How to Build a Klon Centaur Clone From a Kit (Step-by-Step Tutorial)

The Klon Centaur is an iconic guitar pedal with countless clones and imitations. You can even buy a cheap kit to build your own clone.
In this tutorial, I walk through how to build a Klon from a kit from start to finish.

I have detailed guides and kit-building tutorials to walk you through the process.

Tutorial Timestamps:
0:00 Kit Unboxing
2:55 Resistors
5:47 Sockets and Diodes
8:00 Capacitors
9:59 IC chips
10:27 Pedal Assembly
12:10 PCB Wiring
12:31 Potentiometers
14:22 Pedal Wiring
14:49 Testing and Final Assembly
16:42 Pedal Demo and Jamming

[AaronMatthies]

Check out the guide to learn more about all of the components used, common problems you might encounter, and best practices when building guitar pedals.

[brotherabe]

I bought this kit on Wish for $21.74 10 days ago and it showed up today. I received no instruction sheet but found this video. Can't thank you enough for posting this video.

[xdoctorblindx]

I would also recommend testing the resister values as you're building. Some may be mislabeled or faulty, so checking with a multimeter as you go could save you a big headache later on.

[exmailman]

Thanks!! My kit didn't have any instructions whatever, not even the black and white drawing. Your page made it workable!

[dmanorozco]

Hands down one of the best videos for assembling a pedal. This got me wanting to try it. Great job! 👍

[ChadMasonFilms]

Wish I’d seen this before I built mine! 5 hours later....bloody photocopied instructions! Nice video 🤗

[BadHorsie]

Thanks for posting this video up. I used it to double check my work. I had no issues the pedal fired up the first try.

[iuculanogiuseppe]

I have just built my first pedal and although I am not a native English speaker I had no problems following your instructions. It sounds amazing. Thank you

[flimbogod]

Thank you so much for this tutorial! I got a kit about a month ago and couldnt manage to put it together properly because of the poor instructions. Today i stumbled across your video and it helped show me my errors and i corrected them. You saved me the pain of wasting 50 bucks lol

[thess]

I don't play well enough to buy a bunch of different pedal but I enjoy watching these types of videos for my son because he is a worship guitarists and uses pedals . this pedals sounds really nice even through what you called a low quality recording.

[Dreamtheaterprog]

I just finished mine today. I'm new to building and got it all working perfect. Stoked!

[Sean-xuti]

Amazing video. I know it’s a year old, but this klon pedal is classic and this video could help generations of people. Such a great job with your step by step Klon instructions.

[CL_Audio_Tuning]

Well, wish i could post a pic, just spent the last few hours watching, re-watching, pouring over your instructions, measuring resistors, making a couple of mistakes (im not finished yet), making my own little progress documentation with pics and everything, and am pretty thankful for this video, your website, your instructions, as well as the fact that my Landtone one came with "improved" instructions from yours (they could definitely improve them more), but its a pretty significant upgrade to your black and white sheet of paper. Anyway, a heap of thanks and will comment once i have mine up and running this week!!

[SoCalJoe]

After looking at the instructions and realizing that was not gonna happen… I stumbled across this video. Probably one of the best step-by-step tutorials I’ve seen on just about any subject. Took me a couple of days, but that was because this was a first for me and I went incredibly slowly step-by-step. The hardest part for me was really identifying the resistors. While they were “labled“, the writing was really illegible and the brown bands were indistinguishable from the red bands. Anyway I was finally able to sort them out correctly.
After installing the battery and plugging into the output jack no light turned on so I was bummed that I had done something wrong, until yeah yeah yeah I saw your step about pressing the toggle switch and voila we had light! Sounds great really excited about this new pedal. Great video.

[Menesterosos]

Mine came with absolutely no intructions and your video helped a lot. THANK YOU!!

[Razorkat..]

Thanks for posting this. Along with this video and a couple of how to solder tutorials, I've just learnt how to solder and built my first pedal. It took me a while to complete but it worked first go. Thank you.

[abevanselow]

Best setup video I've seen so far! I lost the instructions from my kit so I'm hoping this will work. Thank you!

[michaelscott]

Thank you for the wiring diagram. Helped with diagnosing non working problem.

[brewman]

I just got mine to work today. Some lessons I learned - watch capacitor orientation. I was building this when I was dead tired, put one of the caps in reverse. Lucky it didn't explode on me. I also assumed that both of the 1072 ICs were oriented the same way, with pin 1 left. Not so. I got the cap desoldered and reinstalled, turned the IC around and it worked! The 7066 IC had been getting very hot, and didn't after these changes. I thought I had a bad chip and ordered replacements off Amazon, but the replacement got hot, too. I did have to repair pin 3 of the 7066 IC after accidently bending it, and on unbending the leg snapped off. Used 22 ga wire to replace the missing part of it.
Sounds great, looking forward to messing around with it.

[Soldano]

I’m impressed.Thanks for the spoon fed version!