Klon

The Klon Centaur is one of the highest rated boost / overdrive pedals ever, and has seen pro stages the world over. It is able to provide a transparent boost to your signal, or a harmonically rich overdrive. It loves to take a tube amp that is on the edge over the top. We have carried the Klon Centaur since 1996, so to dispel a few myths: 1. Over the years, the Klon had been made in both gold and silver casings. There is no other difference between them other than the color. Today, silver is the only color that the pedal is made in. 2. It does not take 6 months or more to get one. Our delivery time averages about 12 weeks from your paid order, and we have been delivering them consistently for 10 years now.

Designer's Overview of the Klon Centaur

The Centaur was designed, over a period of four years, to be an overdrive that works with your guitar and amp, and with the particular sound they create, rather than one that imposes its own sound. It does a better job of retaining the original tonality and response of your setup than anything else I'm aware of; in the words of Trainwreck's Ken Fischer, a guy known to have pretty good ear, "The Centaur seems to become part of your amplifier's tube circuits and doesn't feel or sound like you are using an outboard device." What you end up with, when kicking the thing in, is simply a bigger, more focused rendition of the sound your guitar and amp were giving you to start with. The Centaur is also a good deal more versatile than other overdrives. Each of its three controls - Gain, Treble, Output - has a very broad range, and this makes the unit capable of providing a variety of overdriven sounds with almost any guitar and amp; even the signal from very-low-output pickups, such as Gretsch Filtertrons or Danelectro "lipstick" pickups, can be beefed up effectively. The Gain control, in a unique approach to an age-old problem with overdrives and distortion pedals, is a dual-ganged pot ; two pots on one shaft. The first pot controls the amount of gain and distortion in the main gain stage, just as in any overdrive; the second pot, however, controls an entirely different part of the circuit, a part that optimizes the circuit's overall tonal response for whatever the main gainstage is generating in the way of level and distortion. This means that the Centaur, unlike other overdrives, doesn't limit you to a "sweet spot" distortion setting, one setting or a narrow range of settings that sound good with a particular guitar and amp. With the Centaur, the entire range of the control is usable, and your Strat, for example, will always sound like your Strat, as opposed to another Strat or any Strat, no matter how much or how little distortion you want from the unit. If you want no distortion at all, the Centaur has an operating mode that certain of my competitors have tried to imitate: clean-boost mode. At the minimum Gain setting, the circuit is in this mode and has enormous headroom - it won't clip even if you have high-output pickups and are really bearing down on the guitar. With the Treble control at noon, you have exactly the same frequency and harmonic response coming out of the unit as went in, with all the subtleties of your original sound intact. You then simply use the Output control to determine how hard you want to hit the first preamp tube in your amp with the boosted signal. Clean-boost essentially gives you an instant same-pickups-but-hotter capability, a fuller, rounder, slightly more saturated version of the sound you started with, and is perfect for players looking for singing sustain or for a sound onstage that's a little more "out front" but not necessarily more aggressive. The transparency of the Centaur's clean-boost mode is such that Ken Fischer, in evaluating it, wrote "If you like the tone of your guitar and amp just the way they are, but wish for more of the same, pumped up and more muscular, then the Centaur rates an A+ grade." This transparency did not just happen: it took almost a year of hard work before I was satisfied with the results, an amount of time and effort that, judging from their results, my competitors did not put in. The Centaur was specifically designed for use with vintage guitars and amps and with high-end modern guitars and amps, tools that players will pay dearly for simply because they deliver the goods. The better the guitar and amp it's used with, the more the Centaur will be able to show you, but it's not just for those of us with deep pockets - I get a lot of satisfaction out of hearing from players who tell me what it's done for their good-but-not-too-expensive rigs. The unit also does a nice job of making small amps sound bigger than they are - it can turn a good Princeton or Deluxe into a very serviceable gigging amp in many clubs, or into a killer recording amp that experienced players, hearing what's on the tape, are likely to guess is something considerably heftier. Recording engineers take note: this thing projects, and with the right ambient miking, you can get some pretty astounding results. As befits its sonic qualities, the Centaur is built like a tank: its enclosure is a custom aluminum casting, and all its parts are the best that money can buy - Carling double-pole/double-throw footswitch, Switchcraft jacks, CTS pots, precision resistors and capacitorsfor tonal consistency from unit to unit, ultra-high-quality circuit boards with plated-through component holes. The units are made one at a time, by hand, by the designer (myself), and things will always be done this way - it's not possible to make something like the Centaur any other way. Each unit is extensively tested before shipment, and comes with a ten year warranty to the original owner covering everything except modification or abuse. For those who care about such things, the unit is a looker as well as a player: the casting has a sculptural aspect, a very distinctive shape that's accentuated by the burnished silver finish,which makes the casting look like a hunk of solid sterling. Dark red knobs and black silkscreening are the finishing touches.

The Klon is priced at only $344 including shipping in the lower 48. Please call (413) 283-5592 Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. or email Sales@TPNgear.com for more information or to order.