Mosky Silver Horse (klon clone)

[blindwilly3fingers]

£20 from ebay.
Mosky Silver Horse

Cheap klon clone pedal.

I bought this as it can also be used as a treble booster.

Treble, Gain, Output knobs.
Voice switch (2 position)

Pretty happy with it, it's got quite a varied range and the voice switch in the up sposition gives a slightly more overdiven sound.

I have attached video of a guy doing a review/demo rather than a picture, for those who may be interested.

[blindwilly3fingers]

Just for anyone into the klon sound, quite a good video comparison of various klon clones.

[ericjohn]

I just got the Golden Horse recently. I keep at as an always on clean/crunch like on the intro to Simple Man or any of Jimi’s Cleaner sounds. I really like it.

[blindwilly3fingers]

It was a toss up between the two for me ericjohn in the end I plumped for the silver due to the extra voice switch option. It's my favourite OD pedal out of the 4 I have.

[Deleted]

I was just looking at the Caline Pegasus but this little voice switch on the Mosky Silver Horse sounds interesting. Are these what they call 'soft clipping' pedals? I already have an OCD clone that I love for it's very useable range but I believe it's hard clipping. One of each would be great to have.

[blindwilly3fingers]

When I looked/researched into buying this I read the original klon was hard clipping but had diodes to grnd. Which makes it loud but not as distorted more like a booster and overdrive. Or something along those lines. So its not like a distortion pedal, whether you can class the sound as similar to soft clipping I don't know.

A proper klon is classed as a transparent OD as you probably know @defjef. As the mosky is a clone I couldn't say how close the circuitry is? Both the gold and silver hoarse pedals have good reviews and are apparently a fairly good representation of the klon sound.

As you know I'm not the best at using terminology. But I like the klon type sound as to me its a nice crunch (clean/transparent whatever you call it) and also a boost. You can set it up as a treble boost type sound also, it is a fairly wide range OD and on the silver version you have the voice switch for a warmer tone. Now I've probably used warmer in the wrong context but you can't be intellectual and handsome!

[Deleted]

I get totally baffled by all the terms that are used for overdrives . Apparently the Tubescreamer is a transparent overdrive. I have no idea why. Is a transparent overdrive just a boost for the front end of the amp? I don't think it can be because a Tubescreamer or a Klon are not clean boosts (maybe they CAN be used that way?). I have a booster pedal. Is THAT a transparent overdrive? Also Tubescreamers and Klons seem to be at opposite ends of the soft clipping hard clipping world. I get baffled by it all and just as soon as I think I understand it a pedal is presented as doing the things I didn't think it did and I need to reset all my terminology. What is a non transparent overdrive for instance? And why is it such?

[blindwilly3fingers]

Me to @defjef tbh is all a bit too nerdy for me, I am a bit of a nerd but not that much.

Your understanding seems similar to mine although I suspect your knowledge of these things is better. From looking into the klon and clones of it. All I really gleaned in simplified terms is each type have different stages and each stage and how it's wired and what it's components are can cancel out types of clipping etc. So although a klon is hard clipped it doesn't sound like it or display the same effect. Now I lost the will to live after trying to under stand this and decided I would just try the pedals out and see what sounds I liked. Obviously I listened to demos and reviews to narrow it down a bit.

As regards transparent,distortion, boosters, OD's it's a minefield.
My take on transparent is that doesn't distort the sound overly but produces a crunchy louder tone. As you know distortion can really change the tone but again it's dependant on a number of things in the circuit. Much like the metal distortion type pedals where its in your face at the minimum level.
Boosters I have a clean booster pedal it does sort of overdrive but only if your towards the top end. You know how many different OD pedals there are, tbh I don't worry whether they are transparent, distorted or whatever I just go by what my ears like.

