Seven years is too long
How a waiting list started a workshop
The King of Tone is a dual overdrive, built by hand at Analog Man in Connecticut. Among transparent overdrives it is the reference — the pedal other pedals get described with. I wanted one. So do enough other people that the waiting list has its own tracking site [1]; when I checked, the realistic estimate stood north of seven years.
Seven years is a long time to want a pedal.
The realization
A pedal is not a secret. It is a circuit in a folded steel box, and circuits can be read. The King of Tone in particular has been traced, discussed, and documented by the DIY community for years. The parts cost very little. What stood between wanting one and having one was not seven years — it was a soldering iron and the willingness to be wrong a few times.
So I built one.
The king gets a king
A circuit with this reputation deserved better than a bare enclosure. My build got artwork: a crowned king, silver-bearded, the crown grown through with coral branches and jewels in violet, turquoise and amber. Designing that image took longer than populating the board, and it was worth it — it set the rule every pedal from this bench still follows: if the circuit is iconic, the box has to be too.
The first batch
The King of Tone build did not stay alone. Next to it came a Kingtone Duelist — the other transparent dual overdrive with a serious reputation — with its own artwork in the same spirit. Two circuits, two painted boxes, into the hands of musicians around here.
What came back was not applause. It was conversation: which channel, which clipping mode, which order in the chain, what to change. That conversation has not stopped since, and it is the actual product of that first batch — the workshop exists because of it, and this site documents what it keeps producing.
For the record
The King of Tone is Analog Man’s design and trademark; the Duelist belongs to King Tone. Those first builds were exactly that — builds, for my own board and for learning. What is sold from this bench under the Sense Pedals name are its own designs. But the debt is real, and this post is the receipt.