Overdrive / Boost / Buffer
Modernized, but faithful to the original.
History
In 1994, Bill Finnegan made a legendary contribution to the guitar industry: the Klon Centaur overdrive pedal. With a clear, well-articulated sound, free from synthetic distortion and unnecessary heaviness, the Centaur became a favorite among guitarists around the world, and its popularity has not diminished since.
However, not everyone could get their hands on one. Finnegan only built 8,000 units, and these days they cost about $7,000. So naturally, many guitarists opened Centaurs to study circuit board schematics in order to copy them and build their own. For years, these guitarists were thwarted by a thick layer of epoxy coating on every Centaur circuit board. It wasn't until 2009 that Martin Chittum finally managed to remove the resin from a Centaur and the diagrams were revealed.
Like our fellow pedal junkies, we decided to recreate the Centaur to take up less space on your pedal without sacrificing the clarity and smoothness of the original. Using the original circuit board design and parts that Finnegan himself relied on, the Harby Centauri can be used on any pedalboard for a wide range of applications. Use it alone to energize your output, get a clean boost with the Drive knob turned to maximum, or combine it with fuzz and distortion pedals to add a slightly thicker character to their heavy grain. And thanks to its buffered bypass, the Centauri, like the original Klon Centaur, is never really off: you can always count on its smooth, clear sound in the studio and on stage.
That said, we would never claim that the Centauri is a perfect match for any Klon. Finnegan himself stated that the sound varied from Centaur to Centaur, due to the nature of the clipping diodes he used. We have simply attempted to replicate the quality and richness of the Centaur through a faithful reconstruction to Finnegan's specifications. The results speak for themselves.
Features
Modernized
The original Centaur's components were attached to the circuit board using "through-hole" techniques, with pins passing through the circuit board and soldered to its underside. This process got the job done, but it was costly and time consuming. Eventually, Bill Finnegan began producing his pedals using surface mount technology (SMT), attaching components directly to the face of the circuit board. This is the method we used to design the Harby Centauri.
True to the original
Bill Finnegan once said of his 1N34A germanium clipping diodes that they are "...the most important factor in how the circuit sounds when used to create distortion." As a tribute to its insight, the Centauri uses only 1N34A diodes, with a stock forward voltage of 0.35V (±15%). It is also built using the original Centaur PCB layout and features its buffered bypass, rather than the more modern true bypass.
Technical
Original Centaur circuit board layout.
Gold plated PCB (ENIG).
Genuine Texas Instruments operational amplifiers (TL072).
NOS 1N34A germanium clipping diodes with a stock forward voltage of 0.35V (±15%).
Solid anodized aluminum knobs (volume, drive and tone controls).
Neutrik input and output jacks.
Buffered bypass.
9V DC operation using standard center negative power supply.