This ’60s American brand has been enjoying a renaissance of late. Louis Thorne investigates one of Kustom’s entry-level amps

Kustom may not be the highest-profile amp maker out there at the moment, but the company has been around since the 1960s and its funky ‘Tuck’n’Roll’ automobile upholstery, a feature from those early days, is still to be found on many a Kustom amp and cabinet. Recently the company has been making inroads into the hotly contested shredder’s tube amp market with the high-end, Rectifier-challenging, Double Cross head. It seems, however, that there is a Kustom for every wallet and the KG series amp looked at here is a rather more modestly priced, solid-state affair. With two footswitchable channels it promises, by virtue of a pair of 12” drivers, to bridge the gap between practice and gigging amp, while remaining portable enough to make frequent trips from bedroom to rehearsal studio.

The KG212 comes in a relatively sedate-looking package, with its front-facing controls nestling above a metal Kustom badge and, below this, a black speaker cloth framed with some grey piping. A neat black vinyl covers the Kustom’s woodwork, and its black plastic corner protectors and top-mounted handle are par for the course here. The Kustom has a fairly shallow depth of under 25cm and, with its pair of drivers nestling snugly next to one another, isn’t as wide as many a 2x12. The cabinet itself has been constructed from fairly slim wood, and without a valve amp’s need for heavy transformers the whole thing is really very light. This makes the KG212 very portable, and moving it in and out of the back seat of a car, for example, should be light work for all but the most feeble of guitarists. The amp’s relatively sparse front panel is an indicator of its simple and straightforward operation, and its knobs comprise bass, mid and treble EQ dials, volume for each channel along with a gain control for the lead channel, and finally a single mix control for the FX section. Mini switches are also present, for channel selection, FX on/off and chorus on/off. Low- and high-gain jack inputs, along with mini-jack headphone and MP3 connections, complete the inventory of controls, notwithstanding the amp’s blue backlit power switch. Turning up the ‘effects level’ control introduces some reverb or delay into the sound, depending upon the position of the relevant selector button, with the only adjustable parameter being the wet/dry mix. Adding chorus is also possible with another switch but it should be noted that the reverb or delay is always present. Whatever the limitations of this system it certainly scores on simplicity of use. The rear of the amp is home to an extension speaker output, send and return jacks and a footswitch connection. Almost everyone is likely to require this feature and we would suggest that the modest price of a footswitch is factored into the equally modest price of the amp if considering purchase.

Sounds

Plugging a single-coil guitar into the clean channel and winding the volume up a little way shows that the Kustom is capable of some neighbour-harassing volume. It sounds clear and punchy, with its pair of 12” drivers providing a nice open sound, and a reasonable amount of low end, for an open-backed combo. The EQ controls do just what they say without causing any extreme alterations, and the whole thing can be cranked up a fair way and still remain clean. Humbucking guitars push things a little further but distortion is certainly not this channel’s territory, and the Kustom seems to have an admirable amount of headroom for a 30W amp. Mixing in some reverb or delay does a nice job of adding a bit of ambience, although the single FX control doesn’t allow for any alterations to the delay’s short preset repeat time. The amp’s chorus effect is nicer still, providing a very convincing bit of modulation to clean picking passages à la Metallica, for example, although having to use it with reverb or delay does limit its usefulness somewhat. The gain channel is where this amp, we suspect, will get most use, and as soon as the dials are wound up things start to get pretty filthy. As with the clean channel, a modern rock guitar seems to be most suited to the Kustom’s character, and although it can do crunch, high-gain settings provide the most fun here. As the gain is wound up the amp’s voicing changes slightly; the bass is boosted and the mid cut a little, giving a progressively more modern ‘scooped’ sound as the dirt increases. Of course, the amp’s EQ can be utilised too, although if you have found a favoured setting for the clean channel then this might have to be sacrificed as the gain is altered. For a 30W solid-state amp, the Kustom is pretty loud. It may not sound very pretty when being thrashed at high volume but its pair of 12” drivers manage to stop it being completely drowned out by an enthusiastic drummer, and it certainly has a distortion channel to please many a budding shredder.

Conclusion

The £200 – £300 part of the amp market is a hotly contested one and the Kustom’s ease of use and impressive volume, for an amp of its power, help to mark it out from the competition. Its effects section is somewhat limited, and separate EQ for each channel would have been a welcome feature, but the Kustom is very well priced and very straightforward to use. As with most, if not all, solid-state amps the clean and crunch sounds are nothing to get overly excited about, but the KG manages to do modern rock and shred very convincingly. We think that the Kustom’s main constituency will be modern-minded rockers making their first forays into rehearsals and gigging, and to that end the KG212 is well worth investigating. GB