What if you were to swap out the mythical germanium diodes in a Klon Centaur overdrive pedal circuit and replace them with germanium transistors? Guitar effects pedal guru Robert Keeley asked that very question and found the answer in Manis, the new drive pedal from Keeley Electronics.
While there are some other points of difference between the Manis and the original Klon, Keeley says this does “absolutely nail the original Klon sound” – and with germanium transistors, it might just be the K-style drive that players who do not like K-style drives will like.
“Not everyone likes the Klon, okay? So if you’re one of those types, here’s the Manis pedal,” says Keeley. “What I discovered is that if you use Germanium transistors instead of the fabled Klon diodes – the germanium diodes that are in every Klon – you get a different cut-off voltage, and that increases the saturation, the compression, the sustain. So you have a Klon with a little bit more gain on tap. It’s got more second-order harmonics that sound more tube like.”
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But of course, with Keeley Electronics, you get the best of both worlds.
We got ourselves a ‘Golden Horsie’ in, and we did tons of comparison
There is a toggle switch that allows you two toggle between the germanium transistor mode, in which these Russian transistors are doing the work of the original’ diodes, and germanium diodes mode, a la the classic recipe. Keeley said they A/B’d the Manis with a reference Klon unit.
“What’s really important with the Manis is that we wanted to absolutely nail the original Klon sound, so we got ourselves a ‘Golden Horsie’ in, and we did tons of comparison,” says Keeley. “We nailed it.”
There’s more. A bass boost switch shifts the low-end frequency response down an octave and boosts the whole signal by an extra 3dB.
One of the things players loved most about the original Klon Centaur was how it mediated the relationship between their electric guitar and amp; the Manis is built in a similar spirit.
If you own a Telecaster or Strat, the bass boost feature could be super handy. Keeley describes it as the “perfect low end recovery and push for single-coil guitars”.
Elsewhere, the pedal is as straightforward as it gets, with knobs for Volume, Tone and Drive. Input and output jacks are located on the top of the pedal. You can run it in buffered or true bypass (hold down the footswitch for two seconds to toggle between modes).
It ships in buffered mode as standard with silent switching. Run the Manis on 9V or 18V DC from a pedalboard power supply.
Keeley Electronics is offering the Manis in standard Brushed Silver, Black and Gold as a Guitar Center exclusive. Each unit is designed and made in the USA, and is priced £209/$199, with pre-orders open now, shipping from Thursday, 19 June.
Never got on with a Klon? This might help. “It’s really kind of a miracle cure for those that have the Klon blues”, says Keeley.
For more details, head over to Keeley Electronics.
