At this point, the Klon
Centaur has achieved legend
status—the perfect storm of
excelling at a function and
scarcity have sent prices
through the roof. There’s no
doubt that the Klon Centaur
does a great job boosting
just the right frequencies to
make a guitar sound great
and jump out in the mix. But
just like a sports team that
is fantastic year in and year
out, like Duke Basketball or
the New England Patriots,
such success tends to create
a binary atmosphere; lovers
gonna love and haters gonna hate. Although in this case, lovers are gonna clone. Sure,
some are going to add their own special functionality to the circuit, like VFE did with
the Merman. VFE took a pedal with three controls and provided it with six so as to offer
extra flexibility to the circuit. Then you have the folks over at J. Rockett Audio Designs
who focused on making the equivalent of a note-for-note cover of the original with their
Archer. And then you have Wampler Pedals who went all Wayne Szalinski on us and shrunk
the circuit down into a 1590a enclosure for the Tumnus. Even as we went to press, Mojo
Hand FX was serving up a Texas-inspired take on the Centaur with its Sacred Cow. Any
way you slice it, 2015 was clearly the Attack of the Klons!
24
TONE TALK //
8 Ways the Pedal Game Changed in 2015