Catalinbread Katzenkonig
The Catalinbread Katzenkonig – The Cat King.
It sings like a fuzz, yet is tight like a distortion. It loves single coils and humbuckers and sounds great into a clean amp or into an overdriven amp or pedal.
So, is it a fuzztortion or is it a distorfuzz?
We’ll leave the semantics up to you. What we can tell you is that Katzenkönig combines the best elements of a Tone Bender MkII fuzz with a Rat distortion.
That’s right! The circuit is all discrete and uses a trio of silicon transistors in a modified Tone Bender MkII arrangement. The output section is that of a Rat, including its clipping section, filter, and output buffer.
Katzenkönig is tuned to offer a huge range of responses. They range from from a really beautiful singing tone, to tight, harmonically rich crunch, all the way to fuzz mayhem.
Combining the best elements of a Tone Bender MkII fuzz with a Rat distortion. `We have something that sings like a fuzz but is tight like a distortion.
It loves humbuckers and single-coils and it loves your cranked amp and your super-clean amp.
The front half of the circuit is based on the Tone Bender MKII, because this is widely considered the most desirable of the Tone Benders.
In the original, a germanium transistor makes the signal loud. Then a second transistor makes it very loud. A third one makes it ridiculously loud.
The filter control works wonders because it enables shades you’d never obtain from a Tone Bender MKII.
Controls:
A simple, four-knob control scheme allows you to dial in your sound quickly and without much fuss:
- Input
- Gain
- Filter
- Volume
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 its 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!
Requires battery or 9-18V DC power supply – centre negative. Draws 6ma
The Katzenkonig user manual is available on the Catalinbread site and you can find the history of Catalinbread here.
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