Tube Screamers

T
gball said:
So, somewhere along the line during this lockdown, since I have been playing 4 hours a day or so, I have become re-obsessed with TS-style overdrives. I dug my TS-9 out and now I've been going crazy with all my mid-humpy OD's looking for the perfect tone and I want to buy more of them (nonsensical I know, but a lot of what we do around here makes no sense).

What's your favorite TS-Style OD? Help me spend some money. Right now I think I am going to pull the trigger on a JHS Banzai and maybe try a Maxon 808 reissue.
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try mxr gt -od thats my main od sometimes i use boos sd1 as well.
 
67plexi said:
I still own a original TS-9

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Nice. I got mine in 1982, I think they had been on the market for about 2 weeks at the time. I did buy one of the reissues about a decade ago too, because the switch on the original was getting iffy, and it sounded exactly the same, absolutely identical, in case anyone was wondering. Eventually took the old one apart and cleaned it up and that fixed the switch, so I gave the reissue to a friend.

I used to have the same Chandler Tube Driver too, but foolishly sold it a bunch of years ago.
 
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syscokid said:
Check out this interesting list of modern TS-style pedals by Sweetwater:
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I actually saw that a couple days ago. I really do think that maybe the Banzai is my next score (the MXR OD I ordered hasn't even arrived yet!).

Not sure what it is, probably the Covid lockdown, but I have been revisiting the past by using pedals for dirt in front of a clean amp after 20 years or more of playing through high-gain channel switching amps. It's an intriguing process and leads to a lot of interesting discoveries about how the pedals interact with each other and the amp. I learned yesterday, for example, that my BD-2w sounds better if I remove it from the pedalboard and run it off of the battery instead of the power supply, then jack the gain all the freakin' way up and control the distortion with the guitar volume. Likewise, it's been fun to learn what everyone else apparently knew all along - Tube Screamers sound amazing doing the heavy lifting in front of a clean amp, not to mention being the secret sauce in front of an already overdriven one.
 
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More on the BD-2w...this thing is proving to be one of if not the best dirt boxes I have ever played through. It's seriously like playing an amp: responds to volume and tone controls and pick dynamics exactly the same, and it plays well with other pedals. I just never thought to try it this way: gain maxed, level slightly above unity, tone seasoned to taste for the guitar plugged into it, and set to the Custom mode. My god, this little blue box is astonishingly good.

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I bought it when they were first released and have always used it more as a boost with maybe just the slightest amount of hair dialed in. I've had the regular Blues Driver and it worked great for that so I got this because of the better buffer, but now I am totally understanding what the Custom mode is all about. This crushes any big dollar "boutique" overdrive I have owned, and the couple of modded boxes I have had. Way to go Boss
 
This was a great review to read. I am really encouraged by what you wrote. See, I'm in a real tone quandary now as the band adds more and more mixed genre songs.

I'm already playing "clean" on Tom Petty's "You Wreck Me," and i personally feel like my tone is too "dirty" for some of our newer songs.

Next, I'm hitting the 'Lead 2' channel on my amp with my TS-9, so i need to switch channels and kill the TS-9 to make the transition.

I been listening to our other guitarist, who plays with a P90 Les Paul through a stock DSL40C, and he's exclusively on the "Green" channel and getting a great tone, but the lack of broad spectrum EQ on the green channel leaves me wanting.

Ugh....
 
I have my TS-9 Reissue, Sysco can add info to you on his experience with it, Gball. I had sent it to him to fix a few things for me.

I am no expert on pedals and rely solely on ones I have had my hands on, plus what other friend demos sound like and what you guys say. Smitty is good with pedals, as is Bastarddon I am sure. Oh and I would surmise SGJOHN too.

I won't even mention RAY, I think he is actually BOSS, Barber, DOD, OCD companies and not really a lawyer as he has a warehouse of pedals.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
LMAO, I shoulda traded in my fingers for keepers instead of Duds.
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You and me both, brother.

Man, I have flipped so many pedals over the years I can't even count them. The most disappointing have always been the flavor-of-the-month "boutique" ones, at least for dirt boxes. They are generally a lot of money for a variation on something Boss or Ibanez have done for 40 years and seem to represent themes on the same idea., and they can be delicate (I've had two separate Timmy's die on me). Same with modded pedals - I tried a couple and every time to get some small increase in performance in one area it seemed like you gave something else up somewhere else.

I think the problem is that for a lot of us that play at home the majority of the time (or always!) we spend our time tweaking for "perfect" tone, but it all falls apart a lot of times when you go play with a band, or even jam with another guy. I can't tell you how many times I thought my tone was DIALED only to show up for a jam and completely disappear in a mix and have to start twisting knobs. Then later, with those same settings, hearing myself alone and hating the tone! Anyway, Boss stuff if great because it works perfectly in a band and helps you be heard, it's cheap, and its basically indestructible.
 
gball said:
I think the problem is that for a lot of us that play at home the majority of the time (or always!) we spend our time tweaking for "perfect" tone, but it all falls apart a lot of times when you go play with a band, or even jam with another guy. I can't tell you how many times I thought my tone was DIALED only to show up for a jam and completely disappear in a mix and have to start twisting knobs. Then later, with those same settings, hearing myself alone and hating the tone! Anyway, Boss stuff if great because it works perfectly in a band and helps you be heard, it's cheap, and its basically indestructible.
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Truer words have never been spoken...
 
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