Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Ugly Truth About Tone City King of Blues



If you suffer from GAS as I do, then you are probably aware of the influx of pedals from china. I'm not talking about BOSS, or Digitech, or Mooer, or Mod Tone or any of the other pedal brands that manufacture overseas. As I remember, it started with Joyo. They made a brand for themselves by mostly copying other pedals and rebranding them, all at discount prices. There has been several others to come about. These pedals have a bit of a stigma already. The first time I ordered a Joyo pedal, the wrong pedal came, and customer service was so bad that I opted to sell the pedal outright instead of returning it. There has been several brands to come about since, and service and quality seem to be improving as well. However Tone City don't seem to be turning out the 'same old stuff' as these other brands. When I first saw their pedals, I did think they were just shined up Chinese copies. To start, you can find lists of the pedals that most of their micro-pedal like is emulating. What caught my attention was their release of their larger, seemingly more original, pedals. I learned of these when I saw my favorite two Brits fool around with them:

Chappers and The Captain are amusing to watch and their production quality is nearly unmatched on YouTube. Something that you have to remember is that they are representing a store. This store sells the products that they are demonstrating. Bare in mind that it would not be beneficial for them to complain about or criticize these pedals. They are going to speak favorably about them, but one thing that Lee 'The Captain' Anderton said made my ears perk up. Most of these dual button Tone City pedals are voiced like very particular amps. All except one, one is just called, "King of Blues". Lee mentioned that he thought that it could be a aNaLoG MaN King of Tone clone. I decided to find out for myself.

I Haven't Played A King of Tone

So this first one is telling on myself. I haven't had a chance to play through one of the more iconic boutique pedals. I have listened to many high quality demonstrations, but I know that there is a lot missing from these. There is no way of sensing the attack sensitivity or feeling how the pedal reacts with the amp. I will say that I've heard a wide range of tone from this one pedal. Obviously the amp these pedal being played through are very important, also the guitar and anything else that is in-line with the pedal. So everything taken with a grain of salt, the KOT is a full sounding flexible overdrive. It is capable of clean-ish 'transparent' boost and thick saturated overdrive. So I may not have played one of these pedals, but I've spent a lot of time researching just what makes this pedal so sought after.

The Pedal Has A Mix Message

Several descriptions of this pedal include that the first stage of this pedal is a straight Klon copy. Stating the the second stage is an 'original' design. I find this a little over simplified. I also think that this description is a little lazy. However, you can't dismiss it entirely. Tone City makes a spot on Klon copy in the 'Bad Horse' pedal. The famous circuit shrunk down just like the Tumnus from Wampler. This is completely likely, however, the KOT and the Klon have similar features as it stands, so the comparisons between each of these pedals may not be totally baseless. I've recently put the King of Blues pedal against every Klon circuit I could get my hands on, and my verdict is that it may share characteristics, I can't say that its a direct copy of the Klon. For one, the Tone knob works like a tone knob (low pass filter) rather than a treble boost. The amounts of gain are similar but the output from the pedal is notably less. The King of Blues of much warmer than any Klon or Klone that I've ever played. From what I've heard of the Tone City 'Bad Horse' (klone) these are not the same circuits.

If It Is A KOT Clone, Then I Have Bad News

Let's say that this is a KOT copy. The real deal goes for north of $300. That's three times the price I paid for this pedal. That's KTR money. Sure, there are other pedals that fetch that kind of money, but what is really striking is that the pedal is only so-so. I do like the pedal. It is capable of several good sounds, and it is really flexible. Two 'channels' make it a great option to handle your overdrive tones. But, if this is a actuate copy of the famous pedal, then I don't see what is so great about it. I'm able to do everything this pedal does with a couple of other overdrives already on my board. This might have had the appeal at the beginning of the boutique boom, but now it's just riding the way of hype from its glory days.

Conclusion

This is a fine pedal. If you are looking for a multi-stage low/medium gain overdrive then this might be the thing for you. I'd put it above a Fulltone Fulldrive (a pedal that I don't really care for all that much), but I'm probably not going to replace what I already have on my board with this. There might be certain situations that I'd prefer this pedal to others, like if I wanted to run a small-ish board for some running around, but it fall short of the litany of pedals that occupy my board. Its good, but it's not "sell all your pedals now and get one of these" good.



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37 comments:

  1. I think That Pedal Show got it right. It is to the King of Tone what the Soul Food is to the Klon: a much cheaper, short cut way of getting into the ballpark without being any kind of an actual clone. The King of Tone has a ton of flexibility in 3 settings from boost to OD to distortion, and internal trim pots, on both sides. King of Blues has one flatter response OD side and one mid-hump OD side and that's that.

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    1. Hi Sarah, where did you learn so much about the history of pedals and which copied which?

