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I recieved my KoT at the end of last week and being that I've never seen an actual extensive review on one, I decided I'd take extra effort to write my thoughts down over the next few days. I've tested it with PAF Les Paul, EVH Wolfgang (think CC bridge CC A3 neck), and a Strat with unknown single coils in neck and middle and a Super Distortion in bridge.
The settings I've found work the best are OD for both sides with the internal presence pot on the yellow side halfway up at about 9 o'clock and the red side at 7 o'clock. I also have the high gain red side option and the 4 jack version.
My first impression is that it's definitely designed for the type of person who's into boutique overdrive pedals. That's not much to state the obvious as it is to put you in the mind set of the target audience. Picture a guy in tight khakis, a flannel shirt, and who spends more on handmade guitar gear than he does on food every month. Me for context, I'm more of a fuzz guy, so this pedal isn't 100% up my ally right off the bat.
First here's what it does well:
It's got a ton of really good sounds to it. From here on out I'm going to use "good" as a shorthand for absolutely amazing. I can see why people write rave reviews about it. It's extremely dynamic in OD and boost modes, better dynamics than a lot of tube amps to be honest.
The presence control is crazy useful and can turn OD into pseudo-treble boost. Plus they are nicely tucked away inside the pedal so you don't feel the need to constantly tweak them. Also hidden away is a 9v battery clip, which is a disappearing feature on boutique pedals.
If you're a pedal board nerd, this pedal has top jacks (4 jacks is great if you're a switcher fan) and is actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Really good tone/size ratio.
I like how the controls are somewhat interactive. Adding gain gives more focus to the pedal, turning the tone up adds more distortion, the volume on the red side can be used to boost into the yellow side.
There's not really a rig where you can't get a good sound out of it. It won't necessarily be the sound you're looking for in any given situation, but there will be a great sound hiding somewhere.
Here's what it doesn't do well:
One of the things I think JHS especially does really good, and is a mark of a quality pedal is that it should be both versatile and hard to find bad sounds on. Take metal zones. They have so many good sounds but get clowned on because of how many bad sounds they have. The KoT has that to a greater extent than I thought. Anything with more than low to moderate gain is a compromise. Between red, yellow, and both channels I have not yet found a way to get a good sound on all three at the same time. Right now I've settled on yellow gets a good rhythm tone and red boosts it for leads, but it's really easy to wrestle with finding a good sound on one side only to mess up the both on sound or visa versa.
The gain knob has a narrow width of good sounds. The top 3/4 range of the gain knob is way more gain than I'd ever use for with one of these things, the high gain red side has this more. Likewise, anywhere below 10 o'clock on this thing, with all the guitars I tried, might as well be clean. The tone knob however is very good everywhere except left of 10 o'clock, which is par for the course for tone controls.
It's really easy to spend too much time fiddling with it. Because of the pedals pedigree, even if I get a great tone I have a feeling I could get one even better. That will hopefully go away with time though.
Boost mode sucks if it's not being used as a clean boost. The gain gets really fizzy really fast. That may just be a me thing though. I've seen a lot of guys get good sounds out of that mode on videos.
Also one of my pet peeves is a pedal that doesn't sound good with all settings at noon, but that's just me being weird and isn't really a reflection on quality.
Things I could take or leave:
It has a big bass rolloff which works fairly nice in a mix, but depending on your playing style I could see it lacking if you don't have someone else in the group to carry the low end. It's also fairly tricky on some instruments to get a good soft sound as the pedal really accentuates the "hardness" quality of your picking dynamics.
Also I care more about the max gain and mid gain sounds on a pedal, where this one is geared more towards the mid and low range of possible gain tones. It does what it does well, but it's not necessarily what I do well.
Biggest weakness is that the pedal doesn't really fit the way I usually play, but given I waited 6 years for this pedal and spent the rent on it, I feel I can definitely use this as an opportunity to try different styles than I'm used too. Good chance to learn.
