Foxpedal Kingdom V2

The Foxpedal Kingdom V2 is an analog transparent overdrive from Foxpedal, built around the circuit of the Klon Centaur. RockBoard's PedalPedia describes it plainly: "The Kingdom is a transparent overdrive that adds unicorns and fairy dust to your signal."¹ In practical terms, that means it pushes an amplifier with gain while leaving the core character of your guitar largely intact, the way the Klon did, but with two clipping switches and extra headroom the original never had.

The circuit design is very similar to the original Klon Centaur and retains many of its characteristics, according to RockBoard's PedalPedia's own product page, while including some enhancements.¹ The biggest of those is internal: unlike the Klon, the entire audio chain is run on a higher voltage spread, allowing for more headroom.¹

Where the circuit comes from

To understand the Kingdom V2, it helps to know what the Klon Centaur was trying to do. The initial idea behind the Klon, as a technical analysis by GuitarPCB puts it, "was to improve the TubeScreamer transient response and the midrange-bass frequencies in order to create" a big, open sound with a hint of tube clipping, the so-called transparent overdrive.³ When the gooped schematic was finally read, Gearnews reports, it showed the Klon "wasn't just a slightly modified Tube Screamer; it was a highly sophisticated" piece of engineering that effectively birthed the category of transparent overdrive.⁴

The original, designed by Bill Finnegan⁵, became a pedal that General Guitar Gadgets calls "the transparent overdrive that sells for thousands used"⁶, and Pedal of the Day calls "the finest transparent overdrive ever, the original Klon is shrouded in mystery, epoxy, and hype."⁷ That price and scarcity are why Klon-style overdrives, often called Klones, exist as a category, and the Kingdom V2 is Foxpedal's entry in it. Delicious Audio introduced it in 2017 as "Pedalfox's take on the Klon style overdrive: it's called Kingdom."²

The controls: clipping and overdrive switches

The Kingdom V2 keeps the Klon's familiar control set and adds two switches on top of it. Foxpedal explains both additions⁸⁹¹⁰:

For a player, the two switches do different jobs. The clipping switch allows for different hard clipping options. The overdrive switch adds soft clipping to the feedback path of the IC, allowing for earlier and smoother breakup. With both off, the pedal behaves much like the Klon circuit it is based on, since the circuit design is very similar to the original Klon Centaur and retains many of its characteristics¹².

The related Kingdom Combo V2 Overdrive expands on the same idea with a second footswitch and a boost side. Guitar Pedal X lists its full control set as "DRIVE } OD (Soft Clipping On/Off), CLIP (Hard Clipping On/Off), Tone, Level, Gain, Drive Footswitch; BOOST } Focus, Level, Boost Footswitch."⁹ On that version, the two toggles are soft and hard clipping switches, with the soft one labeled OD and the hard one labeled CLIP.⁸

How it differs from the original Klon Centaur

Three things separate the Kingdom V2 from the Klon Centaur Professional Overdrive:

• Headroom. The entire audio chain runs on a higher voltage spread than the Klon's, which RockBoard's PedalPedia says allows for more headroom, so the pedal stays cleaner longer before breaking up.¹
• Clipping options. The clipping switch and overdrive switch give you hard and soft clipping choices the original Klon never offered.¹
• Availability. The Klon is a discontinued, collector-priced pedal, while the Kingdom V2 was built as a production alternative.⁶

On tone, one reviewer's comparison is worth noting. Stefan Karlsson at Guitar Pedal X, reviewing the Kingdom Combo, wrote that "the core tone on this seems to be slightly darker than the original source."⁸ In a later roundup he called it "essentially a Klone pedal with its own distinct character and independent boost footswitch."¹⁰

What reviewers said

Guitar Pedal X's Karlsson has been a long-term owner, and his verdict on the Kingdom Combo V2 is a strong one: "One of my earliest Klones, and a really smart one, helped by Soft and Hard Clipping Mods, and with a Focused Boost on" the second side. He rated it very close to top tier among Klones, said he loves all five of his Foxpedal units, and noted he was sad the builder retired.⁹

Power and placement in a chain

The Kingdom V2 runs on 9V DC, center negative, drawing 40mA.¹ It is an analog pedal, so there is no firmware or menu diving, just knobs and switches. The true-bypass footswitch means that when it is off, your signal passes through untouched, which suits players who like to stack drives and keep the bypassed path as short as possible.¹

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