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    3. Just a quick note about the Klon. It's actually an overdrive not a distortion. The clipping at most gain levels comes from the opamp, not the diodes to ground, except at the highest gain levels:

      http://www.coda-effects.com/p/klon-centaur-circuit-analysis.html

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    4. The first mesa's were fender champs with an added gain stage.

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    5. That would be a Fender Princeton, not a Champ

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  4. It's great when the comment section becomes a better read than the article it's posted on!

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  5. I have never heard anyone say that the DOD 250 and the Klon are similar circuits outside their basic operation let alone that the Klon is a mod of the DOD. Do you have any verifiable source for this information other than your cousin?

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  8. I have read up. And I still have never heard that a Klon is a modded DOD 250. A car is a modified motor cycle arguably. But it's also very much arguably not. The Prince/King of Tone only require switching out a few minor components. What you're describing is the difference between a Harley and a Hyundai. Sure, operatively they both share a lot because they both of combustion engines fueled by gasoline. But that doesn't make one a "mod" of the other. Do you have an actual article or something you could cite showing that Bill Finnegan and co were working from a DOD 250 or that the circuits are similar in any meaningful way other than that they are both overdrive circuits?

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    1. I mention the King of Tone to point to what a "moddified" version is. You take a Bluesbreaker V1 pedal, flip out a couple of components on the same PCB, and you've got a Prince of Tone. You take a DOD 250 on the other hand and you can flip minor components all day but you'll never have a Klon from that.

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  9. No, it's not just semantics. The Klon is no more a DOD 250 than a motorcycle is a car. Whereas the Prince of Tone is as much a Bluesbreaker as a Toyota Corolla is a Geo Prizm. Motorcycles and cars both run on gasoline combustion engines. Klons and DOD 250s are both overdrive circuits. But that's where it ends. There is no evidence that Bill Finnegan and co started with a DOD 250 and you've offered no links or proof to show that the circuits are clones of one another. It's the same case with the claim above that a Bluesbreaker V1 is just a Tube Screamer, which it isn't. They're as vastly different circuits as a BMW engine and a Hyundai engine. Now what is similar are Prince of Tone and Bluesbreaker V1. you can take a V1 Bluesbreaker and turn it into a Prince of Tone without having to add much, just swap some pieces out and switch some wiring around. You CAN'T turn a DOD 250 into a Klon or vice versa without fundamentally rebuilding everything the way you would have to do to turn a motorcycle into a car or a car into a motorcycle. Sure, they're based on similar basic principals, but they aren't based on each other directly. Unless you have some citation to prove otherwise. I feel that this is all very worth highlighting because other commenters above have said they find the comments saying that a V1 Bluesbreaker is just a modded Tube Screamer helpful, which couldn't be further from the truth.

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  11. The "do your own research" counter argument has always been a silly one. I have done my own research, obviously, or I wouldn't know enough to object. I understand the types of clipping circuits involved. My asking you for proof is exactly that. The onus is on you to support the claims you are making with more than hearsay. Yes, the Klon and DOD 250 use the same style of clipping. Does that make them the same circuit or one a copy of the other? Not in the least! The car vs motorcycle analogy stands. To say that all gas combustion engines are the same and all diesel combustion engines are the same is not only counterproductive but misleads potential vehicle purchasers. That's my complaint here. Sarah's comments above suggest that every hard clipping circuit and every soft clipping circuit, etc., are all just the same thing and interchangeable. While they use the same basic clipping principals between the various iterations of those types of circuits, it's unproductive to say that any variation of any of the basic ways of achieving overdrive/distortion are all analogous to each other. Yes, cars and motorcycles both typically use the same type of gas combustion engine at their core. But they are vastly different.

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  12. It reminds me a bit of an old Buddhist story. I can't find a copy of the story at the moment, so I'll have to give it a go from memory. But this wheat farmer comes into town to sell his grain. While there, he stops in a patisserie and buys a cupcake. He compliments the baker on her skills and asks what the cupcake is made from. When he hears the primary ingredient is flour, he stops her. "I'm a master baker then" he declares "Because I create the wheat." He leaves the bakery never learning the recipe for the treat but unwisely declaring himself an expert on it because he knows what's at its heart.

    Technically bread and beer are the same thing and one could probably be "modded" into the other with some work and a few extra parts and pieces. But that doesn't make them analogous.

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  14. It's not a cop out at all. I have done my own research. And I CLEARLY state that the Klon and DOD 250 are based on the same style of clipping. Both are gas engines, not diesel. But that doesn't make them the same vehicle.

    You continue to fail to point to anything showing that Bill Finnegan intentionally based the Klon on the DOD 250. Then you ask me to prove a negative by demanding I bring the proof that he did NOT base it on that when there's no proof he did. See where we go with that?

