Klon v. Tim

The Klon is perhaps one of the most "meh" overdrives out there, and for the life of me, I can't see it's greatness as a booster (maybe I am tone deaf...). The Tim/Timmy however work very well as a low gain overdrive, allowing all the notes in a chord to come through, and in escence, preserving the feel and tone of your guitar.

For the price and features the Klon cannot touch the Tim/Timmy. If you need the booster, and the loop then the Tim is the ticket, otherwise the Timmy will be all you need.

 

The Klon is a great clean booster and worked far better for me than the Tim or Timmy (I tried each twice) in my setup -
live in a band setting the Klon makes it all sit right in them mix.

 

D'oh! - That's the essence of this board, you've gotta love it!!!!

Best, Pete.

 

How does one form an opinion on the Klon having never tried one personally? You wrote on a another Klon thread that your opinion has been based on what you heard, not from trying the pedal yourself. You also stated you might be more interested if Pro Guitar Shop did a demo.

Here is what you said:

I am not sure how a demo can take the place of trying the pedal for yourself, however I do realize the value of having a demo to listen to when it is difficult to find a pedal to demo. I also realize it is very much an imperfect medium to convey what a pedal can or can't do with your rig. Again, I don't know how you can think you have a valid opinion on the Klon having never tried one out yourself.


To the OP:
I own both pedals and they are completely different in sound and texture.

Your own facility as a guitar player and what you are wanting to hear as a musician will push to you one or the other, or perhaps both. The only way is figure it out is to try them out. nkjanssen sums it up quite nicely in his post. There are no bests, just what works for you, in your music and in your rig.

 

I can see how you might take "I have yet to hear one in person that makes me go WOW!" out of context. What this means is that from the Klons I have heard in person by people who apparently have it "tuned" properly, none of them make me go WOW. Maybe the guys at PGS with their nice recording equipment can make it sound good?

From my experience, the Klon is "meh" as an overdrive, and you would be surprised how easy it is to make other "lesser" ODs sound like the Klon. As a booster, well, as I said before, I may be tone deaf, but I hear absolutely nothing special there either. To be quite honest, I much prefer a clean, uncoloured booster like the Catalinbread Serrano Picoso as it's added volume alone will get more from my tubes when I need it.

Maybe, if I tried it with a strat? nah, I doubt it. When the person who owns it was showing it to me, and trying to convince me of this "thing" it does, he was using a strat, and I could still hear nothing special. The other Klon I heard by another Klon suporter was with a humbucker guitar, and again, nothing to be excited about here.

Now take the Gearmanndude demo. I know the sound is not the best, and it provably isn't the best way to decide on it, and your statement above shows that you realize this. So I am confused as to where this greatness people are hearing comes from?

Is it possible that the Klons I have heard in person, by people who apparently know how to set then properly, are in fact either deffective, or just not set properly? I don't know, but I certainly don't hear greatness there, nor $500 worth of pedal coming out of that box.

 

YMMV, IMHO, etc. - the Klon sounds even better with my tele than my strat or 335 - and gave a 3D fullness to my tone that the Picoso couldn't compete. I tried that one too, at a band setting, and also the FLying Lizard and others. One other thing the Klon did those didn't was make my wah and fuzz sound better than alone or with other clear boosts. And it isn't $500.

I'm not the kind of guy who wants to be on the Klon bandwagon or spend extra $ on pedals - without the Klon I'd sound good and be used to it and fit into the mix as well - oh well, you've heard it before. There's no way I could have known how well it would work judging on either a webpage file or hearing another player using it - a lot of cofactors at work. As I've said and others as well - if it fits around your amp (17w Goodsell already working) it becomes part of the general sound of the amp when used as a boost - in my case enhancing it and making a small amp have more girth. I really consider it an adjunct of my amp. I don't miss it in small restaurant gigs - missed it like hell when rocking out in a small club or outside show.

 

I've had both.

Sold the Tim

Bought a second Klon.

 

The Klon is a great thickener in the mids for single-coils. Has a signature tone/feel that imparts heft. Hard to describe. Expensive.

The Tim/Timmy is great for adding highs/sparkle. Great clean boost, very flexible eq. Great value. I didn't bond with it for low/medium gain od, but many do.

There's obviously way more to it than that, but it's how I remember them. With a given combination of playing style/guitar/amp, either one can be great.

 

i wonder if the klon's mojo is in its eq. . . . when i hear folks talk about it, it's the PHATness that they laud the most. . . . and then i wonder if the timmy and an eq pedal would get me there if i could a/b with a klon. . . someday, i will make it over to slideman's and borrow that klon. . . . and get my timmy back :-D

 

The Tim is more transparent than the Klon. The Tim tends to sound like your amp, but louder and grittier. The Klon accentuates certain frequencies in the low mids that really warm up the tone and give it a "big" feel. To me, the Klon doesn't have great transparency, but it's got incredible clarity- I'll qualify the difference.

Most people have a good grasp of what I mean when I say transparent- no significant tonal disparities between the clean signal and the affected signal. When I say the Klon has clarity, I mean that the dynamics and attack of the amp are COMPLETELY intact (this is why the Klon sounds better through a tube amp). Anyway, this is just my two cents. I happen to love both of the pedals, and that is why I own both. I also think they are two completely different animals when it comes to overdrives, but that's just me.

