A little KH-1 Love

Whew! LOVE this stocker....I put some nice tubes in her and spent an hour dialing her in...Wow....Me likes....I wasn't at all sure at first but her tolerance for clean even at high volumes sold me....This thing is hard to break up....

Yep, indeed a very nice clean, you can push it very hard before it even shows signs of breaking up. Was my #1 clean.

I love it with everything except my Alexi -- the Duncan AHB-1 will cause it to breakup pretty hard. It's an extremely high output pickup.

Baco said:

Yep, indeed a very nice clean, you can push it very hard before it even shows signs of breaking up. Was my #1 clean.

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"Was?" What is now? That has caught my interest...

Julia said:

I love it with everything except my Alexi -- the Duncan AHB-1 will cause it to breakup pretty hard. It's an extremely high output pickup.

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It's basically the an upgraded clean module with less breakup...I really like it and have started to mod it up a bit and like what I'm hearing....It's such a simple module to boot...Even a monkey like myself can bring it no harm with the soldering iron...

Maybe if I would have experimented with different tubes I may have liked it.
For me the EMG 81 & 85 would cause it to break up. I had a hard time dialing it in to get a similar volume level & the sound not break up. Of course it was paired with the Scary, Maybe an SL+ would have been more in line volume wise. Also it had too much treble/not enough bass. I had the bass dimed the treble at 9 oclock (sometimes 8 oclock) & the mids about 10 oclock bright off & it still wasn't dark enough for me. I tend to like a darker smoother clean sound, which is why from descriptions I tend to shy away from the Super V.

The KH-1 is on my want list. I like the fact that it is designed to be used with active pickups. I like the cosmetics of the KH series modules too. Black anodized with the handwritten graphics.

Mattfig said:

Baco said:

Yep, indeed a very nice clean, you can push it very hard before it even shows signs of breaking up. Was my #1 clean.

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"Was?" What is now? That has caught my interest...

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Was as in when I was using MTS amps, I've moved to Mesa (Dual Rectifier Multi-Watt) now since that is about the only sound I need at the moment :wink:

I loves my KH-1 as well. So many different tones in that module. And it reacts well with different guitars/PU's. Cheers, Lucius

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DracoAran said:

How does it compare to the Blackface module?

Or is there a particular amp tone it is supposed to coax?

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To my ear they're virtually identical sounding but KH-1 has more clean before breakup...

The Blackface and the KH1 are pretty much voiced the same. If you have hot pickups or actives you can really push a hot signal through it without it breaking up. You can dime the gain and still get a really clean tone. It also cleans up really well with your guitar's volume control. It's got a nice chimey midrange and good tight bass with shimmering highs and nice crisp feel. I got JJ 12AX7's in V1 and V2.

DracoAran said:

How does it compare to the Blackface module?

Or is there a particular amp tone it is supposed to coax?

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I have both side by side. At low gain around 9 they are very similar. The difference is more apparent when gain starting around 11 and up, BF being tubey-round-breakup and the KH1 being tighter perhap's drier and less tubey like breakup or closer to a solid-state kind of sound...

But as far as to say KH-1 doesn't break-up that's not really true from what I hear, running hot rails on it breaks up quite easily imho, but less than the BF for sure.

BF has definant more 'color'.

All good to know. I have a KH-1 on the way.

warlok said:

All good to know. I have a KH-1 on the way.

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Good choice! And welcome!!!!

I have a Pete KH1 on the way 8) 8) 8)

wakeguitar said:

I have a Pete KH1 on the way 8) 8) 8)

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I am sure it will be incredible. I got a Pete Twin w/ Deluxe switch and it is so much better than the Blackface that I had that I can't even believe it. So much smoother and detailed. More usable range of gain and does pretty much all of the Fender tones that I was looking for. A real 3-D module.

I got a Pete Twin w/ Deluxe switch and it is so much better than the Blackface that I had that I can't even believe it. So much smoother and detailed. More usable range of gain and does pretty much all of the Fender tones that I was looking for. A real 3-D module.

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What did that start out as? I'm interested in one of them also!

wakeguitar said:

I got a Pete Twin w/ Deluxe switch and it is so much better than the Blackface that I had that I can't even believe it. So much smoother and detailed. More usable range of gain and does pretty much all of the Fender tones that I was looking for. A real 3-D module.

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What did that start out as? I'm interested in one of them also!

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I bought it from another forum member, but looking at the PCB, I'm pretty sure that it began it's life as a Blackface.

I've finally gotten around to getting some Randall gear, and so far have just the KH-1 and KH-3 modules.
I had my first rehearsal with them today and I have to say that I'm very impressed with both of them.
I usually resort to using a patch on my Digitech GSP1101 for clean tones as most high-gain amp's clean channels don't seem to stay clean at high volume (even with passive p'ups) however the KH-1 does stay clean with my guitars, and in the sections that require it I'm able to have my clean parts heard nice and clearly over the top of the other distorted guitar - and there's still ample headroom left.
I wouldn't say that the KH-1 has a lot of "character" but it does exactly what I need it to - stay clean!
It definitely does have a much better feel/attack than the modeled sound of the Digitech, which now is only used for Fx like it should be :wink:
With a hint of chorus it pretty much nails the Metallica clean tone to a T