The Tube Screamer: A Short History

hi miss Keith Williams welcome to five

art world urns to help you get the most

music from the least gear what Eric

Johnson Trey Anastasio Brad Paisley the

edge Joe Bonamassa Kirk Hammett John

Mayer Buddy Guy see you Billie Joe

Armstrong Michael Schenker and Stevie

Ray Vaughan have in common across genres

and decades all of you is the tube

screamer overdrive pedal no other pedal

has had a greater impact on guitar music

and launched more pedal designer's

careers than the ubiquitous tube

screamer to understand why the screamer

is still at the heart of many guitar

players rigs stay tuned because this is

the five watt world short history of the

tube screamer if you enjoy our videos

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do some history in 1908 the who Sheena

shoten bookstore opened its doors for

the first time in Nagoya Japan selling

sheet music in addition to books they

quickly expanded into selling musical

instruments creating a new division of

the company Hoshino gawky 10 and in 1929

that began importing Spanish guitars

made by luthier Salvador Ibanez by 1935

they'd taken over building the guitars

for Salvador Ibanez and in 1957 they

shortened their company name creating

the Ibanez brand have you ever wondered

how a Japanese instrument company had a

Spanish name yeah so if I and it took my

research on the origin of the tube

screamers to learn the answer of course

the tube screamer would come much later

well not the first overdrive it was the

first overdrive of its kind and the

classic pedal has become almost

synonymous with the term overdrive if I

say to a guitarist tubescreamer green

they know exactly what I mean but in the

midst of this tribute to the ibanez tube

screamer it's easy to overlook the fact

that Ibanez didn't actually design the

tube screamer by the 1960s Ivan had come

to be known for building high quality

copies of famous guitars by fender

Gibson and Rickenbacker and what we now

refer to as the lawsuit era in the 70s

Ibanez added a line of effects pedals

and manufactured by a company called

nishan own PHA another company in Japan

that had been founded in 1971 who had

built some of Ivan as his guitar pickups

they cut a deal with where nishan would

design and manufacture the pedals and

Ibanez would sell them under the Ibanez

brand all the while allowing nishan to

sell otherwise identical pedals under

their own brand name nishan chose the

brand name

Maxon and they were willing to do this

because they lacked the international

marketing and distribution system that

Ibanez had already built with their

instrument sales confused yet yeah yeah

me too

but it's simple really from 1979 until

such 2002 it was Maxon who manufactured

the tubescreamer pedal that they had

created for Ibanez max ons Susumu Tamura

designed the tube screamer and the first

ones hit the market as the Ibanez ts808

and the max on OD 808 concurrently in a

recent guitar player energy celebrating

the 40th anniversary of the pedal to

mortar said that the challenge was

designed a pedal that didn't

fundamentally change the tone of the

guitar that there would be a noticeable

effect but with a softer distortion the

idea is that you increase the level one

pedal and it adds a pleasant distortion

to the signal as well as sustained edge

and harmonic liveliness while preserving

the innate tone of the guitar in

hindsight it's interesting to note that

sales of the original 808 like many

other innovations in the industry were

pretty weak you would think it'd be

simple to find out what the original

list price was for the tsa o8 but hours

of internet searching and help from the

guys on the forums left me to find the

original price list on sale on reverb

always trust commerce right with print

timelines as they were back then the

pedal was released and shipped in 79 but

the 808 wouldn't appear in the Ibanez

price list until May of 1980 the list

price was $50 which equates to one

hundred and fifty dollars in two

thousand twenty dollars by the way the

current ts808 reissue lists for $179

according to John Lomas former product

manager for Ibanez the tube screamer

found its unique voice in a limitation

despite the name a tube screamer does

not distort the signal in a way that a

traditional tube amp does which is with

asymmetrical clipping where the

waveforms are not clipped equally at the

top and the bottom

at the time of the design rollin boss

held a patent on solid state

asymmetrical clipping which left max on

to use symmetrical clipping generally

the symmetrical clipping is smoother

than asymmetrical clipping Lomas

explained quote if you look at the

schematic between a tubescreamer and a

boss od1 they're almost exactly the same

thing

the original boss overdrive was designed

to be a tube simulator which was a

really big thing back then because of

course most amplifiers were starting to

get away from tubes there were

solid-state and they really sounded like

[ __ ] so there was a market for tube

simulation pedals I believe that's why

the tooth Kramer was named the tube

screamer

but according to designer Tamura the

name was suggested by Sammy ash the

grandson of Sam ash of Sam Ash music

stores a m-- Tamura and others visited

the store on West 48th Street in

Manhattan to get feedback on the new

design prior to the launch as a young

member of the family business Sammy was

more familiar with pedals and so the

family asked two more to meet with him

they were also demoing an amplifier at

the time and when they hooked it up it