Bottom line, this is a good pedal. Definitely buy one if you're a collector that has tons of pedals you never play. As far as tone goes, there are a lot of better pedals that are cheaper and more accessible, but this one is phenomenal if it aligns with your playing style.
I'll add more little comments as I think of them.
The settings I've found work the best are OD for both sides with the internal presence pot on the yellow side halfway up at about 9 o'clock and the red side at 7 o'clock. I also have the high gain red side option and the 4 jack version.
My first impression is that it's definitely designed for the type of person who's into boutique overdrive pedals. That's not much to state the obvious as it is to put you in the mind set of the target audience. Picture a guy in tight khakis, a flannel shirt, and who spends more on handmade guitar gear than he does on food every month. Me for context, I'm more of a fuzz guy, so this pedal isn't 100% up my ally right off the bat.
First here's what it does well:
It's got a ton of really good sounds to it. From here on out I'm going to use "good" as a shorthand for absolutely amazing. I can see why people write rave reviews about it. It's extremely dynamic in OD and boost modes, better dynamics than a lot of tube amps to be honest.
The presence control is crazy useful and can turn OD into pseudo-treble boost. Plus they are nicely tucked away inside the pedal so you don't feel the need to constantly tweak them. Also hidden away is a 9v battery clip, which is a disappearing feature on boutique pedals.
If you're a pedal board nerd, this pedal has top jacks (4 jacks is great if you're a switcher fan) and is actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Really good tone/size ratio.
I like how the controls are somewhat interactive. Adding gain gives more focus to the pedal, turning the tone up adds more distortion, the volume on the red side can be used to boost into the yellow side.
There's not really a rig where you can't get a good sound out of it. It won't necessarily be the sound you're looking for in any given situation, but there will be a great sound hiding somewhere.
Here's what it doesn't do well:
One of the things I think JHS especially does really good, and is a mark of a quality pedal is that it should be both versatile and hard to find bad sounds on. Take metal zones. They have so many good sounds but get clowned on because of how many bad sounds they have. The KoT has that to a greater extent than I thought. Anything with more than low to moderate gain is a compromise. Between red, yellow, and both channels I have not yet found a way to get a good sound on all three at the same time. Right now I've settled on yellow gets a good rhythm tone and red boosts it for leads, but it's really easy to wrestle with finding a good sound on one side only to mess up the both on sound or visa versa.
The gain knob has a narrow width of good sounds. The top 3/4 range of the gain knob is way more gain than I'd ever use for with one of these things, the high gain red side has this more. Likewise, anywhere below 10 o'clock on this thing, with all the guitars I tried, might as well be clean. The tone knob however is very good everywhere except left of 10 o'clock, which is par for the course for tone controls.
It's really easy to spend too much time fiddling with it. Because of the pedals pedigree, even if I get a great tone I have a feeling I could get one even better. That will hopefully go away with time though.
Boost mode sucks if it's not being used as a clean boost. The gain gets really fizzy really fast. That may just be a me thing though. I've seen a lot of guys get good sounds out of that mode on videos.
Also one of my pet peeves is a pedal that doesn't sound good with all settings at noon, but that's just me being weird and isn't really a reflection on quality.
Things I could take or leave:
It has a big bass rolloff which works fairly nice in a mix, but depending on your playing style I could see it lacking if you don't have someone else in the group to carry the low end. It's also fairly tricky on some instruments to get a good soft sound as the pedal really accentuates the "hardness" quality of your picking dynamics.
Also I care more about the max gain and mid gain sounds on a pedal, where this one is geared more towards the mid and low range of possible gain tones. It does what it does well, but it's not necessarily what I do well.
Biggest weakness is that the pedal doesn't really fit the way I usually play, but given I waited 6 years for this pedal and spent the rent on it, I feel I can definitely use this as an opportunity to try different styles than I'm used too. Good chance to learn.
Bottom line, this is a good pedal. Definitely buy one if you're a collector that has tons of pedals you never play. As far as tone goes, there are a lot of better pedals that are cheaper and more accessible, but this one is phenomenal if it aligns with your playing style.
I'll add more little comments as I think of them.
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