Fingolfen
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I'd run into issues with Klon clones not playing nicely with some of my vintage effects - especially the Electric Mistress. After a bit of digging, apparently this is a fairly well-known issue, so I went in search of some Klon-like effects without a charge effect to see if 1) they would play nicely with my (and my friends') old-school modulation effects and 2) if they were close enough in sound to the Klon to be worth the effort. I found a couple of boards, and this is the build report of the first one.
For this first build I'm using the Effects Layouts Skeleklone MK II PCB - which unfortunately appears to be unavailable at this point. It's a cool design very much based on the original Klon layout, with a few modifications. As such, I decided to go with the normal mix of carbon film and metal film resistors I use on my Klon clones (based on the original Centaur and Ceriatone Centura layouts). I'm using many of the same metal film capacitors I use on those builds as well, though this design makes greater use of higher rated film capacitors, so there are more WIMA capacitors, and fewer electrolytic capacitors in the mix. For the standard diodes, I'm using D2D diodes to mirror the regular Kentrosaurus builds I've done in the past as well. Rather than a charge pump and two single op-amps, the design uses a single quad op-amp and the charge pump is deleted.
The design also includes a couple of toggle switches. There is one for the "fat" mod which increases the bass on the pedal. There is also a toggle switch that lets you move between two sets of clipping diodes: the normal germanium ones and silicon (1N4148).
The PCB came from Effects Layouts with its own daughter board, and I decided to hand wire the LED so that I could put the LED next to the stomp switch. The daughter board is connected to the PCB with a single ribbon cable. The jacks are all connected directly to the main PCB with aviation grade hook-up wire. All of the jack connections are insulated with heat shrink tubing as well.
For the enclosure, I decided to have a bit of fun. Since the original PCB was the "Skeleklone" and I'd already done a Kloned Kentrosaurus - going to a Skelekloned Kentrosaurus was a very small jump! I found a really nice image of a Kentrosaurus Skeleton and went with basic white on black for the rest of the enclosure - including white and silver knobs.
In terms of the sound, it is definitely Klon-like, but I really need to work with it more to get a more detailed feel for it. I'm also going to hand one off to a friend to get additional feedback on. Given the PCB for this one appears to be going out of production, I may end up only building a couple of these. I have an alternate PCB design for a Klon sans charge pump I'm going to try as well which will be the subject of a future build report.
Original blog entry (more preamble): https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2024/04/an-interesting-take-on-klon-centaur.html
For this first build I'm using the Effects Layouts Skeleklone MK II PCB - which unfortunately appears to be unavailable at this point. It's a cool design very much based on the original Klon layout, with a few modifications. As such, I decided to go with the normal mix of carbon film and metal film resistors I use on my Klon clones (based on the original Centaur and Ceriatone Centura layouts). I'm using many of the same metal film capacitors I use on those builds as well, though this design makes greater use of higher rated film capacitors, so there are more WIMA capacitors, and fewer electrolytic capacitors in the mix. For the standard diodes, I'm using D2D diodes to mirror the regular Kentrosaurus builds I've done in the past as well. Rather than a charge pump and two single op-amps, the design uses a single quad op-amp and the charge pump is deleted.
The design also includes a couple of toggle switches. There is one for the "fat" mod which increases the bass on the pedal. There is also a toggle switch that lets you move between two sets of clipping diodes: the normal germanium ones and silicon (1N4148).
The PCB came from Effects Layouts with its own daughter board, and I decided to hand wire the LED so that I could put the LED next to the stomp switch. The daughter board is connected to the PCB with a single ribbon cable. The jacks are all connected directly to the main PCB with aviation grade hook-up wire. All of the jack connections are insulated with heat shrink tubing as well.
For the enclosure, I decided to have a bit of fun. Since the original PCB was the "Skeleklone" and I'd already done a Kloned Kentrosaurus - going to a Skelekloned Kentrosaurus was a very small jump! I found a really nice image of a Kentrosaurus Skeleton and went with basic white on black for the rest of the enclosure - including white and silver knobs.
In terms of the sound, it is definitely Klon-like, but I really need to work with it more to get a more detailed feel for it. I'm also going to hand one off to a friend to get additional feedback on. Given the PCB for this one appears to be going out of production, I may end up only building a couple of these. I have an alternate PCB design for a Klon sans charge pump I'm going to try as well which will be the subject of a future build report.
Original blog entry (more preamble): https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2024/04/an-interesting-take-on-klon-centaur.html