 

they are very different IMHO

If I want phatness and color - KLON wins hands down over everything I tried. I also find it best w/ a tele. For filling out a tele - especially in a band situation - nothing can top it

a TIM ( which I prefer over the Timmy - for tone reasons ) is WAY more transparent and can add gain w/ out changing the inherent vibe of the set-up. For instance - a gretsch into an old vox has a sound. A KLON would screw that up - a TIM would not

 

most of the BEST pedals I have ever owned were subtle. And they did not reveal themselves until they were onstage at gig volumes.

i have owned the Klon, and have tried the Tim and Timmy, all three are great pedals, with different vibes.

 

I completely concur

 

Wouldn't it be better to have used your own hands to try the pedal?

Two people can sound completely different through the exact same guitar, pedal, amp, etc. I do not know who was trying out the pedal for you or what kind of amps you where trying it through, or how they might be as players, but nothing can substitute your own hands on experience of it right?

FWIW, I understand that you ears prefer an uncolored boost like the Serrano Picoso and that is why you might not like the colored boost the Klon gives. However, having not played one yourself, you don't have the knowledge of how the Klon works in a musical context whether live or in the studio or at rehearsal, in comparison to an uncoloured boost for you.

That is my only point. You like an uncoloured boost, but having not had the experience of using the Klon live, you can hardly have a viable opinion on the pros and cons of the Klon and how it compares to others boosts/od like the Tim.

You seem to have a negative bias towards the Klon and its supporters however. The Klon is priced Between $369 and $379 directly from the Manufacturor. It isn't a $500 overdrive pedal. That seems to be around the used price for them, as most don't want to wait for 3 months to get it direct. You might not want to spend that kind of money and that is your prerogative.

Regardless, the Klon may not be for you. I just don't think one can have an informed opinion of how a pedal works or sounds from hearing someone else play the pedal at home or wherever. You need to play it in a live musical context or at the very least crank your amp and spend some time with the pedal on your own. The Klon was designed for working musicians who can turn their amps up and doesn't sound great through an amp that is idling. FWIW, the Klon sounds great with both my Strats and LesPaul.

For myself, I find the Klon great because it gives me the greatest boost/overdrive with my amps and guitars, using my hands in the music I play. It is what I want to hear in my music. That being said, I also use a Timmy and a RC Booster because I want to hear what they bring to my music as well.

Thing is, I sound like me regardless of what pedals I plug through. I don't sound like gearmandude when I play my Klon. I sound like me and hence why trying the pedal yourself is paramount to any real understanding of how it will work for you.

The Klon is great, but it is a tool to make music and there are many other tools that are equally as great regardless of price point which I also use. If you are looking for a pedal that has greatness, that will make you sound great, then good luck. Greatness comes from the person using the gear, not from the gear itself.

In other words, I do not rely on others to make me go WOW about a pedal. I rely on myself.

 

Here's my take:

Klon - adds lower mids always (so it seems). As you turn up the gain gets more TS like but has more low end then a typical TS pedal. The treble has a certain sparkly quality to it and when using the tone control you can make it a tad too bright if your naot careful, very nice control overall. When the gain is turned up the tone remains focused and tight, some pedals get splattery, the Klon does not.

I had one about a year ago and like it but I didn't have a board and the carrying around was a hassle. I am on the fence about getting another and I could see how Tim B. would own two.

Tim - Probably the best stacking pedal and end of line eq tweaker I have ever owned. While I owned the Tim used as a always on device which was set to just raise the volume of the amp slightly. What was interesting with the Tim was even though I boosted the volume since I didn't add much gain the signal sounded even more clear then w/o the pedal. The pedal worked really well with a FDII and helped to eleviate some of the congested FD tones.

Both pedals are great but are not the same thing at all.

 

I would add that a thing I love about my Klon is how it elevates the
purposefully congested tone of a BJF Honeybee using my Tele. No other boost came anywhere in the ballbark. Wonderful combination.

 

My friend, I guess we have to agree to disagree. One of the amps used was a Mesa Boogie Mark IV (humbuckers) and the other was a Peavey Classic 50 (strat), both at practice volumes. The playing styles were blues, jazz and classic rock, and as mentioned before, nothing special...

As for the price, you should know that once you hit the $350+ range, it becomes $500 once you get the pedal across the border. That is how I place the value of the pedal, not how much it would cost to get it from the manufacturer.

 

The Klon was not made to sound it's best with a multi-channel master volume amp. If you friend had actually bought it direct, then Bill wouldn't have sold him a Klon knowing that he was using a Mesa MK IV. In fact he would state the pedal works best in to a single channel, non-master volume amp. There are some dual channel amps the Klon works well with but the Mesas are usually not one of them.

Regardless, the fact the amps were at practice volume is proof of why the Klon probably didn't sound to good to you barring your previous bias towards non-colored boosts. The amps have to be turned up for the Klon to sound it's best.

You obviously have an issue with the pricing of the Klon. I guess the Klon isn't for you. The rest of your opinions are very much biased and misinformed.

I am not sure what we are agreeing to disagree about, but so be it.