King Tone Duellist Thoughts?

Has anyone played the pedal and have any thoughts? I'm curious.

the names of the sections suggest amp in a box dirt with dumble flavor? without further googling you tell me if that's the idea and I'll tell you how a steel string singer is just a modded dual showman but that a little box of transistors can't replace big output tubes and chunks of iron wound with wire feeding massive speaker enclosures...

or tell me that's not the idea and I'll look it up further and try to figure out what makes it tick for you

So apparently it's a Tubescreamer/Blesbreaker combo and it's gotten a lot of hype because it's Jesse Davey's company and it seems to be on a lot of blues players boards. Really curious how it compares to the something like the KoT.

ah.... the bluesbreaker mk1 and tubescreamer share similarities... hmm

here's a god explanation of the BB that may help you decide if 2 flavors of a good clipping arrangement are what you need :-)

https://aionelectronics.com/project/cerulean-bluesbreaker-overdrive/

to correct myself, the arrangement is a bit different yielding different results, but they're not to ground so not a distortion...

although the centaur goes tog round and is called an OD but what do I know?

Really curious how it compares to the something like the KoT.

by the way I built a king of tone years ago and liked it but gave it away.... honestly I feel better off with very off the shelf pedals for some reason LOL

EDIT: the stock mk1 bluesbreaker sounds very good already... honestly I really like the SD1 the best of all this stuff. On stage it realy works well and the mxr superbadass takes the circuit to new heights with that 100hz gyrator circuit and mid hump button to make it TS808ish. Give me that guy and a stock rat, any era and I'm cool.

one(s) further thought(S).... the whole family of soft clip and so-called transparent OD is very amp contingent. A TS is really great into a blckfaced fender... the 808 stinks into solid state and the 9 is soemwhat better but still prefers to hit ahrd into a triode.... SD1 wants a marshall or vox to shine... bluesbreakers honestly sound great through through marhsalls and tweeds and okay through smaller blackface and silverface amps but can boogie through a decent solid state too. The klon circuit always sounds best through a twin or showman to me, tames the bass, andds a smidge of crunch, works the preamp hard if you boost into it but lets it be like a great sounding 60s/70sfender at less than earsplitting volumes. But being a very colored boost with dirt blended in via a balance pot? needs tubes or it sounds FUNKY BAD to me

Okay, I have some homework to do on electronics then.

Honestly, most my home playing is done through a 15 watt Fender and I really love my EQD Westwood. I'm going to buy a KoT this year - hopefully, been on the waitlist two years now - and if I don't like it, at least I won't lose money. Honestly though, with my current amp, it's gonna be hard to beat my Westwood.

While I have your expert attention, what's your opinon on the Mesa Lonestar Special?

I'm very anti mesa but not from tone perspective... they SOUND great and generally give you a looose aproximation of a couple amp sounds and a few of their own tones... their failure rate is too high for me. Now, they stand behind their warranty well... but on the road thats bullshit. I have a show to play now.

the lonestarspecial and even the standard lonestar I found to be the 2 most musical mesas I've played followed by the trem-o-verb single rec.

Interesting. Thanks for that. So lets say, hypotheticallly of course, that I play after my kids are asleep most of the time. What amps should I think about that sound good at low volume?

something TINY.... the voxac4HW served me well when Lucian was little and napping and going to bed at a reasonable hour! Then I sold it to Narcist. Old fender champs sound great. Blackface ones are a world class pedal paltform for night time practice...

I could make you something if you want... I can rattle off a champ kit in like a day

Really? I'll definitely consider it. What's that process look like? I'm currently thinking of a timeframe of around Christmas.

So right now my 5W short list is:

• Mesa Lonestar Special
• Fender Champ
• Vox AC4HW1

basically I get a champ kit and build it, test it, mail it to you (and you ay me somewhere in teh process)... its the simplest tube amp

they don't really make a champ anyore except the clapton tweed reissue anyway, look up a champ schematic. there are hardly any parts in it

That's awesome. Do you have a specific kit you like or recommend?

How do you feel about the '57 Champ reissue?

Now I just have to try them out and see which one strikes my fancy....

I like the triode electronics kits. best transformers.... I like the champ RI, I'm not a massive pedal guy so the tweed champs are really good for me. I think the bf champ is better for pedals though. a bit cleaner, tone controls, scooped mids etc. Try an ac4though too, the new ones are hella nice. Even the less expensive PCB versions are sweet as heck.