#CoffeeAndKlon is my occasional Sunday magazine-style series, where I talk about whatever’s on my mind about guitars, gear, music and yes, sometimes my love of both coffee and the Klon pedal.
How can I put this? It feels like it’s become a bit of a pastime for some folks on the Internet to mock the idea of using a Klon as a clean boost. So this time around, let me give you a concrete example of why I love using my Klon as a clean boost pedal – with audio clips.
Table of Contents
- My Signal Chain Today
- The MojoMojo On Its Own
- Using A Klon Setup As A Clean Boost
- But You’re Not Using The Magic Diodes!
- Final Thoughts
My Signal Chain Today
Today, I’m playing:
- Smokey, my Les Paul Classic Plus fitted with OX4 Hot Duane pickups
- into the Axe FX 3 (acting as a tuner)
- out to my pedalboard
- back into the Axe FX 3 (for amp + cab + delay + reverb)
- out to my audio interface
The Guitar
The Les Paul Classic Plus is a model that Gibson put out in 2011 and 2012, during a period where they were forced to experiment with alternatives to rosewood. The fretboard is baked maple, although you wouldn’t know it from a distance. These were the star of one of the early Andertons videos.
I’m playing in the middle position on the Les Paul: neck volume at 5, bridge volume at 9, both tone controls on 10. For me, this is where the magic is on a Les Paul.
The Pickups
OX4 are considered to be one of the finest aftermarket pickup makers here in the UK. These Hot Duane pickups are a little hotter than their classic OX4 PAF humbuckers. The name comes from the idea of chasing the Duane Allman sound. Not my thing, so I couldn’t tell you how close they get to nailing that.
Best way I can describe them is that they’ve got a nice amount of punch and push, while retaining top-end clarity. They make this guitar growl, which is exactly what I want it to do.
The Pedalboard
On the pedalboard, I have three pedals in separate loops of my Gigrig G2:
- Ceriatone Centura
- TC Electronic MojoMojo
- Boss OD-3
Later on in the blog post, I’ll swap out the Centura for some alternative boost pedals.
The Amp, Cab et al
In the Axe FX 3, I’m using my own preset.
- The amp is a Princeton model, which I’ve tweaked to sound very similar to the clean channel on my Marshall DSL20HR amp.
- The cabs are stock IRs of Jensen & Celestion Blue speakers. Again, these sound very similar to the pair of 1×12 cabs that I normally run my Marshall through.
- I’m also using digital tape delay and digital spring reverb.
The hiss you’ll hear on the audio demos is from some distortion that I’ve added in the Axe FX 3 to the digital tape delay.
The MojoMojo On Its Own
Audio Demo – MojoMojo
Let’s start with a short rhythm piece, using the MojoMojo pedal on its own:
With my Les Paul, this doesn’t give me a lot of clarity. To my ears, the notes sound smeared, with poor note separation. The palm-muted notes are dull thuds lacking any sense of percussion, while the strummed chords blend into each other quite a bit.
There’s a few reasons why:
- The MojoMojo rounds off the attack of each note quite a bit. That’s probably exactly what you want when working with the bridge pickup of a Stratocaster. With a Les Paul … perhaps not the best fit?
- Many overdrive pedals reduce the amount of low frequencies before the signal is fed into the clipping stage. The MojoMojo doesn’t seem to do that, and that results in the clipping being driven by that low-end energy, producing a more fuzz-like result.
- The MojoMojo is relatively “transparent”, in that it doesn’t have much of a mid-boost thing going on at all. In general, our ears prefer our overdrive to be in the mid-range for it to sound right.
Audio Demo – Boss OD-3
By contrast, here’s what another affordable overdrive – Boss’s OD-3 – sounds like:
Listen to the attack of each note. I’m hearing more bite to the front of the note. It’s less rounded, giving it a sharper sound. That results in a lot more note clarity, both on the palm-muted notes and the strummed chords. The OD-3 also has a little bit of a bass cut. This emphasises the mid-range without adding a TubeScreamer-like mid-hump to the final signal, so that the overdrive sounds “right” to our ears.
(What you’re hearing is the OD-3 dialled in ready to be boosted by a Klon. The OD-3 on its own can sound even better than this. I need to do a blog post dedicated to this pedal at some point.)
Reflecting On The MojoMojo
Side by side like this, I think there’s no contest. I prefer the sound of the Boss OD-3 over the MojoMojo for rhythm playing with my Les Paul.
That doesn’t mean the MojoMojo is a bad pedal. It’s just a different pedal – and regular readers will know that I think it’s important to have choices.
I’m also a great believer in finding your own sound by stacking pedals together. Most pedals only have one or two sounds in them, and by and large, we use the controls on our pedals to dial it in to suit the guitar and amp. Stack two pedals together, though, and it opens up the options quite a bit.
When I’m stacking pedals, my first choice is always my Klon KTR as a clean boost. And it goes pretty nicely with the MojoMojo.
Using A Klon Setup As A Clean Boost
What Is The Clean Boost Setup?
The basic idea here is to use the Klon’s buffer + tone stack as a form of EQ pedal.
- Gain at around 8 o’clock
- Treble at around 1 o’clock
- Volume set to unity or slightly higher
To my ears, this setup gives the tone what I would describe as ‘lift’. It brings it to the forefront a little bit. It’s great at adding additional clarity to many (but not all!) drive pedals and amps.
