Double Cross - Question and Answer
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Question #6 - Anthony Thomson - Gilbert, AZ
Does the double cross clean channel compare to the coupe clean? Is the lead one channel anything like the coupe distortion? Or is this amp a completely different animal.
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Answer - 08.04.2008
The Double Cross started out as a 72Coupe Hardtop that I modified. The Rhythm channel can be adjusted to the same as the Coupe, by not engaging the Drive switch, and the Lead II channel is very similar to the Coupe lead channel if you don't engage the Tight Stage, Thick Stage, and Gain switches and leave the Presence around the middle settings.
However, the additional power with 6 6L6s does tend to make it a different animal especially on the clean channel. If you've ever compared the 36 and 72Coupes, you know what I mean.
If you look at the Production Updates on kustomdoublecross.com, there's a pretty good description of the process I went through to develop the amp, and it includes some pictures of the modified Hardtop.
James Brown
Lead Engineer Kustom Amplification
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Question #5 - Michael Young
I have a 72 Coupe Combo that has been fried by a drunk spilling beer into the head. I have using an old Sunn Model T 100 watt head to drive the speakers. I would like to do the same with the Double Cross. Any problem there? Or, is the Double Cross designed for a quad cab?
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Answer - 07.11.2008
Of course you can use any speaker cabinet with the Double Cross, but I did voice the amp specifically using our Coupe 412A and B, which have Celestion Vintage 30 speakers....the Direct Out is also voiced with those, so it wouldn't quite represent YOUR exact tone. Also, you may have to crank up the highs or presence more if playing through the 72 Coupe speakers. The Double Cross has the same impedance selector system as all our tube amps, with 2 1/4" jacks and a selector for 16, 8 or 4 ohms.
You ought to get the 72 Coupe fixed, though, and pick up one of our 412s! If the Coupe 412 is too pricey, we also have a Pro412 with G12P80 Celestions that's still plywood and sounds good.....In fact, C.J. Pierce with Drowning Pool is touring with our Pro412 cabs and loves em.
James Brown
Lead Engineer Kustom Amplification
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Question #4 - Devin Caliri
Two questions, if you will...
What will the pricepoint for the DoubleCross be and will it replace the Coupe Hardtop? -
Answer - 06.19.2008
Devin,
The Double Cross does not replace the Coupe Hardtop, and the tentative suggested retail price is $1999.99.James Brown
Lead Engineer Kustom Amplification
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Question #3 - Lala Hartline
Can you put a deposit on them now????
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Answer - 06.07.2008
It would be up to the individual stores as to how they'd handle deposits and pre-ordering, so I'd recommend contacting your local authorized Kustom dealer and see if they're up for that. At the very least, you'd let them know that there's interest in their area, so that would certainly help. If you're not sure who carries Kustom in your area, here's a link to the Dealer Lookup:
http://www.kustom.com/dealers.aspxJames Brown
Lead Engineer Kustom Amplification
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Question #2 - Jonathan Barkan - Ann Arbor, MI
Having played the Coupe series and enjoyed how rich and warm both channels were, I'm curious to know if that warmth transferred over. Also, this amp is billed as a high gain amplifier and I'm curious to know what are it's capabilities in other musical genres such as jazz, blues and funk to name a few.
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Answer - 06.06.2008
The Double Cross began life as a modified 72 Coupe Hardtop. The Rhythm channel is virtually the same with the addition of the Presence control and Drive switch. I made the circuit so that if the Presence is about in the center, you'll have the same amount of it as the Hardtop/Coupe amps. In fact, I've modified some people's Coupes to add a little bit more gain in the Rhythm channel, so I thought this extra Drive amount would be handy. So far the protos have been well received.
The Lead II channel is the same as a Hardtop Lead channel, if you turn all the Cross switches off except the Bright, and if you put its Presence control about in the middle. So the tone is as close as you can get with two different layouts.
The Lead I channel is the same, except I redid the EQ some to make it sound more modern and heavy...simple answer: more scooped in the mids and edgy on the high end. However, you CAN turn the Mids up enough and the Presence down enough to get similar to the Hardtop Lead tone.
