I use Deus Fast as the basis for all my custom programs. Reactivity is a brisk but not insane 2.5, silencer is set to -1 (unlike most other presets which have high silencer settings that can kill depth - Tip: silencer is an expert setting under reactivity. It should be set at -1 (off) or 0 if you want to decrease chattiness with little to no impact on depth performance. Higher settings of silencer will suppress noise at the expense of depth. Another quirk with silencer is that it likes to revert to higher settings if you change reactivity on the fly so yo always need to remember to set it back to -1 or 0 if you change reactivity).
If you choose Deus fast, then all you have to do is set your desired discrimination level (I am liking max negative disc at the moment), sensitivity above 90 if not falsing and set your operating frequency to 8 or 12 khz vice the default of 18khz. I have two identical Deus fast programs in adjacent slots that only differ in their operating frequency so I can quickly switch between them on a target hit to see how the tone and target ID shift with frequency (hint: they should go up with increasing frequency unless you are swinging over iron containing junk like a crown cap and only works id you set ID Norm to OFF in the configuration menu which would be my recommendation. ID Norm is referenced to 18 khz and scrunches all the high conductor IDs together - annoying at best, useless at worst). I primarily use the horseshoe display but also have x-y display custom programs set up adjacent to my main two 8/12 khz Deus Fast variants that have the same exact settings as their horseshoe counterparts. The x-y may give you more insight into an otherwise good sounding target. If the display does not show a sloped straight line, you are likely dealing with iron containing junk.
Now to get at what you were really asking, is there otherwise a difference if you use another preset as the base program for your custom programs? A month ago I would have said no difference. Gary Blackwell of XP has muddied those waters a bit by claiming in a recently posted XP instructional video about V4 software that older version 2 and 3.2 software "filters" were built into the Deep and Hot preset programs, respectively. XP has provided no written documentation of this supposed feature and no one save Gary and the other XP folks know for sure what "filters" he is going on about (silencer?, iron discrimination?, tone/visual ID processing?, who knows?). And there has only been heresay and no disciplined 3rd party testing to verify if there is a difference. Until we get some concrete answers, I can't accurately answer your question. Regardless, the effect, if any is undoubetedly subtle. YMMV. My suggestion is to use Deus Fast as your base custom program builder. HTH.
