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.  

Ibanez JD9 Jet Driver Review

The Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer is a big favorite of blues and rock players everywhere, whether your playing through a high gain metal amp or a Fender twin it's great for boosting solos and cutting through the mix. It's also the most copied drive pedal circuit in history, almost every overdrive, amp in a box, and even quite a few fuzz circuits are tweaked versions of the classic TS9. Even Ibanez has put out more than a few variations on their classic pedal. I love overdrives and I almost always have some variation on the TS pedal on every board I've ever used. But this classic circuit does have it's share of complaints. Some people feel it needs more gain, more output, true bypass, more bottom end... ect.

Ibanez JD9 Jet Driver

I recently picked up an Ibanez JD9 Jet Driver. Ibanez markets it as a distortion which in my mind is a mistake. It's a TS9, with a few tweaks. First off it's true bypass, there is no tone coloration when this thing is off. There is more output (level or volume, what ever you want to call it) so it's great for pushing an already crunchy amp into drive just by doing that. There is also noticeably more gain than the typical TS pedal. It still has the famous JRC4558D chip, which some people feel is a big deal. But the real selling point of this pedal is a mids knob that allows you to adjust the 650 Hz frequency of the pedal. Mids are an important part of the guitar sound and help you cut through a band mix, but a lot of todays pickups are wound hotter which naturally boost the mid frequencies and paired with an already mid heavy pedal can sound muddy. With the mid knob on the JD9 you can take the mids to as flat as your pickups. It doesn't scoop the mids it just flattens the eq of the pedal.

With vintage single coils in my strat this thing can nail the Stevie Ray Vaughan sound that he used various TS pedals to make. Keep the Drive low and give it a bit of Volume boost in a cranked Fender sounding amp. Start with the Mids and Tone knobs in the 12 o'clock position and dial in your tone from there. I'm pretty familiar with the TS sound so I start with the Tone knob and then roll the mids to where I need them.

Playing a little #SRV today with my new JD9 and trusty Strat. #bluesguitar #tonetools

A video posted by @adhd_guitarist on Dec 28, 2015 at 9:07am PST

Most players will use this pedal to boost and cut through the mix for solos and the JD9 excels. All TS pedals are perfect for this but as I stated earlier a lot of todays hotter pickups are already mid heavy and can sound muddy when paired with a TS style pedal. So having the Mid knob comes in handy to roll back those mids a bit. Of course with vintage sounding PAFs or single coils this isn't a problem. The extra gain is nice and I guess that's why Ibanez decided to call it a distortion pedal but I always think of distortion with a bit of scoop in the mids and more bottom end. That is one thing to note: this pedal cuts the bottom end like a typical TS pedal. If your looking for more bottom end check out the TS9dx which also has a bit more gain than the standard TS9.

I've read that this pedal doesn't clean up well with your volume knob and while it doesn't go to perfect cleans from the higher end of the Drive knob it does clean up. With vintage single coils and PAFs if the gain is around 1 o'clock or less it will clean up just fine. With higher output pickups or the gain up around 3 o'clock it rolls back to a nice crunch tone. I've also read of a loud audible click when engaging the pedal but mine doesn't do that. It does add to the background noise with single coils but that's to be expected.

Interestingly this pedal averages $10 less than the typical TS9 and often gets discounted even more, so pedal snobs won't like it. There are more amp like screamer pedals, many with a different mid hump frequency or less of a mid bump. But I feel this pedal is a gem in the Ibanez TS line, in fact I would go so far as to say this is my new recommendation for a budget TS pedal! If your looking for a pedal with more gain, volume, less mids, or true bypass while keeping with the overall tube screamer flavor you owe it to yourself to checkout the Ibanez JD9 Jet Driver.

This review was completely unsolicited, I received no compensation for it and all views and opinions are my own

Finding Tonal Magic in Similarities

Most of us have more than one guitar hero. Focusing on trying to get that one sound is a lot of fun, and helps teach you what works and what doesn't. There is something impressive about nailing a sound and a style of a great artist and every step you take towards achieving those tones is an accomplishment. The question many people have is "why do you want to sound like that guy, don't you want to be yourself?" The answer is "because he's great" and striving towards greatness has never been a bad thing. I've heard a lot of Hendrix clones, a lot of Stevie Ray Vaughan clones, a lot of Eddie Van Halen clones, a lot of Zakk Wylde clones, and a lot of David Gilmour clones. But is Eric Johnson a Hendrix clone? Nope Eric sounds like Eric despite having very similar equipment and being very influenced by Hendrix. It's easy to find the differences but I've found that focusing on similarities helps you find tonal magic.