I was contemplating buying a build your own klon kit but in the end I've given myself a talking to, and won't be pursuing that avenue. If I built one it wouldn't stop I would end up with more electronic components, to add to the hundreds and hundreds of capacitors, resistors, potentiometers I already have. I would end messing with circuits and swapping caps, diodes to see what they changed the sound to.

I know you like to get your head around a lot more stuff than me, I start to loose interest with all the jargon and tech talk. I just want to know which one will give me the sounds I want. Which means I usually end up with several pedals.

The caline pegasus you mentioned has good reviews it was about £50 when I was looking. But I didn't want to spend that much without knowing if the klon sound was what I was after. Had I known it was I probably would have gone for that or the electro harmonix soul food (I think that's their klon clone).

What I forgot to say although the transparent od's are supposed to not colour the sound much and enhance the guitar and amp's original/natural sound. The amp your playing it through does make a difference and is noticeable more so than the distortion type pedals.

[Deleted]

I was contemplating buying a build your own klon kit but in the end I've given myself a talking to, and won't be pursuing that avenue.

That's my way of working too. Well done on getting a grip on yerself.

I'm my own worst enemy in that I like to understand what I'm being told or sold but don't want to get into technical talk as that is when my eyes glaze over and I start to wonder what to make for dinner. It's led me down a few rabbit holes. I STARTED to build a website until I realised I couldn't put up with the jargon and got depressed just getting up every morning!

From what I can see almost any overdrive pedal that can boost cleanly at the lower end of it's gain travel is transparent. So that would make a booster pedal transparent too. And a Tubescreamer. Now, I may have all this wrong but I tested my theory with some experiments last night into my tube Bugera V22.

I decided that transparent overdrive was all about overdriving the preamp tubes in my amp not about supplying an already overdriven sound to them. So a booster is doing exactly that; adding some clean gain to the input signal make those preamp tubes break up a little. Of course you then have to turn your master volume down more to counteract the increased volume so you're getting none of the power amp's tubes breakup character. Similarly a Tubescreamer perhaps explains itself by its very name. I have always assumed it to mean that it SOUNDED like screaming tubes but I'm starting to think that it's original intention was to push the ACTUAL tubes in the amp to scream. In which case I have been using my Joyo Tubescreamer clone wrongly, cranking it to a level where it was sort of supplying a crunchy sound TO the amp.

I will do some more theory testing tonight but my intention is to attempt to push the real tubes in my amp to crunch with some cleaner boosting to see where that leads me. It may very well make my Blackstar HT Dual redundant as that has a tube in it, presumably so that it will already be crunchy or distorted BEFORE it hits the preamp on my Bugera. Why bother with that if my amp has tubes that will crunch anyway?! Maybe the problem that I find is that I will have made my amp into a one trick pony and there is then no simple way of switching to a clean tone and I'll need to go back to a pedal that SIMULATES what an amp's preamp tubes can do.

I'll be plugging a few of these boostier pedals into my effects return to see which has the loudest and nicest CLEAN signal before taking the best one and plugging it into the preamp instead.

If I'm wrong about any of this I'll be disappointed. If I'm right I'll wonder why it's taken me so long to get it! I'll also wonder why I've never seen it explained this way clearly and simply before.

[blindwilly3fingers]

When I purchased my boost pedal I went for one with only 1 control (level knob) as I understood this to be a clean boost as opposed to the boosters with tone controls on as I believed they would colour the sound. I believe the difference between booster and overdrive is the booster isn't clipped and just adds pure/clean gain? The booster however can drive the amp to distortion. As you know you can also stack pedals I use booster and OD together sometimes (quite a lot actually).

I will be interested to hear your findings @defjef. Just as a side note I use all my pedals through the front of the amp. I keep saying I will try some in the effects loop but have yet to experiment.

The other effect we have not mentioned is fuzz which is a minefield on its own, germanium or silicon transistors instead of op-amps (sounds like a CIA mission) square clipping!

