The King of Tone is an overdrive pedal manufactured by boutique electric guitar effects pedal maker Mike Piera and his company Analog Man. Released in 2003, [1] the King of Tone is a heavily-modified, dual-sided version of the then-discontinued Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal. [2] Among guitarists, the King of Tone has gained "near-mythical" status, with a famously years-long waiting list and prices on the used market greatly exceeding the cost of a new pedal. To meet demand, Piera launched a simplified, lower-cost version, the Prince of Tone, as well as collaborated with the brand MXR on a mini-format, mass-produced version, the Duke of Tone. [3] [4]
After earning a degree in computer science in the 1980s, Mike Piera of Bethel, Connecticut took a job in Japan, where he discovered intense demand for vintage American guitars at a time when the U.S. vintage market was not yet established. Piera created a successful side hustle importing vintage American guitars and selling them on consignment to Japanese dealers, but acquiring them became harder as availability dried up. [5] With a childhood fascination with audio electronics, Piera turned to selling and fixing vintage effects instead; he placed ads in Vintage Guitar magazine and offered pedals for sale at U.S. guitar shows under the name "Analog Man", a name he first used in 1993. Piera then turned to modding overdrive pedals like the Ibanez Tube Screamer, sourcing parts during trips to Tokyo and sharing his work on Usenet before the widespread use of the World Wide Web. Piera's first handmade pedal was an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone style pedal, followed by his take on a Ross compressor. [5]
Tired of software engineering and unable to keep up with customer demand, Piera went full-time building pedals in 2000, setting up shop in his hometown of Bethel, Connecticut and establishing one of the internet's first websites to sell pedals, at a time when industry giants like Fender and Gibson did not have websites at all. Many boutique effects makers followed Piera's example, only to fold a few years later or begin manufacturing their pedals in factories once they achieved popularity. Piera however resisted changing his by-the-order business model and his work remained in-demand in large part thanks to the degree of customization he offered and his willingness to take on special orders. [5]
A common theme of the Analog Man product line is that his pedals are generally based on classic effects long out of production. One such out-of-production pedal that came to Piera's attention was the 1991 "Bluesbreaker" overdrive, Marshall's attempt to recreate in pedal format the tone of their famous Bluesbreaker amplifier. [3] While later regarded as a classic overdrive circuit, the Bluesbreaker pedal was limited in its gain and tonal range and failed to sell well, with its discontinuation coming a few years later. Jim Weider of The Band expressed these frustrations regarding Marshall's pedal to Piera, who took on the challenge of revising a Bluesbreaker pedal for Welder. [3] Piera initially just upgraded the Bluesbreaker's components, but he was dissatisfied with its simplicity and expanded on the pedal's format by adding a second volume control and footswitch, along with three different clipping options for boost, overdrive, and distortion. Further revisions added separate volume, tone, and gain controls for each side, as well as an internal trim pot to add more high-end frequencies. [6]
Piera released the King of Tone in 2003. [1] Of his pedal, Piera said, "It's not a heavy overdrive—it's less gain than a Tube Screamer, so it's not going to change your amp. If you like your guitar and want to keep your guitar tone, and if you like your amp and you want to keep your amp tone, that's what this is designed for." [7] The King of Tone sold well upon release, with Piera initially building units himself by hand. His pedal developed a more significant following, however, after Piera appeared on the YouTube channel "That Pedal Show" in 2017. [1] Orders soon reached 200 per day—far more than Piera could keep up with—and the King of Tone developed a famously years-long waiting list, while prices on the used market far exceeded the cost of a new pedal. Guitar.com partly attributed this to Piera being so meticulous in his builds that he would rely on components even if they were already out of production and inevitably difficult to source. [8] Piera has since released multiple versions of the King of Tone and offers additional features such as a higher-gain option, external toggle switches instead of internal DIP switches, and custom colors. [7]
In 2025, the waiting list for a new King of Tone stood at approximately four years, with 20 to 30 people adding their names to the list each day, while Piera and his team of around a dozen employees produce about 50 to 60 per week. Used "V2" versions of the pedal from the early 2000s can surpass $2,000, the highest secondhand prices for an overdrive pedal behind only the Klon Centaur. [3] Piera has rejected theories that the waiting list is a marketing strategy designed to create hype around the King of Tone, stating that maintaining the list was an administrative hassle he had to hire another employee just to deal with. [7] Piera has also rejected the notion of large price increases in response to public demand for his pedal, as Piera does not want to price the pedal out of the average player's reach. In 2019, the price of a standard King of Tone was $245. [7] That price had risen to $335 by 2025 due to tariffs and the increasing costs of difficult-to-source parts. [9]
Unable to meet demand and unwilling to cut corners to speed up manufacturing, Piera developed a single-sided variation, the Prince of Tone, that would be manufactured in China. The Prince of Tone incorporates several revisions to the King of Tone design, increasing the gain and improving the distortion mode. However, Piera's preferred components are scarce and the pedal is made in limited numbers that still sell out quickly. [3]
In 2022, Piera partnered with MXR to release a mini-format, mass-produced version of the Prince of Tone, dubbed the Duke of Tone. The collaboration began when Jeorge Tripps, founder of Way Huge and MXR's chief designer, suggested pairing Piera's design with MXR's global manufacturing capacity. In response to the pedal's impending release, the "online guitar world lost their collective shit", according to Guitar.com. [3] By the next year, the Duke of Tone was already MXR's bestselling pedal. [1] Piera engaged in a second collaboration on a King of Tone-style pedal, this time in 2025 with Chase Bliss Audio on their AM Brothers overdrive, which combines analog and digital architecture to give the user extended control over the pedal's tone. [10]
The King of Tone is one of the most celebrated overdrive pedals ever made, with Vintage Guitar dubbing it one of a few "holy grail" overdrives and Guitar.com attributing it "near-mythical" status within the industry. [3] The latter wrote:
...the KOT is adored for its dynamic and touch-sensitive responsive, alloyed with very tonally open gain and boost capabilities. At gig volume, the KOT shines with unparalleled clarity, integrating seamlessly with your rig. Offering more volume, more gain, and wider tonal flexibility than the Bluesbreaker, its more cultured midrange voice and delicate bass roll off demand more from a player but the rewards are sonic bliss – especially with the flexibility of two separate circuits. [3]
In exploring the history of the Bluesbreaker pedal, JHS Pedals founder Josh Scott wrote that any claims of the King of Tone being a Bluesbreaker "clone" are incorrect: he noted that while the King of Tone's topology is based on that of the Bluesbreaker, the end result of Piera's changes is a "very, very different" pedal; he went on to say that the King of Tone inspired many boutique builders like himself to follow suit with their own Bluesbreaker-style offerings. [11] In 2025, Guitar World included the King of Tone in its list of the 50 greatest pieces of guitar gear of the century so far. [12]
Notable fans of the King of Tone include Ed O'Brien, Brad Whitford, Tom Bukovac, and Noel Gallagher. [5]