The Refractor Professional Overdrive aims to replicate the highly sought-after tone of the Klon Centaur and KTR overdrive pedals. These pedals are known for their exceptional sound quality and high price tag. The Refractor is a clone of both the Centaur and KTR, incorporating the features of both pedals.

The original Centaur featured a buffered bypass, while the KTR introduced the option to switch between buffered bypass and true bypass. The designer of the Klon pedals referred to buffered bypass as “Almost Always Better” and true bypass as “Almost Always Worse.” Due to popular demand, the Refractor now includes this switch to allow users to choose between the two bypass modes.

The Refractor is currently the only DIY version of the Centaur or KTR that uses the correct true/buffer switch wiring from the original units. Other projects may use a simpler wiring method that does not preserve the original circuit in buffered mode, which was one of the inventor’s requirements.

Apart from the addition of the true bypass/buffer switch, the KTR circuit in the Refractor remains identical to the original Centaur circuit. However, two changes have been made. Firstly, a pulldown resistor, RPD, has been added to counteract switch pop in the true bypass mode. Secondly, resistor R2 has been changed from 1M to 2M to maintain the same input impedance with the addition of RPD. This change ensures that the input impedance remains consistent with the original value of 1M.

Summary created by AI from the original source.