MichaelW
Well-known member
So I showed this color scheme to my buddy and he called it "Clown Barf" hence.....I give you the "Clown of Tone"
I really wasn't intending to do crazy color knobs, I was originally intending to use Cream Davies knobs but they would not fit, the controls are pretty tightly grouped.
These were the only BOSS style knobs I had so......
As most of you that have been following my rambling thoughts and novice pedal building journey may know, I got into building pedals because I wanted a KOT and I didn't want to wait 4 years or pay $800+ for one.
When I found PedalPCB.com and realized there were ready made pcb's for the pedal I thought if I could follow a "paint by numbers" approach I might be able to build one. Around the same time I also found PCBGuitarMania.com and saw they also had a KOT PCB. I did not know what I didn't know then so I ordered some from both places.
I did not realize that pcbguitarmania would be shipping from Croatia or whatever and it took some time to get to me. So I built the PedalPCB version and the rest is history. I ALSO did not realize the version I ordered from PCBguitarMania was the "SMD Version", with partially prepopulated caps and resistors. (I didn't know what SMD even was a few months ago....) All I saw was the claim for "EASIEST NO BRAINER BUILD!!!". "BUILD A PEDAL IN AN HOUR!" so that's what I ordered
Anyway, I finally got around to building out one of the SMD Version "Knight of Tone" PCB's from PCBGuitarMania. While it was a pretty easy build, I would not say it was a complete "no brainer". The documentation had errors in it, the schematic was missing, I had a couple of "duhhh" moments trying to follow the directions. (For instance the documentation instructs to put 170k resistors for the "hi-gain" mod in the LEDR pads......and yes I did do it......you can actually see that I socketed those just in case.....it didn't sound right to me but I tried it
The control layout is backasswards to me, (Tone + Presence on top, Vol/Gain below). The presence knob being exposed is about as useless as you would expect, it doesn't do much.
It IS nice to have the clipping switches already exposed but it's set up like the PoT with OD-Clean-Distortion settings. So it's missing the "both clippers on" option, which I kinda dig for certain sounds.
One interesting feature is that you can independently set the voltage for each side, theoretically. I say "theoretically" because a) It still sounds like crap at 18v (*to me)
and b) this is my first pedal I've built that I've used an TC1044S charge pump that I had the dreaded "whining". I set the dip switches to 9v and pulled the charge pump out and it works fine with no whine. (It might be that particular IC, I did not try a different one.)
After all my experimenting I've settled on BA282/1S1588 diode combo for my KOT builds. It sounds "thicker and girthier" to me at med to high gain settings.
So with the same diode set in both pedals I did some side by side A/B testing with my Paragon.
The Paragon sounds more "3D" to me where as the "Knight of Tone" sounds a little flat.
The Paragon has a lot more volume for some reason, not sure if it's the design, the pots, or components.
The Paragon has more gain (I used B250k gain pots in both pedals).
Having said all that, the Knight of Tone is still a great sounding pedal and probably more "true" to the low gain intent of the real KOT as opposed to my modified Paragon.
***PSA: I have a second "PCBGuitarMania SMD Knight of Tone PCB" if anyone wants it. Free to a good home, I won't be building it out. Just DM me and I'll pop it in the mail (US only please.....)
I really wasn't intending to do crazy color knobs, I was originally intending to use Cream Davies knobs but they would not fit, the controls are pretty tightly grouped.
These were the only BOSS style knobs I had so......
As most of you that have been following my rambling thoughts and novice pedal building journey may know, I got into building pedals because I wanted a KOT and I didn't want to wait 4 years or pay $800+ for one.
When I found PedalPCB.com and realized there were ready made pcb's for the pedal I thought if I could follow a "paint by numbers" approach I might be able to build one. Around the same time I also found PCBGuitarMania.com and saw they also had a KOT PCB. I did not know what I didn't know then so I ordered some from both places.
I did not realize that pcbguitarmania would be shipping from Croatia or whatever and it took some time to get to me. So I built the PedalPCB version and the rest is history. I ALSO did not realize the version I ordered from PCBguitarMania was the "SMD Version", with partially prepopulated caps and resistors. (I didn't know what SMD even was a few months ago....) All I saw was the claim for "EASIEST NO BRAINER BUILD!!!". "BUILD A PEDAL IN AN HOUR!" so that's what I ordered
Anyway, I finally got around to building out one of the SMD Version "Knight of Tone" PCB's from PCBGuitarMania. While it was a pretty easy build, I would not say it was a complete "no brainer". The documentation had errors in it, the schematic was missing, I had a couple of "duhhh" moments trying to follow the directions. (For instance the documentation instructs to put 170k resistors for the "hi-gain" mod in the LEDR pads......and yes I did do it......you can actually see that I socketed those just in case.....it didn't sound right to me but I tried it
The control layout is backasswards to me, (Tone + Presence on top, Vol/Gain below). The presence knob being exposed is about as useless as you would expect, it doesn't do much.
It IS nice to have the clipping switches already exposed but it's set up like the PoT with OD-Clean-Distortion settings. So it's missing the "both clippers on" option, which I kinda dig for certain sounds.
One interesting feature is that you can independently set the voltage for each side, theoretically. I say "theoretically" because a) It still sounds like crap at 18v (*to me)
and b) this is my first pedal I've built that I've used an TC1044S charge pump that I had the dreaded "whining". I set the dip switches to 9v and pulled the charge pump out and it works fine with no whine. (It might be that particular IC, I did not try a different one.)
After all my experimenting I've settled on BA282/1S1588 diode combo for my KOT builds. It sounds "thicker and girthier" to me at med to high gain settings.
So with the same diode set in both pedals I did some side by side A/B testing with my Paragon.
The Paragon sounds more "3D" to me where as the "Knight of Tone" sounds a little flat.
The Paragon has a lot more volume for some reason, not sure if it's the design, the pots, or components.
The Paragon has more gain (I used B250k gain pots in both pedals).
Having said all that, the Knight of Tone is still a great sounding pedal and probably more "true" to the low gain intent of the real KOT as opposed to my modified Paragon.
***PSA: I have a second "PCBGuitarMania SMD Knight of Tone PCB" if anyone wants it. Free to a good home, I won't be building it out. Just DM me and I'll pop it in the mail (US only please.....)
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