made a screaming sound Sammy asked do

you know how the crybaby pedal got its

name yes tomorrow replied it sounds like

a crying baby and Sammy said this sounds

like a screaming tube amp and so

according to Tamura that's how the

original 808 was named the tube screamer

overdrive Pro though the 808 circuit

shared much with the boss 81 it also had

a tone control and it featured a jrc 455

8 d op-amp IC or integrated circuit

operational amplifier it also had the

now iconic small foot switch lomis

recounted that the 808 was the first

pedal he'd seen with an IC in it all the

previous overdrive circuits had been

built around transistors Lomas likes to

credit the sweet vocal mid-range of the

8 away with that particular chip and

it's why he and many others prefer the

sound of the original 808 due to the

slow early sales an unforeseen sourcing

issue that came up around the AOA

it was soon redesigned the company that

built the small button switch on the 808

housing stopped producing them and

subsequently the pedal needed to be

revamped in 1982 the ts9 came out and

many were glad for the changes along

with a new bigger foot switch generally

the ts9

is thought to be a bit brighter sounding

a little less smooth and have a bit more

output with these changes sales improved

an original price list from 1984 that I

found on Ibanez rules website shows that

the ts9 originally listed for $75 which

equates to a $185 in 2020 dollars

unfortunately the original TS 9s

produced from 82 through 84 suffered

from randomly sourced parts and could

vary wildly from unit to unit this is

probably a good time to remind folks

that many parts used in the manufacture

of pedals and amplifiers have a

tolerance of plus or minus 10 to 20%

Bryan wampler did a cool video on why

each TS pedal can sound so different

here he measures to gain pots picked at

random from a batch on his bench these

are both 500k audio taper pots now how

do you measure a pot you measure the

outside lugs so well let's do that pot

number if I can get it to hold still pot

number one 514 thousand ohms pot number

two and I just pulled these from the

drawer to four hundred and sixty eight

thousand ohms okay so that's that's a

fairly big difference in if this would

be the game pot that's a fairly big

difference in addition to the standard

variations the TS 9s were also built

with parts from various suppliers so

each batch of TS 9s went out the door

with wildly varying tones due to still

disappointing sales the first run TS 9s

were dropped by 85 ironically interested

in the AOA and TS 9s was quietly growing

in the underground blues and rock world

mainly due to the recordings of one of

Central Texas most beloved Sons Stevie

Ray Vaughan Texas Flood released in 83

climbed to 38 on the charts but by the

time family style was released one month

after Stevie's tragic death in 1990 the

record had climbed to seventh certifying

SRV as a genuine guitar hero in 91 the

release of the sky is crying also went

into the top

I clearly remember standing in at the

guitar works while that record played in

the background I was floored I just

stood there I went over to the owner

Chris and I said what is this he gave me

one of his big mustache smiles and

schooled me on Stevie Ray Vaughan is

known to have used ATO a it's early on

but based on majority of stage photos

live videos insurance and custom records

it's clear that he is TS 9s from 82

through most of the 80s Vaughn famously

used the ts9 as a clean solo boosts

pushing the front of his amp or amps

depending on his ever-changing rig so

with the level turned all the way up

he'd set the overdrive low and make his

magic after moving to the TS tens in

1988 he'd often Dow the gain hotter

along with the level pushing his dumbo

and Marshall amps harder generating more

Distortion

after the nine series pedals Ibanez

released a new series of pedals that

they called the master series with no

pedals named the tube screamer in the

line but the line did include a pedal

with a tube screamer cell circuit and a

two band EQ but this line lasted for

just one year in 1986 Ivan has released

the tube screamer classic TS 10 as part

of the 10 series of pedals the new TS 10

claimed a new high fidelity quieter

circuit that eliminated the chirp that

some of the original screamers emitted

when all the controls were turned up

unfortunately for the TS 10 many blues

and rock players had started to snap up

the original 808 and TS 9 so under the

impression that these were what SRV had

used most often debate about what Stevie

used rages on gear forums but his guitar

tech ranae Martinez has said in many

places that over three pedals Stevie

favored the TS 10 this may well account

for John Mayer's loving use of the TS 10

as Martinez now serves as Mayer's guitar

tech and those two items together

account for the rising price of TS 10s

in the used market despite the

popularity of use TS 10s brought on by

Mayer's use noted tube screamer expert

analog man Mike piera said that he's

never liked them quote they used cheap

proprietary parts jacks switches and

pots that often break and can't be

replaced

because the sturdy parts used in

handmade hand wired pedals like the TS 9

won't fit they have circuit boards that

have all these parts mounted on them

that break off just so they could make

these pedals chief

with machine soldering the TS tens were

the first tube screamers did not be

built by max on having instead been

built in Taiwan and if you want to crawl

deep into the details of screamers you

