If you’ve found a tone that you’ve finally dialled in with just the right combination of guitar, pickups, and amplifier, but feel that it just needs a bit more “oomph” to take it over the top? If you love high-gain distortion or fuzz pedals but wish there was a way to accentuate leads on them while not adding too much more gain? Then it may be time to add a transparent overdrive pedal to your pedal board.
| Features: | Klon Centaur | Marshall Bluesbreaker Mk1 |
|---|---|---|
| Price: | $2400+ | $540 |
| Performance: | High | High |
| Frequency Range: | High | High |
| Versatility: | High | High |
Klon Centaur
If you were to ask a guitarist that owns a Klon Centaur overdrive pedal about its tone range, you would either get the response that it does “very little” to “everything.” Although, the more time you spend with the pedal, the more you’ll find it difficult to turn the thing off without experiencing a sense of loss. It’s no wonder the pedal has become highly sought after by guitarists since its production ceased in 2009.
The Klon Centaur overdrive pedal was developed by Boston native Bill Finnegan and first sold in 1994 after several years of development. The pedal was the result of Finnegan’s goal of adding a little juice between his Telecaster and the Fender Twin Reverb he habitually gigged with. The ubiquitous Tube Screamer’s midrange hump and spongy response just wasn’t for him. So, he decided to create an overdrive pedal that would be clear, transparent and articulate while adding a thickening, characterful boost that wouldn’t affect the tone of his guitar and amp.
Performance
Lacking a clear sound of its own, the Klon’s Centaur pedal allows tube amps to hit the overdrive sweet spot at lower volumes without slathering some synthetic solid-state “tube distortion” sound over the top of the signal. When you have the gain knob low and volume control set to unity gain, the Klon is nearly undetectable when switched on, however, it still brings a subtle sweetness to the tone. Once the gain has been increased, everything gets richer, deeper and more three-dimensional, adding magic that can leave your guitar sounding dull and uninspired once you switch the thing off again. That being said, the Klon centaur is never entirely off as the pedal has a buffered, rather than true, bypass as the guitar signal always passes through part of the circuit.
Price
Finnegan stopped the production of the Centaur overdrive pedal in 2009, having hand-built an estimated 8,000 units in its 15 years of production. Since then, the centaur has become the most sought-after pedal in the world, finding its way into the hands of some of the world’s best guitarists – including Jeff Beck, John Mayer and Joe Perry. Therefore, you shouldn’t be surprised to see the unit fetching over £3,000 on the second-hand market, and that figure continues to rise.
Marshall Bluesbreaker Mk1
There are few overdrive pedals online that spark as wide or as varied a debate as the Marshall Bluesbreaker MK1. Released in the early 1990s, the Mk1 Blues breaker was an attempt to create a portable, relatively affordable overdrive pedal that could replicate the sound of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers playing through Marshall’s valve amps in the early sixties. With the popular transition from valve amps to solid-state transistor amps was underway, the pedal represented an attempt by Marshall to capitalise on the distinct difference in tone between the two.
Overall, you can get some truly amazing sounds out of the Bluesbreaker MK1. However, it’s important to note that it won’t just give them to you. This is an effects pedal that will ask a lot of you, although it can be very generous in return.
Sound
You must be wondering, what kind of tone does the BluesBreaker achieve to be worth the high price on the used market? To be honest, that’s up to the player. As with most overdrive pedals, you have your gain, tone, and level knobs that control how much overdrive you want to inject into your amplified guitar tone. Owners of the BluesBreaker have suggested that you wouldn’t know it’s on until you get almost maxed out on the gain control. Even when the gain control is almost maxed out, it isn’t that drastic of a change to the guitar’s normal tone, but what you get is a very dynamic edge of breakup tone that’s sensitive to your right-hand picking attack.
Conclusion
This is tough to make a verdict on because both pedals have become such legendary status, and in many ways, they serve the same purpose.