B-Custom brings about a few "new things." First we have the new Barber Custom shop brand name "B-Custom," and this signifies products built within the Barber custom shop by Ronni Santmyer. The B-Custom products are smaller runs or even "one off" highly customized audio devices built to accommodate players' requests for nuance after nuance, and detail after detail of highly sought after features, sound, and build quality. B-Custom carries on the Barber commitment to deliver stellar audio at very musician friendly prices, and delivery times that have you playing their devices on stage, in the studio, or at home, instead of dreaming endlessly about their eventual arrival.
The Custom Cool is the first true B-Custom product and has some new B-Custom features such as: EQ switching- This allows you to have two totally different EQ curves, using only one tone control by simply employing a push/pull switch, Barber calls these "SR EQ" and "Snarl EQ," the first being quite flat response to preserve your guitar’s beautiful tone that you so carefully selected, and the second having a wicked fat midrange of sweet barbed wire with loads of fundamentals, without the silly "hump" sound.
Smooth/Crunchy- Yep, just like peanut butter you can have smooth or crunchy sounds with the Custom Cool. This again uses the push/pull method of switching between the well known Barber style smooth tone or a new dynamic/raunchy no holds barred rude presentation, all this in a sophisticatedly tuned, low gain architecture to please the classic tone connoisseur.
Internal Trims- These are Barber's familiar, easy to use, internal controls that players can use to dial the Custom Cool into their own personal gear, they include- Note Shape, Bass, Midrange, and Presence.
The Custom Cool project started when Monster Mike Welch came to Barber in search of an overdrive to help with rental back-line gigs, where he needed a reliable sounding amp-style overdrive pedal, to emulate the sound he gets from his cranked smaller amps he uses for club dates. After sending pedals back and forth and lots of discussion, the first proto of the Custom Cool was born. Barber has added EQ switching and the smooth/crunchy switching since Mike’s early prototype, but the sound they brought together for him is well retained with a few other tweaks added to give ultimate flexibility.
Features:
Precision matched components: using proprietary specifications to ensure symmetrical and specific asymmetric clipping and reduced intermodulation distortion. This allows complex chords to be heard with total definition and clarity at any level of overdrive.
True bypass switching with LED indicator.
Standard Power Jack: accepts industry standard 9-volt, DC, negative-center adapter (not included).
Three way toggle: This control allows three distinct styles of symmetry to allow a perfect mate to your amp's character.
Hand made: Built in the B-Custom shop by Ronni Santmyer.
Volume knob response circuitry: numerous shades and textures at your fingertips just by adjusting your volume knob.
Cast aluminum enclosure: Barber's incredibly durable enclosure will last decades if not centuries!
Double sided pc board with plate through holes: This is the way the military does it when they want electronics to work FOREVER! all pedals should be made this way; few are.
8 knob control for tonal versatility: The Custom Cool uses eight (including internal trim pots) control knobs as follows: Volume, Tone, Dynamics and Drive. Internal controls for Note Shape, Bass, Midrange and Presence.
Unique Controls: The Note Shape control allows you to adjust your sound from tight and focused to a big round vintage tone, The Dynamics control has earned a great reputation over the years for setting the transfer from smooth singing overdrive to raspy growling deep dynamics, continuously!
Barber adjustable phono style recovery stage: Most of Barber's op-amp based overdrive pedals use a cool old style phonograph circuit to recover the frequencies lost in the overdrive stage, this worked great for vinyl and now works great for guitar overdrive!