I've come to the conclusion even though I thought I had some understanding of all this I really haven't. Don't get me wrong I get the basics, waveforms and how clipping works etc but a lot of is just categorising levels of distortion to me. I do admire your determination to find a definitive answer. I start off with the intent but quickly become jargonized and think **** it let's just try to practice guitar more!

[Deleted]

I'll definitely not be getting into the jargon! I just want to understand what is really going on with this 'transparent' thing. I have a feeling it simply means as clean a boost as possible before the pedal itself starts to add its own character.

Interesting what you say about avoiding tone controls on the boost. I must admit when I used the Blackstar HT Dual in a few 'clean boost' experiments last night I did start to wonder what on earth to do with its three tone controls since my Bugera amp's preamp section naturally has tone controls of its own. The Bugera also has a BOOST switch on it! Shiiiiiit!

Then again you could use an eq pedal set flat and just boost the gain as a transparent overdrive/clean boost I guess.




And then there's always this proviso:

[blindwilly3fingers]

The transparent thing is a bit of a conundrum but I believe your interpretation of it fits with mine?

As we have said the clean boost is basically a way of making the guitar amp combination louder and fuller sounding. But does this lead to a slightly distorted sound?

I sometimes wonder do the makers of the pedals add controls or stages in the circuit just to make it look all singing and dancing? There by crossing the lines between boost/overdrive/distortion?

Having said that I'm a sucker as I fell for the extra voice option on the silver hoarse. When really I was just after a klon clone.

I could seriously end up with a shed load of pedals but so far have managed some self control.
My pedal board has a boost, 2 overdrives, a distortion and a fuzz pedal. That's before you add the other effects or what the amp has! And I claim I have a cleanish tone! Admittedly they are not all on at once. 😉

I have watched those vids previously and came away thinking "yeah I've got it sussed now". But with those vids or the demo vids of pedals I'm sceptical of what's been used to record it and has that cleaned it up so to speak. Your knowledge of recording is way beyond mine. What I'm saying is, is that a true representation of of the real live room sound? Or has it been eq'd, compressed etc? They always seem perfect not a hint of noise or feedback of any sort? With all that equipment on all the lights, cameras etc and it's perfect. Not like when I jam with a few friends with half that amount of equipment. I know they are using top dollar gear but it seems a bit sanatised? Am I wrong?

[Deleted]

As far as I can make out they are just miking some nice amps with some nice mics. They're not miking the room so what we hear is a fairly close placed mic with what seems to be a good deal of volume so that there is a strong signal and little background noise. You hear the personal mics being brought in and out of the mix as the amp gets played. There's clearly some level riding/compression/limiting going on because sometimes they laugh at how loud something was in the room to them when it wasn't deafening to us. They even warn about taking care not to blow their mic capsules sometimes. I don't think there's any other jiggery pokery going on there though. They're just doing what anyone would do at a recording session.

I can see how a clean boost will increase the signal strength to the preamp tubes thereby saturating them and overdriving them. Any amp with a master volume can then be adjusted downwards for volume level to compensate. I can also see how some pedals are designed to do JUST that, provide as much CLEAN, non-clipping gain as possible to the preamp so that it is only the amp's character that we are hearing being overdriven. I can also understand how other overdrive pedals CAN give some early clean boost but are designed to also add their own clipping/distortion. I guess a fuzz pedal is mostly designed NOT to be a clean boost but to provide a clipping signal to the amp no matter what. Some fuzzes MAY clean boost a LITTLE in their early gain settings but not really brilliantly I wouldn't think.

[Deleted]

[blindwilly3fingers]

So @defjef do I try to become jargon correct or just stick to the little understanding I have?

Do I really need to fully understand all the electronics and complexities or just go for what my ears like? 🤔

Tbh it was rtm who advised me about getting a boost pedal, he gave me some really good advice when I bought my joyo bantamp. I probably use the boost more than any other pedal. The klon clone does work like a treble boost but is chalk and cheese compared to my boost pedal.