volume can start overdriving and create tones that damage the speaker. It turns out, for bass at least, the desired wattage is slightly higher than speaker wattage. This additional "headroom" ensures you have a clean tone signal even at higher volume. (There are various technical explanations of this.)

Well when researching Owl-man's new amp I learned the above, plus that my 300 watt DE300HD was rated at 4ohms while my 300 watt Eminence speaker is rated at 8ohms. At 8ohms my old Deep End was only putting out 180 watts... NEGATIVE HEADROOM!

The first place my brain went is "Can you increase the wattage of an amp?" Yes you can, but it is only recommended if you are learning to be an electrician i.e. much more trouble than it is worth.

Then I was looking around, and I had heard of the Kustom DE1200HD, but I thought 1200 watts is way more than what I need. But revisiting that amp I found the specs are that the amp is 1200 watts PEAK (ha, Behringer wattage). The amp is 600 watts at 4ohms RMS, which is actually the rating you want to compare. AND at 8ohms baby that is 360 watts for my 300 watt Eminence - perfection!

Now to actually get a DE1200HD in my grubby hands was a little more crazy, but it happened. The only real dilemma is that there is an earlier model with a 1/4" and a Speakon speaker jacks, and apparently a later model (as advertised on Kustom's website) with 2 Speakon jacks and a few other minor modifications.

My best guess, because basically every retailer has these amps on backorder, is that the newer version has not been released yet (any pictures of the newer version back have no serial number). And the original version looks like it only had a very limited release. There are almost no reviews and no vids of the DE1200HD performing in the wild.

Do I care, ha, of course not. I live on the mental pictures in my brain becoming reality. Anyhow, new amp has arrived after some beck and forth with Fed Ex and I hope to test run at jam volumes soon. It already seems to sound tighter even at low volume. Joy! Rapture!

Pedalboard Strip-down

 

Now that I am jamming fretless acoustic-electric, which has a built-in pre-amp which includes a reverb, I dropped all the external electronic signal modifiers. Owl-man now son the first is reigning bass for a couple of bands, so I took most useful for the pedals and assembled a mini-board for him.

Going from left to right...

MORLEY 20/20 VOLUME PLUS. Again, there is a footswitch activates adjustable minimum volume setting, so you can't accidently step on the pedal too hard and die off.

ELECTRO-HARMONIX DELUXE BIG MUFF PI pitched by Tony Levin. The Big Muff is the first pedal I bought just for bass. Super versatile from growly fuzz to tight overdrive.

BOSS OCTAVE OC-5. Deep synth-like bass, also an organ-like tone.

TC ELECTRONIC POLYTUNE 3 MINI. Also works as a kill switch when tuning is activated. Incredibly accurate and visible but cost a butt ton of dough for a tuner.

Owl-man

Days of Yore

 Olden-timey band from the early 1990s practiced at The Paradigm, a cool live-jam space that also rented rehearsal studios by the hour. We jammed there every Thursday night for a good part of 1992 until our drummer began dating a sex worker. Then his nights and weekend he had to babysit. 

The Paradigm in 2020...

B-minor Variations

"Pentatonic Bm Variations on 3rd, 4th, 7th, Chromatic and Time" by Luminous Red Nova.

• Peavey Fury IV, 
• Electro Harmonix Muff Pi,
• Kustom Deep End 300HD, and
• Eminence Deltalite II 2515.

Diddling Around with Carlos

"Corona" by The Minutemen.

Pedalboard Update

 

Ok, going around the horn...

SYSTECH PHASE SHIFTER. Our oldest pedal, someone picked this thing up probably around 1983 and I ended up with it. Not really appropriate for the beginning of a signal chain, but I do enjoy plugging in right there at the top and the sounds coming through have not disappointed.

BOSS OCTAVE OC-5. The last pedal I added to the board. Was looking for some occasional deep synth-bass, also can get an organ-like tone.

DO THE WEASEL STOMP. (Newer version) A clone of the Systech Harmonic Energizer popularized by Frank Zappa. A filter/harmonic expander type pedal used as a treble or bass boost, which I basically leave the expression pedal at max bass unless I want to go in and out of the treble for this weird wah effect.

AMT Electronics EX-50. A mini expression pedal. I really wanted all metal pedals and this was the best of the minis I could find. Ordered direct from Russia.

ELECTRO-HARMONIX DELUXE BIG MUFF PI. Saw this pitched by none other than Tony Levin. The Big Muff is the first pedal I bought just for bass. Super versatile from growly fuzz to tight overdrive.

TC ELECTRONIC POLYTUNE 3 MINI. I lost my $10 Snark clip-on tuner and thought it would be cool to get a good tuner on the board. Being toward the end of the chain also works as a kill switch when tuning is activated. Incredibly accurate and visible but cost a butt ton of dough for a tuner.

MORLEY 20/20 VOLUME PLUS. The cool thing about this volume pedal is that a footswitch activates an adjustable minimum volume setting, so you can't accidently step on the pedal too hard and die off.

SINGULAR SOUND BEAT BUDDY AND FOOT SWITCH. Our drummer keeps exploding! (Ha, my fault. Sorry Dean.) This isn't technically in the chain, anyhow drummers are always a pain in the ass to round up and keep. So I went on a search for what would be the best drum machine when you can't get a live drummer and the Beat Buddy showed up.

SL Waber EPC-100 ESD TOUCH PLATE POWER CENTER SWITCH HUB 5-PORT SURGE PROTECTOR. Found it lying around left over from Owl Man's LAN party days. Powers everything either directly or through my AZOR Pedal Power Supply Adapter with 5 Way Daisy Chain Cables fit for 9V DC 1A (1000mA) Negative Tip Guitar Effect Pedal. (Hmmms, Does it really make sense to power $1,000 worth of pedals through a $12 daisy chain?)