These kinds of people

Dude's going to have to spend a month just reading the manuals. Why do you want a macbook pro to plug into a pair of fucking TR8s? I have an idea, let's invent Ableton Live for the iPhone, and then listen to the mixes by plugging the iPhone into some JBLs with 10" cones.

whither microphone?

Sometimes I envy people who can drop change on serious trackmaking toys considering I use stuff that either my dad had lying around or some drum samples my friend probably obtained as warez. And like 3 freeware synths. But then I remember it took me like a year to finally learn all this shit at like basic levels. And I have the demoes to demonstrate the growing pains.

I'm kind of doing this right now since we lost most of our stuff when our practice space caught on fire. But it's all like guitars and amps and mics and stuff, not crazy complicated software. And we mostly ended up getting stuff repaired or buying the same things (just bought my third-ever Rat pedal like two hours ago) because we know what they will sound like. But it is weird trying to figure out a new guitar through new pedals in a new practice space, I don't really understand people who voluntarily try and deal with a bunch of new sounds all at once, seems overwhelming and frustrating.

I agree with your sentiment, but :

Why do you want a macbook pro to plug into a pair of fucking TR8s? I have an idea, let's invent Ableton Live for the iPhone, and then listen to the mixes by plugging the iPhone into some JBLs with 10" cones.

Eh? What's the problem? He's got a decent soundcard listed there too.

I'm just figuring that if you were going to go all the way and get active 8"s for your room, you might also want to see more than 1440 x 900 of your $2K+ worth of software packages, at a decent pixel size. My iMac came with a free soundcard that seems to work okay, but then again, I'm only running $500 worth of software, what do I know.

I kind of wanted to resurrect one of those older threads on IMM where we make fun of cover-band dadrockers with $7000 guitars and four figures of marshall wattage in their "man caves" but couldn't remember what they were called. Anyway this type of dude is the DJ-by-night version of that.

cover-band dadrockers with $7000 guitars and four figures of marshall wattage in their "man caves"

http://www.oxfordguitargallery.com/

I am definitely still surprised that people who are dropping thousands of dollars on home studios don't buy desktop computers.

The list does have an impressive nausea-inspiring quality.

I remember this from the old over-the-top dadrock gear thread. Retrieved it from Harmony Central but if you can search for this or -cult of keeley- you might be able to dig it up.

===========

Hello! My name is Lee Moore and I'm a member of the Seymour Duncan Forum, Les Paul Forum and Fender Forum. You can find me there under the handles: Lee_Moore and dlmooreiii.

Since most people don't submit their names with their reviews, I'm changing the trend and am going to tell you about myself before I talk about the Klon.

First, I'm an Investment Banker in NYC and I live/commute from CT. I used to be a full-time musician (~11 years ago) and have played on and off with bands throughout the last decade.

In my childood youth (8-18), I was a Jazz Drummer for 10 years and a good one at that; I hit professional at 17. During that peiod, I became very akin to hearing fine Classical, Jazz and Fushion music. My instructor, Robin Beauchamp (Savannah, GA) is a world class Trumpet Player and he was heavy into the Yellowjacks, Chick Corea, Dave Weckle, Brecker Brothers, & various members of the soon to be "GRP Allstars".

My highschool Quintet started playing that type of music as freshmen and they only got harder as the years passed by - songs such Spain, Storm Warning, Oleo, Cherokee, you name it. If it was fushion and hard, we did it.

So my taste for difficult music, tone and mix of instruments in a band is still very fine tuned. I say this because my review of the Klon is coming from a very "skilled and versed drummer, as well as a decent guitar player". I believe that I hear the fine nuances of tone and texture - hence, I have a good feel for the Klon and its capabilities.

East of Use:
Extremely straight forward and just having all the knobs at Unity is a perfect setup for 99% of rigs.

Sound Quality : 10
Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they?
Are certain effects (distortion, chorus, ...) very good? Very bad?
What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with?
Is it noisy? On what settings?
Are the effects weak or do they always sound great?
What amp are you using it with?
The Sound Quality is unmatched for its intended purpose. The intended purpose is to get inside of the amp you're using and "add more of it". It is not a circuit designed to create its own distortion and color your amp in a different way - it is a circuit that will give you more or less of your amp's tone and output. That is it; nothing more, nothing less.

So what is the advantage of having this circuit?
Well, if you have a kick-ass amp that you prefer to plug straight into (nothing in between), this is perfect pedal for you if you want unadulterated clean volume, additional treble or more of the AMP's gain. Again, if you turn on the Klon, you are ONLY getting more of the amp's tone, nothing else. The Klon does not have a color of its own.

So, what is an example of using the Klon?
At the moment, I'm using a 2006 "Fully Customized" '59 VOS with Custom Shop "Duane Allman Clones" from Maricela Juarez. The guitar also has a Tonepros Locking Bridge, 6100 Frets, Ivory Nut and a full RS Relics Super Pot Setup (all pot values are over 600K). The RS Set also includes their new Hovland (made for RS) Musicaps at .015 neck and .020 bridge. A superb combination if I say so.

For amps, I'm running a 50W Blockhead w/ EL34's and an SLO 100 with the Haynes, Demartini and Depth Mod.

For cabinets, I'm using two Blockhead 2x12's loaded with JBL D120F's, as well as a Blockhead 4x12 with the new Celestion Heritage 20W Clone's.

