Emulating the Klon, uhh ... Soul Food

yek

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Laid my hands on a Soul Food pedal by EHX. This pedal is said to be remarkably similar to an original Klon Centaur.

I spent some time recreating some of the Soul Food's tones in the Drive block. I got pretty close, close enough for me, for now. Purists absolutely will want to finetune these.

Clean Boost with a bit of hair:
  • Soul Food: Volume 12, Treble 12, Drive 9
  • Drive block: FET Boost, Drive 7.50, Op-amp, LoCut 130, HiCut 5119, Mid 1.00 at 1373
Mild overdrive:
  • Soul Food: Volume 12, Treble 2, Drive 2
  • Drive block: FET Preamp, Drive 6.75, Op-amp, LoCut 476, HiCut 1056, Mid 1.00 at 1373
Yes, that's right, different Drive models.
 
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I picked up a Keeley D&M Drive which is essentially Klon and OCD overdrives in one box. It would be nice to have these modeled in the Axe-Fx but until then I'll be using the pedal into Axe-Fx input as it seems to work great with every amp model I've tried.

I should try and see if I can replicate the sound using the Drive block.
 
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I really like the Klon settings that were shared on here a while back... whether or not they're really like a Klon they add a nice fatness and a touch of "more" to my sound. Can't wait to try these. Thanks @yek !
 
Laid my hands on a Soul Food pedal by EHX. This pedal is said to be remarkably similar to an original Klon Centaur.

I spent some time recreating some of the Soul Food's tones in the Drive block. I got pretty close, close enough for me, for now. Purists absolutely will want to finetune these.

Clean Boost with a bit of hair:
  • Soul Food: Volume 12, Treble 12, Drive 9
  • Drive block: FET Boost, Drive 7.50, Op-amp, LoCut 130, HiCut 5119, Mid 1.00 at 1373
Mild overdrive:
  • Soul Food: Volume 12, Treble 2, Drive 2
  • Drive block: FET Preamp, Drive 6.75, Op-amp, LoCut 476, HiCut 1056, Mid 1.00 at 1373
Yes, that's right, different Drive models.

You're supposed to dip those settings in black epoxy and keep them secret :)
 
The "issue" I've been finding trying to dial in my Ceritone Centura (A pretty exact Klon clone right down to the same enclosure) as well as my Chase Tone Secret Preamp (which is a recreation of the EP-3 Echoplex preamp circuit, minus the tape delay part) is that there is a non-linear relationship between how the pedals sound over a certain part of the neck, strumming a certain way, and how any drive block setting sound, as you change your playing dynamics or hit different notes.

I can get a FET Boost, or one of my favorites the MicroBoost, to sound pretty darn similar when I A/B strumming a certain chord, but then those same settings don't respond the same to something like light fingerpicking higher on the neck. I can then adjust the drive, EQ etc to closely emulate that setting and tone, but then hitting open chords with a pick won't sound the same.

This is the same issue I run into with fuzz pedals. I can very closely nail the tone of a pedal with a certain knob setting, and volume pot setting on my guitar, but then when I change the volume pot, the tone of the pedal and the tone of the drive block emulation stop being so close.

Don't get me wrong, they both sound good, but I just don't think its possible with the existing drive block behavior to really emulate a pedal in the same way we have the amps modeled. With the amp models, the model changes very similar to how the real amp changes with adjustments to MV, drive, tone stack etc. Its a true model of the circuit and its non-linear behavior.

I don't think the drive blocks are able to do that this point in time.

The Chase Tone SP for example has a non-linear frequency specific phase shift as part of its circuit. This is one of the things that accounts for the tonal coloration of the EP3 and why so many guys used to run though them as a tonal tool, not as a delay. Some still do like Eric Johnson.

Point being though, that if the pedal your trying to match isn't just a certain level of boost, with a mid hump at a given frequency, but is instead introducing some phase shifts at certain frequencies depending on amplitude etc, your not going to be able to just tweak the mid freq and mid gain knobs in the drive block and emulate it.

You'll get close, and have a very cool and usable tone for sure, but until we start to have true circuit level modeling of specific pedals I think the drive block is going to always be just a good approximation at best.

One of the things I hope we may see in the coming years with the III is actually having some modeling changes for the effects section to where a given drive pedal will behave like-for-like in terms of knob settings, dynamics etc with a hardware pedal.


Right now I can take a Fender DRRI and set it a certain way, pick up a given guitar and if I dial in the model the same, its going to sound 99% identical. The amp modeling is that good.