Which Pedal Are You Using For This?
I’m using my Ceriatone Centura for these audio demos. I’ve tested this against my genuine Klon KTR before, and to my ears it sounds identical. I bought the Centura so that I don’t have to use my Klon KTR all the time.
Why didn’t I use my KTR for these demos? We had some work done in the house towards the end of last year, and I packed the KTR away to protect it from plaster dust. The Centura was closer to hand.
What Does It Sound Like?
Here’s the Centura into the MojoMojo. The only thing that has changed is adding the Centura to the signal path. Everything else is the same, and is using the same settings as before.
I like what the Centura has done here. To my ears, that note-smearing has gone, and while the attack still isn’t sharp, it’s taken on a raspiness that adds character and definition. While it’s definitely not tweed-tone, I’d describe the overall tone as a classic vintage overdrive sound – and very usable.
As improved as the MojoMojo is, a clean-boost Klon really shines when it’s applied to a tone that’s already good. Here’s that OD-3 again, this time with the Centura in front of it:
If you like that, remind me to do a demo of what the Wampler Belle sounds like with a clean-boost Klon in front of it 🙂
But You’re Not Using The Magic Diodes!
When the gain knob of a Klon is set this low, it’s said that the clipping diodes aren’t doing anything. For arguments sake, let’s assume that’s correct. With the clipping diodes out of the equation, is the Klon doing anything all that special or unique?
Let’s put that to the test, not by measuring the signal flow through the circuit, but by listening to the result with our ears. At the end of the day, what matters is the end-result.
And, to test it, I’m going to swap the Centura out for some alternative boost pedals.
TC Electronic Spark Boost Pedal
First up is TC Electronic’s Spark boost pedal.
Several years ago, this pedal was everywhere on YouTube. It was relatively affordable, available in just about every store, and many people found it to be an instant “make it sound better” tool.
I’ve picked this pedal out because it’s the obvious companion to the MojoMojo. You can grab the Spark, MojoMojo and Dark Matter pedals for under £150 at the time of writing, and have a pedal board that covers both rhythm and lead for a lot of musical genres – all for less than the price of the Centura.
This is the best I could do with the Spark into the MojoMojo:
Compared to the Ceriatone demo earlier on … where did the low-end go? That’s the first thing that leaps out at me, when I compare the two results. There’s a pleasing warmth to the Ceriatone + MojoMojo combination that’s largely gone from the Spark + MojoMojo combination.
It sounds like the the mid-range boost is a little different between the two pedals too. I thought the Ceriatone + MojoMojo had a nice vintage-vibe going on, where the mid-range emphasis was towards the upper-mids. The Spark + MojoMojo sounds like it’s a broader mid-range push, possibly because of the low-end cut that’s going on?
I think there’s also a difference in the top-end, although I’m less confident about what I’m hearing there. The reverb trails of the Ceriatone + MojoMojo sound a little brighter to me; I think the spring reverb has a little more ring to it.
Overall, the Spark + MojoMojo combination produces a very usable sound, at a fraction of the cost of a Klon or accurate klone. It’s not the same, though, and I know which one I prefer 🙂
Boss SD-1 Overdrive Pedal
My next choice is the Boss SD-1 overdrive pedal.
The SD-1 is similar to a TubeScreamer: you can drop the gain, turn up the volume, and use it to add a bass cut + mid-range boost to an overdriven amp. And, like the TubeScreamer, it doesn’t produce the most pleasing tone on its own.
I hope we can all agree: this is all mid-range. There is much-improved note-definition, with plenty of raspiness. It’s just a bit … unpleasant … when heard in isolation.
I’m sure folks who have more experience than me would tell you that this sound works well in a dense mix or a live situation. For me, I suspect that the SD-1 works better when pushing your main overdrive into saturation for lead tones.
Danelectro Billion Dollar Boost Pedal
Once you get away from klones, Tubescreamer-like pedals and the Spark, there isn’t really a ubiquitous type of boost pedal out there. So I thought I’d grab something a little different, but still from the affordable camp. [It looks like these are no longer made; there’s no mention of them anywhere on the Danelectro website any more – Ed]
The Billion Dollar Boost Pedal is said to be based on the old Boss FA-1 FET preamp, a buffer and preamp device (not strictly a pedal) that U2’s The Edge used in the 80s. I’d say that qualifies as different 🙂
Here’s how it sounds into the MojoMojo:
That’s a very nice surprise. I’m hearing both warm low-end and plenty of clarity. Is it my imagination, or is the attack also a little sharper than the Ceriatone + MojoMojo combination?
It doesn’t quite give the MojoMojo that vintage overdrive vibe that the Ceriatone does; it seems to lack the mid-lift that the Klon and accurate klones impart. But I think it sounds great in its own way, and it might be a great option for anyone who can’t afford the Ceriatone.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this blog post has given you a sense of what a clean-boost Klon KTR (or accurate clone, like the Centura that I used) can do for your tone. I’m also hoping that I’ve been able to demonstrate why it’s different to other pedals that are typically used as boosts.
It doesn’t matter what’s fashionable – or fashionable to mock – on the Internet. What matters is what you enjoy, and whether it works for you in the context that you’re using it.