    I assumed Sarah was you or you were this cousin. It's pretty obvious. And I get that you think you've got this all figured out and no one else does. But the truth stands that saying a DOD 250 and a Klon are the same thing is not productive nor accurate. They use the same style of clipping, but that's about where it ends. If someone is shopping for a Klon, they're probably not going to be happy with a DOD 250. And that's why it's counterproductive to run around claiming all pedals of one style of clipping are really all the same thing.

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  17. Your responses are unreasonable.

    Your (or Sarah's) original post here says "I'd say that probably 90% of all gain pedals are clones, and that's not a bad thing. What I do hate is massively overpriced clones passed off as something new."

    Prior and after that you (or Sarah) detail how the KoT is a clone of the Bluesbreaker which you then say is a clone of the Tubescreamer, which, as we've discussed, is inaccurate.

    And you also say in that same post that "The Klon is a distortion which is a modded Dod 250, which is an almost identical clone of the MXR Dist+." I've removed all the parenthetical statements for brevity.

    Saying that the Klon is a modded DOD 250 and that 90% of all pedals are overpriced clones in the same breath suggested to this reader that you were saying the Klon is an overpriced DOD 250 mod. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, and perhaps I misunderstood your intent.

    As I've said, I'm familiar with the style of clipping that the Klon uses. This does not make it a modded clone of the DOD 250 in the least. Bill could have been working from an MXR Distortion. Or his MIT designer could have just been familiar with various ways of achieving guitar clipping and run with this style for various reasons having never laid a hand on a DOD 250 or MXR. There's no reason to believe that he was working directly with either.

    That aside, there's also no reason to say that a Klon is an overpriced modded clone of a DOD 250. Whether Klons are overpriced or not, it should be noted, is not what I'm questioning in the preceding statement.

    It's also worth noting, while we're at it that your (or Sarah) saying "I wouldn't compare this to a Klon. The KOT is 2 slightly modded Marshall Blues Breakers in one box." is juxtaposing two different things. Again the KoT and the King of Blues are not the same thing, nor is one a clone of the other. To my understanding, the King of Blues IS a Klon clone not a KoT clone, though it shares some aesthetic principals with the KoT.

    As to my age—I am an 8 year old labrador mix.

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  18. For anyone that does want a useful discussion of various styles of clipping that doesn't say all pedals are just mods of all other pedals, this is a pretty good intro—https://youtu.be/5iM6ZdDLRP8?t=12m17s

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  19. Has anyone checked out the Bogner Burnley treatment of a overkill JCM 800 distortion. It uses a Neve transformer. The transformer really does make a subtle but BIG difference. Having loads of distortion with what I reprieve as headroom is awesome.

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  20. A clone of this is a clone of that....
    Got news for you all: even a brand new plain old boss or ibanez pedal is a clone. The pedals I bought as a teenager decades ago are not the same quality or components as their brand new counterparts. I can feel a difference in turning the knobs and using the inputs and more important I can hear a difference in sound. So... my contention is if its not the same thing, I'd call it a cheap clone same as any of these other Chinese made cheap clones.
    Use your ears. If it sounds good, it sounds good.
    Who cares if it sounds the same as something else or if it used the same schematic. No one coming to hear your band is going to say, yah, the band is alright... but he's using a cheap clone overdrive.

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  22. Just a random person who dropped in on the argument here...

    To Aaron: you must be either blind, mentally handicapped or simply too rooted in what you want to believe for you to argue something this childishly. I mean the guy has literally even given you some direct links to show you the facts and you are clearly out of your depths in terms of electronics.

    This thread may be at least a year old but reading it infuriated me so much just with your childish ignorance. Especially after the other guy so platonically went through each specific point he made that you've misinterpreted and/or misrepresented.

    Writing this was therapeutic for me. It had to be done after reading what can best be described as an argument between an electronics engineer and a crying screaming child with their fingers in their ears to prevent the influx of facts.

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  23. So, there's a Tone City KOB on ebay now, should I buy it or spend a year researching where the bloody circuit originated? Basically, do the damn things sound any good??

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  24. I just ordered one. I'll let you know.

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  25. Pedal is OK; truth is about clones..all of them are clones with added knobs, who cloned whom does it matter? What it matters no need to overpay any of those mambo jumbos boutique rubbish, reason why some of westren ''boutique'' builders hate Asian is simple ☺ - they make same quality or better pedals which cost usually from 20$ up to 50$ in rare occasions go above but each time they give more for $ a lot more. Tone City is great pedal no doubt in that, cheers.

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  26. The words of a person who clearly cannot read a schematic.

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  27. Do you still Think it is good? And where Can I but it? My son realy realy wants one fore his 15 years of birthday.

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  28. 1st i wish to say this is great blog, can't remember that i saw any better in recent years with well written text. I tried it and it is the great pedal, to be honest i made mistake not to grab one for that small amount when it was sold here. Was waiting for to long, no matter that i made some of my own pedals still i like a HQ pedals for an OK price.

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