Custom King of Tone - Iridium FX King Bob – Prototype Hand-Built Dual Overdrive

Iridium FX King Bob – Prototype Hand-Built Dual Overdrive

Designed and hand-built in the USA by me, King Bob is a dual overdrive based heavily on the legendary Analogman King of Tone platform — or, more accurately, my attempt to build the kind of flexible dual Bluesbreaker-style drive pedal people actually want without treating it like a sacred artifact.

Yes, the name is a Minions reference. The mythology surrounding the original pedal has become absurd enough that I felt it deserved a little fun poked at it.

The circuit consists of two independently voiced Bluesbreaker-style overdrive circuits running in parallel. Each side has its own controls for Volume, Gain, and Tone, along with an internal set of DIP switches that dramatically alter the clipping behavior and gain structure.

The result is an extremely flexible low-to-medium gain overdrive capable of everything from transparent clean boost tones to much more aggressive, saturated drive sounds.

I’ve also made a handful of additional tweaks to the circuit that are specific to my own preferences and playing style… but I’ll keep those secrets to myself.

And yes — I’m biased — but I genuinely think this thing sounds fantastic.

Controls

Each side features independent:

• Volume
• Gain
• Tone

Internal DIP Switches

Each side includes a set of three DIP switches controlling:

1. Gain structure
2. Soft clipping
3. Hard clipping

These allow each channel to be configured independently for a wide range of tones and response characteristics.

Depending on the settings, King Bob can function as:

• a low-gain always-on boost
• a dynamic edge-of-breakup drive
• a more compressed and saturated overdrive
• a stacked dual-drive setup with significantly more gain on tap than a traditional Bluesbreaker circuit

Internal Trimmers

Each side also includes an internal presence trimmer, allowing you to fine-tune the upper-mid and high-frequency response of each channel independently.

Additional Features

• Dual relay-based soft-touch switching
• True bypass
• Operates on 9V–18V DC power

Condition / Caveats

This pedal was built in 2023 and is in excellent functional condition.

There was a printing error during production, resulting in the blue graphics appearing significantly darker than originally intended. Personally, I still think it looks cool, but I want to mention it clearly for transparency.

There is also Velcro attached to the bottom of the enclosure.

Prototype unit from my personal collection.