The Return of the King (of Tone)

One of my earliest builds was a clone of the boutique Analogman King of Tone pedal. The King of Tone itself is a very sought after double overdrive pedal, with a variety of clipping options (most of which are set using internal DIP switches). The "real thing" is currently in Version 4, and on Reverb they still tend to start at around $600 for a real one and go up from there. The waiting list for an original remains long as well. My first build was in my "pre-dino" days - and I'd bought a kit from Germany that included an unpainted enclosure, the PCB, and all of the parts. I substituted some good matches for the original diodes rather than using the stock ones with the kit, though, as depending on who you ask the King of Tone has "magic diodes" much in the same way the Klon Centaur / KTR does. I'd always wanted to circle back and make a real "dino" version of the pedal, so I finally took the plunge.

Component Organizing Day and Announcement!

Every few months I've generally collected enough parts to require reorganization of the stash. At this point I have a set of parts bins for diodes, ICs, and transistors that I use to keep track of everything. I tend to try and buy in bulk when possible to keep costs down, and I prefer not to have to go on hunts while building a pedal!

Long Live the King (of Tone)!

Here's a recent project that I had a minor initial issue with, but is quickly turning in to one of my favorite pedals. This is The Knight of Tone from PCB Guitar Mania. The board is based on the King of Tone, another boutique pedal that is extremely popular. As with most out of production boutique pedals (edit - turns out it is still in production, but with a 3 year waiting list - yikes!), this one is now fairly expensive - in the $700 to $800 range for originals. Rather than sourcing my own parts, I ended up picking up the full kit from Das Musikding. You can get it with or without an enclosure, and the enclosure can be drilled or not. I went ahead and picked up a drilled enclosure and the whole thing cost me €55 - or about $65 at today's exchange rate. Not a bad savings!