There is a reason this works!

The Strat Masters
Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour, Eric Johnson, Richie Kotzen and Yngwie Malmsteen. They all sound quite different and yet there are similarities in their tones. We'll start with the obvious one the Strat! Ok so Richie plays a tele but he also plays a strat at times. Strats are very versatile and easy to modify to your liking. Amp wise there seems to be two trains of thought here a crunchy, overdriven Marshall type amp or a clean amp with pedals but those pedals often sound like a crunchy old Marshall. David Gilmour and Eric Johnson are both known for using a BK Butler Tube Driver into a clean amp but compare those tones to a JTM45 and you'll start to hear similarities. Eric Johnson's setup is very Hendrix influenced as was Stevie Ray Vaughan's and David Gilmour's in the early days. If your using a lot of clean tones you may want to go with the clean fendery tones and pedals for your crunch and lead tones but if your mainly using crunch tones you can also clean up with your volume knob and then push it for leads. Once again focus on the similarities and you'll start to find magic. I find setting up for a nice crunchy Marshall tone with just a bit of gain a great place to start. Start with your EQ knobs at 12 o'clock and then add or take away depending on what you hear. All of these players will use their volume knob a lot to change the sound so dialing in your sound with the volume around 6 or 7 instead of on 10 will open up a lot of options. Another similarity is pickups, with the exception of Yngwie they all use weaker vintage voiced pickups. Yngwie uses a hotter more modern style pickup but you can also use an overdrive to get that type of sound if you prefer to use more vintage sounds most of the time. All of these guys use modulation to add a swirly effect. David Gilmour started with a Univibe, changed to a Phaser, then Flanger, then Chorus but he uses them all the same way. I was a chorus player for a long time but lately I've really gotten into phasers. These days I use chorus for subtle effects and the phaser for wilder craziness. With each of these players their style of playing is what creates their sound more than gear.

Hard Rock Heroes
My favorite rock guitar players have always been guys like Van Halen, Zakk Wylde, Jerry Cantrell, and Metallica. All hard rock players playing through high gain amps with few simple effects. Most of the time we focus on the differences between the sounds of these players but when I focused on the similarities I found tonal magic. I was able to dial in a JCM800 or a Dual Rectifier to cover all of these guys best sounds. The formula was simple. A slightly hotter bridge humbucker like an EMG81 or a Seymour Duncan JB, a high gain amp with most of the knobs past 12 o'clock, an overdrive pedal to push it for solos, chorus for thickening, delay and wah. If I needed ACDC crunch I could roll back the volume on the guitar. If I needed more cut I would use a TS9 type overdrive to push the amp and give a little more mids. Some people will get hung up on the guitar bridge and while it's an important part of your sound and playing style I've found that in heavier rock sounds it's not as important. I can mimic all of these players sounds with a floating floyd type bridge or fixed bridge as long as I'm using the above formula.

My point here is that it's easy to listen for differences but when you start listening for similarities you can often find something that works great for you. Find the similarities in the setups with your favorite artist and you'll be one step closer to finding your own voice.

The Fulltone Fulldrive 2, the Ultimate TS Pedal

I'm an Overdrive junkie. It all started with a friend of mines Tube Screamer back in the early nineties. It was versatile and could be used for so many different sounds, whether or not you needed a boost for a solo or used it to smooth out or fatten up your tone it could handle the job. Or maybe you were trying to get the Stevie Ray Vaughan sound. It seems like there are endless TS variations in the boutique market. Some people on forums like to point to all the Tube Screamer variations and laugh but the truth is the TS9 circuit is very tweakable.  It can have more bottom end, or less of a mid hump, more gain, or more touch sensitivity, there are really are a lot of different variations to be had. And of course experimenting is part of the fun here. One of the original and best boutique clones out there is the Fulltone Fulldrive 2.

There are even different versions of this from Fulltone and a lot of boutique builders have used this version of the circuit as a jumping off point. It features more gain, more bottom end, standard or mosfet clipping (for even more smoothness) and a transparent boost at the front to push the pedal into even more gain. This is perfect for everything from Steve Ray Vaughan to Steve Vai. The other day while thinking about my next overdrive I happened to look up this monster of a pedal and noticed the price has dropped everywhere to $119.20. Not sure when that happened or if it's permanent but if your looking for an Overdrive and haven't tried one, I highly recommend this beast. Check it out below.