Like so many pedals that became legends, the Klon Centaur spawned legions of copies and imitators that possess unique virtues all their own. You can now count Keeley’s new Manis among the Klon-inspired stomps that took a great idea and shaped something uniquely awesome in the process. As far as klones go, it’s a great one. Tested alongside a very accurate klone that I use as a benchmark in Klon tests (it was A/B tested with a real-deal Klon once owned by my colleague Joe Gore), the Manis was virtually a mirror image, and often a more satisfying one for its slightly less compressed voice.
One of the most practical attributes of good Klon-style pedals is the relative ease with which they pair with very different rigs. The circuit’s inherent ability to span mellow boost and ferocious, chugging distortion while maintaining dynamic response and detail makes it an invaluable tool for coping with luck-of-the-draw backlines and adjusting to venues of varying size. With options to use germanium transistor clipping and a bass boost, however, Manis multiplies this multifacetedness considerably.
The Deadly Manis
Germanium clipping diodes are, of course, among the most critical parts of the original Klon’s architecture, and the Manis sounds beautiful and accurate in germanium-diode mode. But when germanium transistors take over the clipping function, the character of the pedal changes perceptibly. The Manis is audibly and tangibly less compressed, there’s more air and space in the output, and it’s easier to summon extra grit from your signal by changing pick intensity. You might hear a little less focus in germanium transistor mode, which can adversely affect the pedal’s ability to slot in a busier mix. But in isolation, the germanium transistor clipping sounds and feels much more awake and dynamic. The ability to switch between the two also makes the Manis more versatile when stacking with fuzz and other overdrives, and merely flipping between clipping modes could significantly recast the personalities of Big Muffs, Fuzz Faces, and even other klones without diluting their essence.
“The Manis is audibly and tangibly less compressed, there’s more air and space in the output, and it’s easier to summon extra grit from your signal by changing pick intensity.”
Switching in the bass boost, which gives the Manis a 3 dB kick one octave below the circuit’s usual cutoff frequency, also adds a significant breadth to your available tone spectrum. It can lend warmth to the most authentically Klon-like voices in germanium diode mode, or lend an almost Marshall-like sense of oomph to a signal without compromising much in the way of dynamics.
Ultimate Klon Killer? The Keeley Manis Overdrive Demo with John Bohlinger | First Look
The Verdict
If the Manis was merely a klone that hewed close to its inspiration, it would be an admirably authentic example of the breed. But the bass boost and transistor clipping modes make the Manis a potentially invaluable survival tool for any player that faces changing amplifiers, venues, and recording situations, and needs to extract the most utility possible from every pedal. It might well be the only klone you ever need.
