I know nothing of "Klons", but I've just had a YouTube moment, and the do sound great.
Klons are/were mysterious pedals. Apparently you had to be vetted in order to go on the pretty long waiting list for one, and they were very expensive. When it arrived, the circuit was covered in resin to prevent copying. But there was rumours of amazing tone, perhaps the best overdrive pedal available.
Philking has a real one I tried once, and I GASsed for one immediately, but really expensive on eBay. Then Juan somehow got PCBs and the circuit for the Klon and tweaked it based a real Klon to sound just the same. And now if Juan has parts we can all buy a Klone!
Theres other pedals I like more for various specialised tasks, but the Klone is the only one that works very well in all situations - with every guitar and rig. Love mine.
I do wonder what the creator of the Klon thinks about the Klones. Its meant to be a completely original design from him. At the beginning, I guess the obscurity and underground hype meant he made some good coin from it. If Juan is able to get PCBs, then I guess others can do the same so there might be a few other makers doing them.. but Juan tuned his version A-B with an original, so I have a good feeling its the most accurate.
Would love to hear Juan's comments!
One was aquired over on FreeStompBoxes back in the day when they were changing hands for around £600+, specifically with degooping in mind. We like to know what they're hiding ;) The first fabbed PCB to come out of it was Madbean's Sunking. Which you'll find in a surprising amount of boutique pedals that appeared not long after, also covered in goop... Bean wasn't so keen on this so pulled it, redesigned it all and released a completely different take on the circuit, the Kingslayer. Which is marvellous, but different.
Many others have done boards since. I tend to build on Grind Customs Chimera boards these days for the regulars and Beejive Apis boards for the small/tiny builds. The tiny builds just aren't fun in the slightest, so I don't do those any more.
You'll notice on my site that I'll not make some pedals that are commercially available for people. These are companies/people who are supprotive of the DIY community or are not arseholes. ...I'll happily make Klones for any one who wants them ;)
Without wanting to get into it too much, I very much doubt Bill came up with the circuit. He certainly doesn't understand it and has to pay people to re-engineer it for him. If he hadn't pissed off the entire DIY community he might have had a hand with that. Especially given the number of different times people have done it. As it is, he seems to be his own worst enemy. So best to leave him to it.
