Hi all, a very merry Christmas to you and all of your families. I've had a great time with my own family and friends and I ended up with a new addition to the already overstuffed pedal collection. It's a really (really really) cheap Golden Horse overdrive by Mosky, £22 delivered at this moment in time. But it's a Klon clone which puts it into a different league for me. I'm ultra critical of the stupidity of guitarists paying £150 for something which costs about £10 to put together based on already done and dusted development work, and that is what too many pedals out there are. And the more people gobble them up the more the makers see the opportunity for hiking their prices even further. Even the Klon clones like the J Rockett Archer are hugely overpriced, good pedals though they are. And mustn't forget the original Klons are now going for upwards of $5,000. The original first unit just sold for $500.000! That is where we are heading.
I came across the Klon circuitry a while back and was immediately impressed by the fact that it has had a lot of thinking applied. It relies on an approach which I have used myself in the past with a couple of my own pedals, that of the "Clean/Overdrive Blend" idea. And then I found out that the Klon was actually designed by "proper engineers" (MIT) and not just a guitarist with a head for a bit of circuitry and a wallet waiting to be filled. It is an awesome piece of gear not even considering the price. It really has changed the way I view using pedals and my amp.
I would genuinely recommend anyone who is considering a Klon clone to add it to the list of potentials and don't be put off by the price, or by the reviews slating it because it is cheap. One even insisted it had broken while being reviewed but the daft 'apporth just didn't know how to use it. They prove that price is no marker of good gear. I love the little Golden Horse so much I'm currently designing my own PCB for an original Klon circuit to experiment with. I have also found a PCB manufacturing company who make PCBs from your uploaded Gerber files for silly money delivered to the door. Result!
Anyway, hope you all got your new bits of gear and are having a good time with them. Here's to next year and a few interesting threads to come.
I came across the Klon circuitry a while back and was immediately impressed by the fact that it has had a lot of thinking applied. It relies on an approach which I have used myself in the past with a couple of my own pedals, that of the "Clean/Overdrive Blend" idea. And then I found out that the Klon was actually designed by "proper engineers" (MIT) and not just a guitarist with a head for a bit of circuitry and a wallet waiting to be filled. It is an awesome piece of gear not even considering the price. It really has changed the way I view using pedals and my amp.
I would genuinely recommend anyone who is considering a Klon clone to add it to the list of potentials and don't be put off by the price, or by the reviews slating it because it is cheap. One even insisted it had broken while being reviewed but the daft 'apporth just didn't know how to use it. They prove that price is no marker of good gear. I love the little Golden Horse so much I'm currently designing my own PCB for an original Klon circuit to experiment with. I have also found a PCB manufacturing company who make PCBs from your uploaded Gerber files for silly money delivered to the door. Result!
Anyway, hope you all got your new bits of gear and are having a good time with them. Here's to next year and a few interesting threads to come.