Hail to the King, Baby!

Some of you might remember that in September last year I built myself a King of Tone clone. Since then I've had trouble dialing in a tone that made me happy. I'm glad I built it, I'm overjoyed to have it, but it sounded extremely brittle and harsh no matter how I adjusted the tone control. While searching for good KOT settings I was reminded there are trimmers inside to adjust that sort of thing. Duh! So, I decided tonight I was going to see what I could dial up. When I popped off the back cover I noticed the trimmers were already maxed out, much to my dismay. After a brief pity party I decided to twist them the other way around to see just how brittle this thing got. To my surprise the treble started to disappear. HUZZAH! I'm an idiot!

On the red channel I've set the trimmer completely the opposite way I had it, which gives me a nice usable sweep on the external tone control. It can go from fairly dark to decently bright, offering a bit of treble bite without being ice picky. I also have both dipswitches engaged so it's a nice distortion. On the yellow channel I set the trimmer as close to the middle as possible, because the yellow channel is really just setup to be a basic "Breaker" style tone. Since I decided to fiddle with the guts I'm actually loving this pedal more than I ever have. There are so many options with this circuit. No wonder it's so highly regarded and desired. Sorry Analog Man, I'm still too cheap to afford a real one, and too impatient to wait on the list.

Addendum: I originally had a 4558 in the red side and an LP353 in the yellow side. I purchased some hallowed 4580s to see if it made much of a difference. Final verdict? They're ok. I can't really tell much of a difference. I should have expected this outcome, but sometimes you have to prove it to yourself. I needed opamps, and my supplier had 4580s, so I tried them. I can hear a tiny bit of a difference, but it could just be wishful thinking if anything at all. If nothing else I can say my clone is as close to the original as I could possibly make it.