Hughes & Kettner brings the Black Spirit 200 to the floor with feature-packed pedalboard amp

Hughes & Kettner has announced the Black Spirit 200 Floor, a floor-based version of its all-powerful Black Spirit 200 Head and Combo guitar amps.

This new version essentially combines a pedalboard amp with H&K’s MIDI controller, and adds a few new features to boot.

Like the rest of the Black Spirit family, the Floor version boasts a 200W output and four all-analog channels - clean, crunch, lead and ultra - plus built-in digital reverb, delay and modulation effects, as well as a Sagging control to adjust the amp-like feel.

(Image credit: Hughes & Kettner)

New features include two programmable true bypass pre-loops for integrating existing pedals, plus a Monitor In, which allows you to blend a personal FOH monitor mix with your amp signal to be sent to a headphones out or speaker out.

There’s also a new Direct 7 mode, where you can assign one preset to each of the board’s seven buttons to access seven presets without having to change banks.

A Red Box AE+ DI out makes for easy recording of H&K’s ‘Spirit’ tone generator, which emulates tube-amp dynamics from a solid-state amp.

Its amp tones may be all-analog, but H&K’s latest venture could pose a serious threat to other floor-based amp modelers.

The Black Spirit 200 Floor is available now for €899 (approx $1,000). Head over to Hughes & Kettner for more.

Michael Astley-Brown
Editor-in-Chief, GuitarWorld.com

Mike is Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com, in addition to being an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict. He has a master's degree in journalism from Cardiff University, and over a decade's experience writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitarist, as well as 20 years of recording and live experience in original and function bands. During his career, he has interviewed the likes of John Frusciante, Chris Cornell, Tom Morello, Matt Bellamy, Kirk Hammett, Jerry Cantrell, Joe Satriani, Tom DeLonge, Ed O'Brien, Polyphia, Tosin Abasi, Yvette Young and many more. In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock under the nom de plume Maebe.