Extra punch for a Kliché Mini

[HamishR]

I came around to the whole Klon thing by enjoying a Keeley D+M Drive. I have built various Klones for friends but they never impressed me greatly - they're are generally too compressed for me. I really like a punchier OD.

So after adding some low end I discovered that I could get that Klon tone in a punchier form by simply swapping the Ge diodes for 1N4148s. Simple as that. It makes the Klone so much more useful for me. I hope this helps spark some clever mods in others.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Some of the Klon clones and DIYs have a diode switch to select between Ge or Si clipping diodes. With an On-Off-On switch, we can have three diode choices: LEDs always connected (switch in the Off position), Ge or Si diodes switched in parallel with the LEDs.

 

[HamishR]

A good idea. It's funny how in some pedals the choice of diodes seems to be critical and in others as long as there are diodes it's fine.

 

[uberjohn]

You could also make it (Ge | no clipping diodes | Si), which is what the Soul Food meat and 3 mod does. Ge clips sooner than Si, so the sound is more compressed. No clipping diodes is a more open sound which only clips when you overdrive the op amp.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

The middle position could select no diodes or one diode for the ultimate asymmetry. I did the latter on my RAT clone and the single diode setting has the least compression and the most even-order harmonics. See the schematic for how I wired my RAT. R26 is crucial to getting the asymmetric clipping to work right. It keeps the average voltage on the negative side of C12 centered at ground.