Damn i like this brand. Cool, great sounding designs and lots of them. And i was surprised the schematic was up at their site. I only have a few originals, but i’m strongly tempted to get more..
Info from Catalinbread:
We combined the best elements of a Tone Bender MkII fuzz
with a Rat distortion to create something that sings like a fuzz but is
tight like a distortion. It loves humbuckers and single coils. It loves
your cranked amp and your super-clean amp.
Katzenkönig was tuned to offer a huge range of response – from a
really beautiful singing tone, to tight, harmonically-rich crunch, all
the way to fuzz mayhem.
A simple, four-knob control scheme allows you to dial in your sound quickly and without much fuss:
INPUT – Controls the input sensitivity. Turn it down when using
higher output pickups and humbuckers or to dial in your wah sound (more
on that later). Turn it up for lower output pickups or for when you want
to go over-the-top!
GAIN – Controls the gain of the second gain stage. It is not a
conventional gain control, rather, it controls the amount of negative
feedback in that stage. What does that mean for you? It means you get a
wide ranging gain control that sounds great throughout it’s entire
rotation!
FILTER – Allows you to dial in your final tone from smooth and creamy
all the way to bright and cutting. You can quickly find the sweet spot
for your rig with this control. If you are familiar with the Filter
control on a Rat then what you’ll find is that this is an even better
version of that idea!
VOLUME – Standard volume control. You’ll find that Katzenkönig sounds great turned down quiet or cranked up and loud!
To get familiar with your new Katzenkönig, let’s begin by plugging it
straight into your amp set to a clean sound with no other pedals in the
chain.
Set the controls as follows: Volume – noon, Filter – noon, Gain – minimum, Input – minimum.
Now play a bit to get a feel for how it responds. Go ahead and mess
with the Filter knob to see how it works. You’ll notice that unlike most
fuzz and distortion pedals, Katzenkönig sounds great at minimum gain
settings.
Now go ahead and start experimenting with the Gain and Input
controls. You’ll notice that they both increase gain but in different
ways. Leave one at minimum and start turning the other up. Then leave
the other at minimum and turn the other one up. And yes, cranking them
both up leads to extreme fuzz, sustain, and saturation!
At lower Gain and Input settings, Katzenkönig’s response is tight,
like a great distortion pedal. You can play chugging, palm-muted riffs
that you wouldn’t be able to get away with on a standard fuzz pedal. But
turn up the Gain and Input, and you can get those epic harmonic blooms
that you normally associate with a great fuzz pedal!
with a Rat distortion to create something that sings like a fuzz but is
tight like a distortion. It loves humbuckers and single coils. It loves
your cranked amp and your super-clean amp.
Katzenkönig was tuned to offer a huge range of response – from a
really beautiful singing tone, to tight, harmonically-rich crunch, all
the way to fuzz mayhem.
A simple, four-knob control scheme allows you to dial in your sound quickly and without much fuss:
INPUT – Controls the input sensitivity. Turn it down when using
higher output pickups and humbuckers or to dial in your wah sound (more
on that later). Turn it up for lower output pickups or for when you want
to go over-the-top!
GAIN – Controls the gain of the second gain stage. It is not a
conventional gain control, rather, it controls the amount of negative
feedback in that stage. What does that mean for you? It means you get a
wide ranging gain control that sounds great throughout it’s entire
rotation!
FILTER – Allows you to dial in your final tone from smooth and creamy
all the way to bright and cutting. You can quickly find the sweet spot
for your rig with this control. If you are familiar with the Filter
control on a Rat then what you’ll find is that this is an even better
version of that idea!
VOLUME – Standard volume control. You’ll find that Katzenkönig sounds great turned down quiet or cranked up and loud!
To get familiar with your new Katzenkönig, let’s begin by plugging it
straight into your amp set to a clean sound with no other pedals in the
chain.
Set the controls as follows: Volume – noon, Filter – noon, Gain – minimum, Input – minimum.
Now play a bit to get a feel for how it responds. Go ahead and mess
with the Filter knob to see how it works. You’ll notice that unlike most
fuzz and distortion pedals, Katzenkönig sounds great at minimum gain
settings.
Now go ahead and start experimenting with the Gain and Input
controls. You’ll notice that they both increase gain but in different
ways. Leave one at minimum and start turning the other up. Then leave
the other at minimum and turn the other one up. And yes, cranking them
both up leads to extreme fuzz, sustain, and saturation!
At lower Gain and Input settings, Katzenkönig’s response is tight,
like a great distortion pedal. You can play chugging, palm-muted riffs
that you wouldn’t be able to get away with on a standard fuzz pedal. But
turn up the Gain and Input, and you can get those epic harmonic blooms
that you normally associate with a great fuzz pedal!
