REVIEW > HARTKE
haRTke
KILO AND HYDRIVE 410
By JORDaN wagNeR
Compared to guitarists, it seems bass- ists often get the short end of the stick
when it comes to the sheer numbers of gear
offerings. Granted, the past decade has seen
much more gear released for low-end rumble
than ever before, but the numbers still pale
in comparison to how many tone tools
guitarists have at their disposal. This isn’t
because bassists are afterthoughts to most
companies—it’s mainly because the average
bassist has fewer tone-palette needs than the
average guitarist. For evidence, all you have
to do is compare the number of bassists carting around gargantuan pedalboards and rack
systems to the number of guitarists doing so.
However, a handful of effects and
tone-processing circuits are integral to a
significant number of discerning bassists,
and Hartke—a bass-focused company that’s
been serving some of the biggest names on
the scene since the early ’80s—took pretty
much all of those into consideration when
designing their monstrously powerful new
Kilo head. It features built-in compression,
overdrive, muting, a slew of EQ controls,
and multiple connection features.
add 6 dB to the highs (brite), boost low end
(deep), and apply an adjustable EQ curve to
the entire tone (shape).
Overdrive can be brought in and out
of the circuit via a front-panel button or a
footswitch, and it ranges from light grit to
super-heavy fuzz. Compression is one of
the most essential effects for a wide swath
of bassists, and the Kilo’s inclusion of such
a circuit removes the need for a separate
pedal or rack. Seems like a lot of features so
far, huh? And this is only the front panel!
Built-in compres-
sion and overdrive
Brite, deep, and shape buttons
Everything but the Kitchen Sink
The Kilo features an all-tube preamp driven
by a trio of 12AX7 tubes. After connecting
your bass to the amp’s input, your input
level is adjusted by a gain knob and a switch
that enables you to pad the input for active
pickups. Output is handled by a pair of solid-state power amps, each running 500 watts at
2 Ω or a huge 1,000 watts at 4 Ω when in
bridged mono mode. In stereo mode, a balance control varies volume between each side,
enabling you to have one cabinet louder than
the other if you wish. Tone shaping is handled primarily by the tone-stack EQ’s bass,
midrange, and treble controls, but it can be
shaped further using a 10-band graphic EQ
with an independent volume control. If the
3- or 10-band EQs don’t offer enough range
for crafting your tone—and it would be
very surprising if they didn’t—the Kilo also
include three EQ-shaping push-buttons to
Dual-chamber, birch-plywood cabinet
250-watt, neodymium-hybrid-cone speakers
premierguitar.com
PREMIER GUITAR FEBRUARY 2012 133