One thing that you would guess might make it not QUITE as warm sounding is the extra power. The Hardtop is 72 W while the Double Cross is 100-110W depending on 6L6's or EL34's. This works great for heavier tones since the low end can get through better and the sizzly highs don't get clipped away.....so you might not consider it quite as warm. But that's why I made sure that the Presence control would Cut as much as Boost from what the Hardtop originally had.
As for your question about using it for other things besides metal, the Rhythm channel is great for all kinds of different tones, and when you combine how the Bright switch makes it sound more British and how the Drive gives you more Angus/Blues breakup levels of gain, it's great. One of our main endorsers is Rich Echardt who plays guitar for Toby Keith. He currently uses a Hardtop with our Vintage 30 cabs, and he loved the tones he could get out of the Double Cross. If you go for more moderate gain settings on the lead channels you can certainly get some Hard Rock tones. I'm a big Billy Gibbons fan, so I always make sure that I can still get his sounds out of my Lead channels.
James Brown
Lead Engineer Kustom Amplification
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Question #1 - Bee A'cheski - Pittsburgh, PA
Is this really a High Gain Amp?
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Answer - 06.04.2008
It has a LOT more gain than the Coupe Hardtop, which has slightly less lead gain than the JSX lead channel. The thing that's interesting and different is the WAY the extra gain is added. I believe it simultaneously has the best tone of high gain and the best feel of lower gain amps, and we had plenty of 'Death Metal' guys who tried it and are lining up to get one.
Any time I've designed higher gain amps I've always noticed how the more gain you add in the traditional way, the more compressed the guitar gets. I used a XXX when I played gigs, and sometimes I felt like the harder I hit the strings the SOFTER the output would sound. Anyway, I felt like the Hardtop had just enough gain but not too much so that it reacted well to your touch and you could hear the guitar's pickup really well, so when I started on the higher-gain Double Cross I didn't want to lose the Hardtop's inherent dynamics.
The other compromise has always been dialing in how tight or loose the preamp distortion sounded. Many people like amps with floppier, thicker distortion, but others don't like the way it makes the attack feel so slow. In the past I had always had to tweak this characteristic carefully, even changing it specifically between the 5150 and 5150II to meet EVH's changing needs. After that I had many people requesting mods to change it back and forth, so I do know that it's a critical element of our tones.
So when I added the extra tube for gain, I tried something different ....mixing tube stages together that have different type of attack, so that you can actually hear those all at the same time without losing the original amp's basic feel/tone. It sounds a little bit like playing multiple amps that have different attack and feel all at once, where you hear the thickness of the heavier sounding one, but the slightly cleaner ones cut through. The resulting tone sort of tailors itself to whatever you're playing....if you play a power chord it sounds thick, but if you play single note runs and beat on it, it cuts through and is very aggressive, and if you play softly you can actually hear the difference. Anyone who has played a lot of different amps knows how difficult it is to get all 3.
The amp has 2 lead channels that are voiced slightly differently, and each has switches to add these extra 12AX7 gain stages in: 1 switch simply increases the gain in a traditional more compressed kind of way. a 2nd is labeled Tight Stage, which adds in a tube tweaked for a a chimey, extra-chunky attack. the 3rd is labeled Thick Stage, which adds another tube stage with a thicker, slightly sloppier feeling attack. Finally the Bright switch works just like the Hardtop, and it makes further adjustment to the chiminess and tightness of the attack. The cool part is that you can mix any or all of them together so for the first time in an amp, you don't have to trade off between tightness, cutting through, sustain, and thick rich distortion.
Combined with our Direct Out circuit that has a switch to select 412 straight or slant, foot-switchable EFX loop, foot-switchable Master Solo Boost, a special Tight input that makes the whole amp's attack even more aggressive, and a clean channel with its own Master so you can get anything from crystal clean to Angus crunch, and I think it's the best amp I've ever designed.
As you can see by my 'long windedness' I'm pretty excited about this amp, and you might say that I've been working on it for over 20 years as I've learned various things about high gain amps and how they react to our hands. I'm final-tweaking some minor issues, and plan to finish it up in the next couple of months. Hopefully you guys will check it out and find that it's something different and quite special in a sea of heavy tube heads."
James Brown
Lead Engineer Kustom Amplification
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Have a question for James Brown and his team of Engineers? Look no further, you have come to the right place to get your answer! Just email James a question and he and his team will personally answer your question and post it here.