The feeling I get when playing through the Konstante is like putting a nice knob of butter on a fresh slice of toast. This German-built pedal from Twilight Pulse Audioworks combines a transparent overdrive inspired by the Greer Amps Lightspeed with a fully independent EP-style preamp boost. Two footswitches, one order toggle, and four knobs give you a lot of routing options in a compact, elegant package.
The panel runs in two rows. Top row, left to right: Loud (output level) and Gain. Bottom row: Freq (tone control) and Pre (boost level). Between those rows sits the horizontal Ord toggle, which flips the routing order of the two circuits.
With the toggle in the “boost after drive” position, Pre acts as a clean output boost, sitting after the overdrive. With it in “boost before drive,” the EP preamp hits the front of the drive section for added saturation and weight. In the demo above I’ve set up sweeps for the Ord toggle, the Gain knob, and the Freq knob, so you can hear what each one does across the full range.
One more option lives inside the pedal: removing the internal charge pump lowers the headroom and makes the Konstante clip earlier with less input signal. Remove the backplate, take a photo of the chip so you know how to reinstall it, and pull it out. It changes the character noticeably toward earlier breakup.
The Konstante smoothes out the signal in a very pleasant way without cutting too much high-end or picking attack. While the topology is transparent, it does add a unique character that other low-gain overdrives don’t quite replicate.
The three main presets map the range well. Fat & Juicy (Gain at 8, Loud at 4, Freq at 10, Pre at 10, boost before drive) stacks the EP preamp into the front of the drive for thick, saturated rhythm tones. Almost Clean (Gain at 5, boost after drive, Pre at 4 which is around unity gain) keeps things clear and open with just a touch of drive. Broken Speaker maxes Gain and Loud to 10 with the boost after the drive turned down to 2, using Pre as a master volume to tame the output, which shows how much grit the Konstante can produce when pushed. It does sound and feel nice at those higher settings, but it excels at buttery low-gain textures with sparkles on top. The Konstante also appears in the JHS 424 Gain Stage “Gain Staging” chain preset, stacked after the 424 with the boost in front of the drive.
The MXR Timmy occupies a similar transparent-overdrive corner of the market. The Timmy’s EQ section uses cut-only Bass and Treble controls plus a three-way clip toggle, so it’s about precisely subtracting what you don’t want. The Konstante takes a different approach: a single Freq control shapes the tone, and the EP boost adds a lift to the top and bottom ends with slightly softened mids, giving you a more complex push than a clean output boost. The Timmy is the better tool for sculpting a very specific frequency balance. The Konstante is the better tool if you want a second circuit with its own character woven in, with the order toggle giving two fundamentally different feels from the same settings.
Players after low-gain drive with a smooth, buttery quality will find a lot to love here. The order toggle and dual footswitches effectively give you four distinct sounds from one pedal: overdrive alone, boost alone, boost pushing drive, or drive boosted on the way out. I also really like the user interface. Every setting is useful. The choice of controls is minimal, yet very versatile. If your ideal overdrive is tight, cutting, and scooped, look elsewhere. If you want warmth, character, and a very elegant piece of hardware, the Konstante earns its spot on a board.
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Get detailed specs on Twilight Pulse Audioworks' website
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