What I can't do right now is set my Skreddy Mayo triangle style big muff to a some given knob settings, set the drive block controls to those same positions and have it sound the same. That isn't the end of the world, and the muff style fuzz tones in the Axe are very good, but its just not like-for-like.

Maybe it never will be, and again, that is fine, but it would be kind of cool if that really was the case.

We've had artist send their unique amps in for modeling, so it would be kind of cool to have an artist send in a specific copy of a famous drive pedal they use in their rig, and then have a virtual emulation of that exact pedal with its own unique component variances etc all modeled.
 
One other “tip” I’ve found over a lot of trying to emulate my favorite hardware pedals may be a little counter-intuitive but it’s don’t always start with a dialed-in amp setting before trying to add a drive block.

In hardware days, a big reason for using pedals, especially stuff like a boost or lower drive, was to help get more of an ideal amp tone, which couldn’t always be achieved due to volume limitations etc.

I never could achieve ideal saturation with my amps at home, just too loud, so I ran pedals to push the amp at lower volume. We are free to virtually drive the amp models anyway we want so we can get straight amp tones that already sound really good. If you go and stick a pedal, real or virtual, in front sometimes it pushes things a bit too hard.

I was used to sticking fuzz pedals into a slightly dirty Marshall and knee the level of wool I’d get with the fuzz dimed and the volume pot on 9.5.

Use those same settings into the Axe with a plexi model that’s already cooking, far hotter than I’d run the real amp at home and it’s over the top, muddy etc

I find when I tame the amp a bit, so that it actually sounds a little like it “needs” a pedal I get response that is closer to what I expect to hear based upon past experiences

To some degree with the Axe there are so many great amp tones that there’s isn’t much “need” for pedals in many cases. The amp sounds so good on its own, and that’s before you consider channels and scene modifiers, dual amps etc. I used to step on a pedal to go from clean to dirty with a single channel amp. Now I can have one amp with near infinite variability all on the fly.

But still, pedals are pretty cool, hardware or virtual lol
 
idk how close to a klon these settings are cause i've never owned or played one but they sound cool!
 
Awesome, thanks Yek. I'm in the middle of building a Klon clone. Will be cool to a/b it once im finished.
 
idk how close to a klon these settings are cause i've never owned or played one but they sound cool!

This is a great point. Even though when you a/b a real pedal and an emulation they will sound slightly different, there is no rule saying one might not actually prefer “b”, with it being the drive model. Yes you can tell it apart from “a” but I’m sure some will pick “b” every time as the subjectivity “better” tone
 
I don’t have any exact settings to share yet, however, to my ears, the micro boost setting gets the closest to my Klon tone of choice. It seems to keep the natural tone but add a nice fullness and just a touch of drive if wanted. I think it’s based off the mxr microamp, so not a new or flashy pedal but it sure does sound good!


Sometime else to keep in mind too is that when trying to emulate a pedal or tone is that with the axe there are a lot of things you can do which you can’t do with hardware

Run two blocks in parallel (or 4 with the axe III) and blend in how much dirt our getting on the highs and lows or mids independently of each other. Have a different clipping type for each etc. Find a drive pedal that can do that!
 
I had a micro boost with my old rig and really loved it. I use it a lot in the AXE as well and it is pretty spot on if memory serves, perhaps a little better even as you have much more control over EQ etc.
 
The Micro Boost (model) isn't that special IMHO. I detect no large difference between the Micro Boost model at default settings and a “null” Filter block with matched output level and HiCut at about 8.5kHz.
 
Revisiting an older thread but I recently learned something about the Klon circuit and that is the gain knob is actually a dual control pot, see “gut shot”. So what it’s doing when turned down is basically working as a clean boost, and when you turn it up, it’s adding more overdrive, so as you turn it up and get more drive, you get less clean boost.

I think this is why it’s been so hard for me to emulate because I couldn’t get the drive block to sound the same as the pedal with the gain at 9 vs 11, for example. I’d dial in a FET etc and match the gain, but then changing the pedal vs the drive block would sound different.

So.... I think the key to emulating the Klon is going to be 2 parallel blocks, set for clean boost and more of an OD, with mid boost to taste, and the drive and level controls are going to need to be dialed in inversely. Could assign it to one expression pedal even and make it sweep from clean boost to OD.

I’m not certain this will work but I think it’s my most promising lead thus far in trying to match this illusive pedal
 
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