Plugging my VOS '59 into the Klon and then the SLO and Blockhead produced absolutely stunning results. If anyone has heard Warren Haynes tone via Gov't Mule, the Klon and SLO absolutely nail Warren's tone (regardless of which pickups you're using). I can pull all of my recent bootlegs of Gov't Mule and can get his live lead tone extremely easily with running the SLO preamp gain at 3, master volume at 5 and having all the Klon's controls at Unity. When you engage the Klon, you suddeny have his version of "Living Loving (Maid)" from Led Zeppelin. And, depending on how he's feeling that night (Live Setting) in terms of going high-gain or low gain, you can get the same tone (Klon engaged) as Bad little Doggie, Blind Man in the Dark and various solos throughout the show. It is just awesome because I recently bought that SLO used from a friend and it sounds phenomenal.

Running the Klon through the Blockhead, we just demo-ed it on the clean channel, which works like a standard '68 50W Marshall as you turn the Volume Up. With the Volume at 4-5 on the Blockhead, you get a great clean tone that is on the verge of breaking up. When you engage the Klon, with the Gain dimed and the Level and Tone at Unity, the amp turns into a Marshall Flame Thrower!!! All the sudden we had more gain than we knew what to do with!!! It was just phenomenal. I ended up pulling the gain back to Unity, but it was so cool to hear the maximum gain from a 50W Marshall with the click of a switch.

Why was their so much gain?

Many people say that the Klon is a wimpy overdrive with no gain whatsoever. Well, if you understand that the Klon's circuit attaches itself to the internal circuit of the amp, you'll realize that IF there is natural Tube distortion hiding in the "Clean Channel" of the Amp, the Klon will find it and absolutely exploit it! Same thing with the lead channel. If you have a mild crunch on the lead channel, the Klon will find the rest of the gain and really maximize it.

Ossie at Blockhead (and I) were absolutely amazed at how much gain popped from the Clean Channel Blockhead with the volume on 4-5. It was stunning and Ossie (owner of Blockhead) said that he "now" understands why ALL of his professional customers (such as Steven Tyler and Brad Whitford from Aerosmith) use the Klon on their pedal boards.

Quite simply, if you are using great amps, it simply adds more of the good stuff.

And, it doesn't have to be distortion that you are adding. You can use it as a pure clean boost for weak pickups (like old Danelectro Lipstick Pickups) or as a clean boost for Jazz Amps, etc.

Sound Quality is 11 !

I kind of like people like the guy mentioned in the original post. In a year, all that stuff will be sold cheaply on craigslist, and barely even used.

When I was w/the covers band we played at this gig where an audience member turned up w/a PRS fancy limited edition Carlos Santana guitar that was supposedly worth tens of thousands of pounds or something. The (then) guitarist played it for a couple of numbers, he told me after the gig it played like shit and had most likely never even had the string changes.

I see guys like this on electronic music fora all the time, some of them seem like nice guys, it only raises my ire when they start telling other people what to buy or what they should be doing w/what they've bought, based on their experience of having loads of spare cash and blowing it on music gear that they never actually write any music or perform live with.

I used to blow up at these people on the homerecording.com bb when someone would come on and ask for a recommendation for a cheap vocal mic and they would say "oh well you can get a cheap mic but you get what you pay for so you should really pay $2,000 for this telefunken thing" instead of just answering the fucking question and telling them to get an sm57.

The intended purpose is to get inside of the amp you're using and "add more of it".

SO AWESOME, SO STUPID.

I really don't understand how anybody who actually listens to and enjoys music can say something like "you get what you pay for" regarding equipment. I think it's the utter incomprehension or ignorance of musicianship or the role of inspiration that these people seem to possess that gets to me more than anything, like, uh, sure Celine Dion and kd lang and Shania DO use golden elf-enchanted Neumann U87s built according to Da Vinci's original blueprints, whatever, have you HEARD their RECORDS?

Pure Boost For Weak Pickups Part III:
Running The Klon Through The Blockhead

If there is a better example of the law of diminishing returns than a $2000 dollar mic, I'm not sure I know what it is.

xpost running the blockhead through the Klon through the Blockhead

I'm using a 2006 "Fully Customized" '59 VOS with Custom Shop "Duane Allman Clones" from Maricela Juarez. The guitar also has a Tonepros Locking Bridge, 6100 Frets, Ivory Nut and a full RS Relics Super Pot Setup (all pot values are over 600K). The RS Set also includes their new Hovland (made for RS) Musicaps at .015 neck and .020 bridge. A superb combination if I say so.

Indubitably.

Fortunately, the only times I have to deal with these people in my shop is with vintage effects pedals, because our brands aren't cool enough for them.

Hmmm, I remember my old vintage pedals. Sometimes I'm glad they were lost or broken. Have an original EH Black Finger which EH's founder once admitted didn't sound that good and wasn't popular. It had its uses but now that it doesn't really work anymore I'm not moved to have it fixed.

I had a Fender fuzz-wah of which the wah-side "wore out." I never had that happen before but it was based on string pulleys -- actual string -- which stretched and slid after a few weeks of use, rendering it kind of useless.

The guitar also has a Tonepros Locking Bridge, 6100 Frets, Ivory Nut and a full RS Relics Super Pot Setup. So if you don't get the same sweet vintage tones out of the Klon as I did, you should probably think about installing better frets.

Ivory Nut
Relics Super Pot

these are items from a japanese video game and I claim my $5

From a sign in a studio in Indiana:

"It's the EAR not the GEAR"

I say this 90 or 91 times a day.

"RS Relics Super Pot Setup (all pot values are over 600K). The RS Set also includes their new Hovland (made for RS) Musicaps at .015 neck and .020 bridge."

RS Guitar Works is a local place around here, not really a guitar shop as a mailorder business that also does guitar building and restoration. They do some pretty cool stuff out of that shop. I know a couple people that either work or have worked over there. I've been to their shop a couple of times and each time saw some crazy vintage stuff laying around. They have restored some old guitars for Rick Nielson, Joe Perry and others.

Tweaking around with pot values and capacitors can make an audible difference tuning in the sound of a guitar.