Ibanez Tubescreamer

Posted by Fila On August - 9 - 2010 1 Comment

Another classic, responsible for the guitar sound of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Edge, Scott Henderson and many more. Designed in late 70s to push the already over driven tube amp to give it an extra gain, this pedal sounds great even thru solid state amps as it emulates a tube sound. According to many it is mild and has insufficient bass and gain, but it is its smooth mids and subtle clipping that allows the natural sound of the guitar and the playing dynamics to come through. As the input signal is mixed with the post clipping signal, the pedal preserves the the original dynamics of the input signal which doesn’t get lost entirely in clipping. This way the clarity and responsiveness are preserved while smoothness and the punch enhances the expression of a player.

Tubescreamer is a choice of many blues and rock players and not much favored among shredders or stone rockers, although when used with a distorted amp it might give them some extra muscle. It is great for fusion solos and even smooth jazz if set properly (no, I’m not joking, check out the Twinscreamer post in Guitar Sound Experience section). Taking that into consideration here are few tips on the settings.

TS with an overdriven tube amp: This is where TS shines. You need a little overdrive both from the amp and the pedal. Set the drive between 9 and 12 o’clock, Level past 12 and tone to taste and make your guitar sing.
TS with a clean amp: You will probably want to use more gain from the pedal (past 2 o’clock) to switch between clean sound and overdriven riffs and solos. With this type of use overall distorted sound is much more dependable on your amplifier EQ setting and (depending on the gear) you might need some tweaking to find the perfect match between clean ond overdriven EQ settings
TS with clean settings on a solid state amp: Easy to dial. No high gain, but push the mids on the amp for some juicy sounds
TS with heavily distorted amp: use a little gain on a TS for extra sustain and nice rounded sound. Great for shrdded solos
Jazz type tone: set the gain at less than 9 o’clock and keep the tone between 9 and 11 o clock

Since it was first designed and produced by Maxon (which produced them for Ibanez) Tubescreamer has undergone many changes and reincarnations but always preserved its basic characteristics. Here are most popular TS models:

TS 808: most sought after in Tubescreamer family. Classic sound, more transparent than its successors with smoother mids and very sweet sound. It uses a classic JRC4558D chip although two other chips were used occasionally that produce very small difference in sound. This was used by SRV.

TS9: Introduced in early 80s and redesigned, the TS9 still used JRC4558 chip and was sound wise very close to 808 but a little brighter and less smooth. Some of them used JRC2043 chip that make huge difference to the sound and are less desirable.

TS10: In this pedal the circuit was changed a lot and it offered more gain and compression and less transparency.

TS9DX Turbo: Introduced in 1998 it offered more volume, distortion and low end. It introduced a fourth knob to choose between four modes. The circuit is similar to TS9 but modes change diodes and capacitor working parameters to get different sounds. The modes are:

TS9: the same as classic TS9
+: Adds a little grit with stronger lower mid range and less highs. Also adds to the loudness of the the level knob
HOT: adds more crunch and mids, less smooth and transparent
TURBO: more like a distortion rather than the overdrive. It has the most volume and bass and offers a thick sound with powerful bottom end.

There are reissues of all of these models as most originals are pretty hard to track, and those reissues sound very good. As a matter of fact it is hard or even impossible to tell the difference between the two.

Overall, Tubescreamer is a nice overdrive if you are after a classic sound and it is not a secret that it works best with a slightly overdriven Fender tube amp. But it sounds good plugged into almost anything. Some players might not like it but everyone should at least give it a try.

If you want to learn more about the Tubescreamers you can find more info here

Get your tubescreamer here: