Custom 100W

Introduction

The Custom 100W is one of those "if you know, you know" amplifiers. A British 70s amp, but unlike other British amps in the same era, the Custom 100W has a thicker tone and a smooth top end. The distortion of the preamp sounds very unlike the distortion of the power amp, which makes the amplifier extremely versatile in studio recordings.

Originally built as a guitar amp, the Custom 100W is equally popular among guitarists as bass players. Its thick tone makes it a perfect match for rock bass players that want a little bit of crunch in their tone.

Create Default Setting

To always get a great starting point, make a default preset for your standard use-case

1. Dial in your preferred tone
2. Save a preset by clicking "Add Preset..." in the preset menu at the top
3. In the same menu, click "Set Current Preset As Default"

You will now have a good starting point everytime you load up Custom 100W!

User Interface

The user interface of Custom 100W is very similar to Amplifiers, our easy-to-use amp-and-cab plug-in. In Amplifiers you can choose between a selection of amplifiers and cabinets, while Custom 100W only uses a single amp and cab. If you have a platform product, such as Amplifiers, Amp Room or Flow Mixing Suite, you can load Custom 100W into those platforms.

Top Row

The top row consists of the amplifier and cabinet selectors and bypass for the amp and cab.

Amplifier Bypass

Bypasses the amplifier.

Cabinet Bypass

Bypasses the cabinet

It's also possible to right-click on the amp and cabinet icon in the bottom row to bypass the section.

Main Area

The main area will either show the current amplifier, or the current speaker cabinet with its controls. The amplifier controls vary between each amplifier, and are described in respective manual, but the cabinet controls are common for all cabinets.

Clicking on the either the amplifier or the cabinet icon at the bottom will take you to the controls.

Amplifier

The amplifier that we chose to model is actually a guitar amplifier, but because of its very characteristic thick distortion and special sounding tone stack, it’s been very popular among bass players during the last decades. When the High/Low switch is set to HIGH, the amplifier will work and act just like the real thing. The LOW mode is the same amplifier with a slightly different input stage, one which lowers the input gain a little bit while adding some warmth to the signal. The LOW mode gives you a fat bass sound without too much distortion.

Use the two “volume” controls as a means of dialing in the right amount of distortion, not to change the actual volume. More Normal Volume gives you more preamp distortion, and more Master Volume gives you more power amp distortion.

Knobs

The functionality of the knobs on the front panel of the plugin corresponds to the front panel of the real amplifier, except the High/Low switch, which is a feature we added to accommodate for both guitar and bass players.

Bass, Middle, Treble

These knobs are the tone controls of the amplifier. A common setting is Bass on full, Middle on min, and Treble somewhere in between.

Normal Volume

This knob controls the amount of preamp distortion, and is usually called “Gain” on more modern amps. Use it to dial in the amount of distortion you want.

Master Volume

Adjusts the amount of power amp distortion. With a massive amount of Master and Normal Volume, the amp will start sound like it’s about to break. Unless you really want that kind of distortion you’ll find that a Master Volume at 12 o’clock will suit most of your needs.

Master Volume won’t distort much unless you increase the Normal Volume. Just like the real amp.

High/Low

Use this switch to select either the attenuated channel (LOW) or the regular channel (HIGH).

To gain compensate the output volume, open the right hand panel in Extended Features. There you'll find lots of metering, volume controls and a very handy "Gain Match" button.

Cabinet Controls

Being an integral part of the "British Invasion" of the 60", the Custom brand delivered some of the most well-known albums and sounds of the 70s as well. This cabinet has a warm sound to it, lending itself to be shaped into anything you want. The four 12-inch drivers are GSP12/175-16HW.

There are seven different moveable microphones for each cabinet. Click on a microphone to select it. Grab the microphone icon to move it around the speaker field. Pushing the microphone icon up against the speaker will increasingly angle the microphone up to a maximum of 55 degrees.

Position

Sets the sideways position of the microphone. You can either use the Position slider or simply drag the mic around in the graphics above.

Distance

Sets the distance and angle of the microphone. When the microphone is close to the speaker, it will change the angle of the mic instead of the microphone. You can either use the Distance slider or simply drag the mic around in the graphics above.

Mic

Selects microphone type, choose between these models:

• Dynamic 57
• Dynamic 7b
• Dynamic 421
• Condenser 47
• Condenser 414
• Ribbon 121
• Dynamic 112

The tone section is a powerful tool to tone shape a cabinet.

Resonance

Move the slider to the right to add more “thump”/low end and brightness to the sound. Moving it to the left does the opposite.

Punch Gain, Punch Freq

Pinpoint the frequency that you wish to address with Punch Freq. In-/decrease the affected frequency amount with Punch Gain.

Low Cut

A low cut filter ranging from (left to right) 20Hz (off) to 250Hz.

Tone

Move the slider to the right to tilt the frequency curve towards less low-end and more-high end.Moving the slider to the right does the opposite.

Bottom Row

Gate

Engage the noise gate and increase the amount of gating.

Drive

Engage a Tube Screamer drive pedal and increase the amount of distortion and level from the drive pedal.

Reverb

Engage the reverb (post cabinet) and increase the amount of reverb.

The pre and post effects (Gate, Drive and Reverb) are completely bypassed when set to its minimum position (0.0).

Amplifier and Cabinet icon

Press to show the amplifier or cabinet controls respectively

Right-click to bypass the amplifier or cabinet section.

Credits

Pelle Serander - product design, framework programming
Niklas Odelholm - product design, UI design, amp modeling
Arvid Rosén – Power amp modeling Thomas Andersson - DSP programming