PEDALS
Klon Centaur

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The Klon Centaur is one of the highest rated boost / overdrive pedals ever, It is a good example of a 'boutique' pedal. It has a specific 'recipe' that no other overdrive pedal has. They are all hand-built by Bill Finnigan (the designer), who also takes care of ordering and selling these to players worldwide, rathering than being mass produced and distributed to major music dealerships. It is also rather expensive but, as usual with boutique pedals, more than worth it. There are many unique things about this pedal - to give you a taste, Finnigan states that "the Centaur was designed, over a period of four years, to be an overdrive that works with your guitar and amp, and with the particular sound they create, rather than one that imposes its own sound... what you end up with, when kicking the thing in, is simply a bigger, more focused rendition of the sound your guitar and amp were giving you to start with." In other words, it was not designed as a stand-alone distortion unit. Most overdrives exist as preamp distortion (distortion deliberatley added to dirty up the sound) and first stage punch. The Klon dissappears into the amplifier - blending its signal into both the preamp and power amp sections. It works with the ampifier to boost, overdrive, and enrich the entire signal. Unlike other overdrive pedals, this unit has no real voice of its own - it is designed to give you more of what you already have. This unit's overdrive can't go to extreme, metal-gain levels - that's not what it was designed for. It is able to provide a transparent boost to your signal, or a harmonically rich overdrive. It loves to take a tube amp that is on the edge over the top. The Centaur seems to become part of your amplifier's tube circuits and doesn't feel or sound like you are using an outboard device. What you end up with, when kicking the thing in, is simply a bigger, more focused rendition of the sound your guitar and a????y?mp were giving you to start with. The Centaur is also a good deal more versatile than other overdrives. Each of its three controls - Gain, Treble, Output - has a very broad range, and this makes the unit capable of providing a variety of overdriven sounds with almost any guitar and amp; even the signal from very-low-output pickups, such as Gretsch Filtertrons or Danelectro "lipstick" pickups, can be beefed up effectively. The Gain control, in a unique approach to an age-old problem with overdrives and distortion pedals, is a dual-ganged pot ; two pots on one shaft. The first pot controls the amount of gain and distortion in the main gain stage, just as in any overdrive; the second pot, however, controls an entirely different part of the circuit, a part that optimizes the circuit's overall tonal response for whatever the main gainstage is generating in the way of level and distortion. This means that the Centaur, unlike other overdrives, doesn't limit you to a "sweet spot" distortion setting, one setting or a narrow range of settings that sound good with a particular guitar and amp. With the Centaur, the entire range of the control is usable, and your Strat, for example, will always sound like your Strat, as opposed to another Strat or any Strat, no matter how much or how little distortion you want from the unit. If you want no distortion at all, the Centaur has an operating mode that certain of my competitors have tried to imitate: clean-boost mode. At the minimum Gain setting, the circuit is in this mode and has enormous headroom - it won't clip even if you have high-output pickups and are really bearing down on the guitar. The unit also does a nice job of making small amps sound bigger than they are - it can turn a good Princeton or Deluxe into a very serviceable gigging amp in many clubs, or into a killer recording amp that experienced players, hearing what's on the tape, are likely to guess ????y?is something considerably heftier. Recording engineers take note: this thing projects, and with the right ambient miking, you can get some pretty astounding results. As befits its sonic qualities, the Centaur is built like a tank: its enclosure is a custom aluminum casting, and all its parts are the best that money can buy - Carling double-pole/double-throw footswitch, Switchcraft jacks, CTS pots, precision resistors and capacitorsfor tonal consistency from unit to unit, ultra-high-quality circuit boards with plated-through component holes. The units are made one at a time, by hand, by the designer (myself), and things will always be done this way - it's not possible to make something like the Centaur any other way. Each unit is extensively tested before shipment, and comes with a ten year warranty to the original owner covering everything except modification or abuse. For those who care about such things, the unit is a looker as well as a player: the casting has a sculptural aspect, a very distinctive shape that's accentuated by the burnished silver finish,which makes the casting look like a hunk of solid sterling. Dark red knobs and black silkscreening are the finishing touches.

You can read the entire article by Bill Finnigan about the Centaur's many features at the Klon homepage.