Tube Screamer Style Recommendations

The Mighty Tube Screamer! One of the most copied circuits in the pedal business is the Ibanez TS9. Why? It works for a lot of different applications and it's easy to tweak it for different sounds. Everyone from Stevie Ray Vaughan to modern high gain shredders use TS pedals. They can be used for boosting an already hard driving amp, pushing a clean amp into breakup, adding drive to low volume amps, punching through for solos and tightening up the bottom end. There are some complaints, some people feel they boost the mids to much especially with modern mid focused pickups and amps. Others don't like the way that the bottom end rolls off while still others prefer a different type of clipping all together. But they are a great pedal and below is a short list of pedals I've played through and recommend depending on what your looking for.

Ibanez Originals

Ibanez TS808 The Ibanez reissue of the original, sort of. The circuit has changed some what over the years but it's still in the same seating section of the same ball park.


Ibanez TS-9 The Ibanez TS-9 is the most popular overdrive pedal in the world, especially if you take all of the clones and variants into consideration. And it stays that way for a reason.

Budget Recommendations

EHX East River Drive  This TS808 clone from Electro-Harmonix was designed with input from Analogman. It's cheap and sounds fantastic.


Ibanez Jet Driver  My personal favorite budget recommendation! Why? It's a tweaked TS9 with some of the most popular mods. It's true bypass, has more drive and volume, and a mids knob if your mix is getting muddy. It can easily cop SRV tones and does everything the TS9 does and more. Skip if you need more bottom end otherwise pick this up whenever its on sale.




Knob Tweakers

Way Huge Green Rhino  This fantastic TS style pedal adds knobs for the bottom end and mids and has plenty of extra volume on tap for pushing your amp.

Wampler Clarkesdale  Brian Wamplers take on the Tube Screamer adds an active 3 band eq. The drive is super smooth. Also check out his Paisley Drive a TS tweaked for Brad Paisley.

Earthquaker Devices Palisades  Is this the ultimate TS tweakers dream? This thing is great in the studio and will keep you tone hunting for months. Skip if you need simple plug and play.

High End

Ibanez TS808HW Cashing in on the boutique trend Ibanez released this amazing sounding all handwired TS808. It will cost you but it sounds amazing.


Mojo Hand Rook  A TS style pedal with amp like response and separate bass and treble controls this thing was a hit as soon as it was released. Check out the Rook Royale for an added EP booster.

Keeley Red Dirt  Mr Keeley got his start doing pedal mods for rock gods. He had several Tube Screamer mods and the Red Dirt is the culmination of his experience. It sounds fantastic.

Mini TS Pedals

Keeley Red Dirt Mini  Take Mr Keeley's ultimate TS pedal the Red Dirt make it mini pedal and add mini switches inside for four different levels of compression and gain. Skip if you hate mini pedals

Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini This thing sounds killer and just like the full size version. You can't go wrong here.

Muli-Drive Pedals

TrueTone Route 66 The TrueTone (formerly Visual Sound) Route 66 pedal adds a compressor that can also be used as a boost into a great 808 clone. Their Version 2 and 3 come with a lifetime guarantee. I know a few blues players that use this as their only pedal.

Wampler Dual Fusion  Mr Wamplers partnership with Tom Quayle is a tweaked version of his Paisley Drive and Euphoria pedals. If you like stacking low gain pedals you have to check this out.

Fulltone Fulldrive 3  The Fulldrive Mosfet 2 is one of the original boutique overdrives and one of the most successful. The Fulldrive 3 adds a separate boost that can be used independently of the drive side.

If you want more history on the Tube Screamer Analogman has a fantastic page HERE. Yes there are a gazillion more TS clones out there to choose from but one of these should get you what your looking for.

Pete Thorn on Overdrives

If you don't know who Pete Thorn is look him up on youtube! He has a pretty impressive working resume, as well as being an exceptional guitar player. And his reviews always give me GAS! He posted this on the different types of Overdrives on his Facebook page. 

Someone asked me to quickly describe the differences between TS9 or 808 Tubscreamer pedals, Klon types, OCD, and Carl Martin Plexitone. Here's my response: TS-types- mid forward, softer, overdrive, some bass attenuation going on, nice for BF Fender amps (because Fenders have a mid-scooped tone and lots of treble and bass so it's a perfect contrast). Think Stevie Ray Vaughn. Klon- also an OD, but can almost act like a clean boost. Also mid forward but less so than a TS type, way more "neutral". Just very natural- a "more" pedal. Takes your core amp tone and just beefs it up, giving you "more" of it. OCD- kind of like an 18 watt Marshall grind, in a pedal. Nice amp-ish overdrive. Plexitone- really a distortion, a harder edged gain pedal, best into a neutral clean tone (a tone with not too much bass or treble a flat clean sound will work best) that's quite clean. Ample bass (certainly no bass cut), sizzly top- much like a real plexi or early metal panel Marshall!- Pete Thorn

This would pretty much sum up my experiences with these pedals as well. When I first started playing there were not near as many options of overdrives. And the Tube Screamer quickly found it's home on my board. I keep trying to get away from it but it just feels like coming home. 

