Tone. At Home.
#CoffeeAndKlon is my (irregular!) Sunday morning magazine series, where I talk about whatever’s on my mind right now. There’s always coffee, and there’s normally chat about the Klon and its many competitors.
Always the bridesmaid, but never the bride … until now. It’s time that I finally take a deep dive into (perhaps) the most unusual Klon klone that’s out there.
Today, I’m discussing the JRAD Archer Clean.
Continue reading “#CoffeeAndKlon 39: A Deep Dive Into The JRAD Archer Clean”Today, I want to answer one question: can vintage profiling tech recreate the sounds of vintage amps?
Read on to find out.
Continue reading “Can The Kemper Profile Tweed Tone?”#CoffeeAndKlon is my (irregular!) Sunday morning magazine series, where I talk about whatever’s on my mind right now. There’s always coffee, and there’s normally chat about the Klon and its many competitors.
This week, TPS have compared a couple of klone pedals against a real Klon Centaur:
Thought you might be interested 🙂
At around the 1:54 mark in the video, Mick pointed out how important it is to use a pedal switcher when doing these kinds of comparisons. Thank you, Mick, for saying so!
I’m lucky enough to own a physical Tweed Deluxe amp. I also think that a Tweed Deluxe amp rig for home use has become so expensive in 2023, it’s difficult to justify. So I’ve started looking at alternatives, to see how they compare to the real thing.
First up is the Fender 55 Tweed Deluxe plugin from Universal Audio.
Continue reading “#TweedTone: Comparing Universal Audio’s Fender 55 With A Real Fender Tweed Deluxe Amp”#TeleTuesday is my occasional series where I share my own feelings and experiences with Fender’s original solid-body electric guitar … warts and all.
Do all Telecaster bridge pickups basically sound the same? Can you get the same sound (or close enough) from a non-Telecaster guitar? Let’s find out.
Continue reading “#TeleTuesday: Bridge Pickup Comparison – Part 1: Blind Test”
In 2019, Fender released not one but two tube-based drive pedals: the MTG Tube Distortion Pedal, and the MTG:LA.
I’ve had both pedals for several months. During that time, I’ve also played quite a few other tweed-tone pedals from Boss, Mythos and Lovepedal, which has helped me with my understanding quite a bit.
How do they compare? What are the differences? I’m going to try and answer that in this blog post.
Continue reading “Side By Side: Fender MTG & Fender MTG:LA”This conversation originally happened on my Twitter feed.
I haven’t done a #CoffeeAndKlon yet this year. Time to put that right 🙂 Instead of writing the thread all in one go, I’ll be adding to it as I go along this morning.
Continue reading “#CoffeeAndKlon 26: Mythbusting The Timmy / OD11 / Amp11 Controversy”Chappers and The Captain have done a shootout between ten Klon-like pedals.
If you’re not sure what all the hype around the Klon is all about, let me explain …
The Klon is low-gain pedal that (in its day) did something unique. Set as a clean boost, it lifts the guitar in the mix (or in a live setting) thanks to the way it increases the upper mids. And yet – it also does something to the bass response that makes clean tones sound fuller, without making drive tones muddy or boomy.
The hype is partly because, for many years, the only way to get this tone was to get a Klon Centaur. They were hand-built by Bill Finnigain, and due to limited availability they started changing hands in the second hand market for eye-watering amounts of money.
Eventually, klones (with a ‘k’) started appearing. Bill himself created the Klon KTR as a mass-production version of the Centaur, did a deal with JRAD to make them, before JRAD went on to create their own klones.
The most important klone is the Soul Food. It wasn’t the first klone, and I’d argue it is amongst the worst, but it did bring awareness and availability to the mass market. Since then, there’s been an explosion of interest in klones and the Klon thing. Today, there’s plenty of choice to suit all tastes and budgets.
I’ve got three of these on my boards, including the (for me) unmatched Klon KTR. It’s the only one that I’ve tried that doesn’t add a huge bass bump to overdrive tones. That’s something that doesn’t come across in this demo, to be honest.
Watch the video to choose your favourite, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment..
Shane’s had a lot of interest in his Danelectro ‘84 since introducing it on his YouTube channel. So he’s done a shootout against his Mexican Strat.
The two guitars sound quite different. The Danelectro has a lot more twang, without sounding like a Tele. It’s also a little thinner sounding, but not in a bad way. The overall result is a guitar which looks like a Strat but has its own thing going on. Very cool.
Watch the video to hear for yourself, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.
Darrell Braun has posted an interesting look at two single-cut guitars: the Gibson Les Paul and the Gretch Duo Jet.
I can’t find the Gretsch Duo Jet on Gretsch’s website – or in any UK stores at the time of writing. Darrell’s Playing the G6128TVP model (I think), which seems to be out of production right now.
A shame, because that Gretsch compared very favourably to the Les Paul.
Watch the video to make your own mind up, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.