Here is a review of my current favorite.  

Dave Navarro Gear Guide

ADHD's Gear Guides at any Budget. I'm a firm believer that the tone comes from the hands. If your trying to achieve a certain guitar hero's tone you have to not just have the chops but you've got to get down their style of attack with your picking hand as well. That said every step you take toward finding the right gear is often very inspiring and WILL get you closer to “that” sound. I'm going to break these down into Guitars, Pickups, Pedals and Amps.

Dave Navarro Gear Guide.

Dave Navarro is one of those guys who just doesn't care about what guitar nerds think of him, and for some reason that seems to get under the skin of a lot of guitar players. But lets give the guy some credit, he's been a member of two of the most influential alternative rock bands in history, and been an A list session player for literally dozens of artist from Michael Jackson to Nine Inch Nails to Glen Hughes. He has an amazing cover band Royal Machines which brings out all kinds of guest stars and has done quite a bit of TV.

Guitars – Dave has used Ibanez guitars, Gibson Les Pauls and Fender Strats but his main weapon of choice is his signature Paul Reed Smith

PRS Dave Navarro Signature – Dave busted up most of his Ibanez guitars while on tour with Janes Addiction in the late 80's and borrowed a PRS from a friend. He was blown away by the quality of the instrument and ordered one right away. A few years later he settled on a white Custom 24 which stood out from the rest of the PRS line.

PRS SE Dave Navarro – The incredibly well built PRS SE line is one of the best built budget lines in the industry. Dave was cautious, wanting it to be as close to the original as possible. It's an excellent budget friendly model.

Note: the PRS Signiture line has been dropped for the time being but Dave is still an advocate of the guitars. Any Custom 24 in the Core, S2 or SE line up will get you there. 

Ibanez RG Series - Dave used Ibanez guitars in the early days of Jane's Addiction and has recently pulled one out for older songs. The Ibanez Premium and Prestige lines are well built but heads up if your looking at the budget models, some are fine, others have problems.

Pickups – Dave's Pickups haven't changed at all since his early days with PRS. A PRS HFS in the bridge and a Vintage Bass in the neck.

Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded Humbucker Set – I've mentioned this set on the site before and I still recommend it to anyone who needs a good versatile 2 humbucker set. It's the number one replacement set for a reason.

Pedals- While Dave likes to try out new pedals every so often, his live rig is a “if it ain't broke don't fix it” type situation. Wah, overdrive, chorus, and 2 delays. He's also been known to also throw in a phaser or an octave pedal at times.

Dunlop Hendrix Wah – While he has a couple of others Dave's choice has always been the Hendrix wah. It's simple, it sounds good, it works.

IbanezTS808- So sometimes this is a TS9 or a Boss OD1, Dave is not picky he just needs something to boost the mids for solos. 

Boss CH-1 Chorus – Dave sometimes has two of these, one for the clean sound and one to add some shimmer or thickness to the leads. It's been used by everyone from David Gilmour to Zakk Wylde.

Boss DD-3 Digital Delay - Dave loves delay. Check out his solo on Three Days. He keeps 2 or sometimes 3 on his board. One for ambient repeats, One for harder repeats that he likes to play with. Sometimes he has a third one for the cleans.

Visual Sound H2O - Not what Dave uses but it includes a beautiful sounding chorus and an analog voiced digital delay. Well built and well priced considering what you get, this is the new version of one of my favorite pedals. 

Amps – In the studio Dave likes to use a lot of different amps including a Bogner Uberschall, a Vox AC30, a Fender Twin, and Fender Deluxe. But his work horse for many years now has been a pair of Marshall JCM900's nicknamed Tangerine and Peach.

By the way, which one is Peach?

Marshall JCM900 - Dave Navarro played JCM900's since they came out. There is an internet rumor that Dave has his 900's modded but he says he hasn't. A lot of guys don't care for them because they can be bright sounding if not cranked up. And like a lot of Marshalls, some sound better than others.

Fender Deluxe Reverb – For larger gigs Dave needed something to use for cleans at louder volumes other than his Marshall's. A favorite of players everywhere, it makes a killer pedal platform to work with.

MarshallDSL40C – For a cheaper alternative the little brother of the DSL100 is hard to beat. It has a nice clean tone and a killer lead channel for all types of rock and blues.

UPDATE 2022- on the YouTube channel ToneTalk Dave talked about playing in his cover band Royal Machines. He said that he was playing with guys like Steve Stevens and Jerry Cantrell and was impressed with their Friedman amps so he called up Dave Friedman and ended up buying a Friedman BE Deluxe which he has been using ever since. Friedman designed the BE Deluxe to be a Swiss army knife of Marshalls. Navarro stated that he gets that Marshall high gain sound while being very clear and being able to hear each string better and that it cleans up much better so that he doesn't need the Fenders anymore. 

Obviously there are a lot of alternatives out there but these are a great place to start your tone search.