can do no better than to refer to analog

man's extraordinary history of the

circuit and the pedals in general it

left a circuit down foot like me reading

and rereading sections trying to glean

the wheat from the chaff

one was from Ibanez explains that the

economy impacted the quality of

manufacturing in those years in the

early 80s the yen was still very strong

to the dollar this favorable exchange

rate meant that they could make

high-quality products and still be

assured of making a profit but by 85 the

yen had weakened and Ibanez had to start

worrying about how to make things less

expensively but still be able to make a

profit in the US market in 1991 Ibanez

launched the sound tank line of effects

they set out to capture the sound of the

original vintage units with cheaper

costs and modern manufacturing

techniques the resulting ts5 was not

hand wired like the 808 and ts9 and it

came out in a high-impact plastic case

rather than a metal case though the

circuit is a throwback to the earlier

circuits it was built by the time we

needs manufactured F on and it had

smaller less expensive components given

the growing popularity the original 808

and TS 9s in the EU's market it seemed

inevitable that a reissue would come

along Lomas spent a lot of time

convincing Ibanez in Maxon that a

reissue ts9 would be a strong seller in

the marketplace this was in 1990 and the

world was moving towards all things

digital and that's where the company

wanted to go ironically now we've seen

this swing all the way around to where

Maxon is producing high-quality

reproductions of most of their original

analog 9 series pedals

it's interesting to note that at the

same time that Mack's on an ibanez were

debating about producing reissues both

fender and Gibson were doing their best

to produce high quality reissues of

their original instruments themselves

for context the Fender Custom Shop

opened in 1987 and the Gibson Custom

Shop opened in 93 at the beginning of

the reissue project

Maxon bought up as many vintage TS 9s as

they could and as they examine the parts

they found that they almost all of them

had the Toshiba ta 750 55:8 IC chip

rather than the j RC chip that had been

used in the ato eights so they settled

on using the Toshiba chip for the

reissue

it'll probably fuel the comment fires to

say that not everyone believes that the

magic of these pedals lies in the

specific chip no less pedal guru than

Josh Scott of JHS pedals had this to say

in an interview on reverb around the

time he brought out his buns I which is

nine tube screamers in one pedal and is

there a Holy Grail chip in your mind and

in my preference in my opinion I think

the chip is extremely negligible to the

sound of the circuit oh I can feel

things I can I feel it I think it's very

negligible some people have shown that

there I'm not gonna sit here and tell

another guitar player that they can't

feel it or hear it but it's not changing

a tube screamer in the amount that it

has been made over to be in my opinion I

think a chip doesn't make a pedal the

circuit makes the pedal and the chip is

part of a circuit upon the reissue Maxon

made a point of emphasizing that they

brought manufacturing back to Japan

saying that the reissues were built

quote in the same factory by the same

middle-aged ladies unquote that had

built the originals a decade earlier as

a side note

Maxon is still building their pedals in

that same factory today the reissue was

a complete clone of the originals they

even reprinted the original manual from

1981 and put that right in the box

within weeks of the release more than

5,000 units were sold and Ibanez says

that they'd guess that they sell between

10 and 12,000 units each year the

immediate success of the TS 9 reissue

pointed directly to the potential market

for a deluxe tube screamer of sorts and

in 1998 the 4 knob ts9 DX the turbo tube

screamer was released in addition to the

overdrive level and tone controls

there's an additional mode knob the mode

knob provides settings from the original

ts9 and three additional modes with

increasing amounts of volume and bass

response the modes were labeled ts9 plus

hot and turbo the turbo circuit is the

same as the original TS 9s but the mode

switch changes certain components

parameters via clipping diodes and tone

capacitors the plus mode is grittier

than the original TS 9 while the hot

mode is crunchy ER with even more

boosted mids

and finally the turbo mode produces a

modern sound that's thick and the most

powerful in 2002 Ibanez moved away from

using Maxon as a manufacturer of the

tube screamer and Maxon continuing on

its own producing the pedals under its

own name as they had all along in the

past two decades there's been several

additional variants starting with the

ts7 tone lock which ran from 2000 to

2010 the ts808 reissue was launched in

2004 and is still being produced as is

the newer ts808 HW a hand wired tube

screamer which debuted in 2008 in 2011

Ibanez released the ts9 be specifically

designed for bass with a full tube and

eq and a mix control a respectable it is

a special impact on the mid-range that

typifies the sound of a tube screamer it

rolls off some low-end and a bit of

high-end as well often described as

smoothing the top-end lomas put it

simply saying that quote it's still one

of the best things to overdrive any tube

amplifier with it just as magical things

- tubes so who's used tubes creamers and

how did they use them I've read many

times that it might be more Pro Reed

asked who hasn't used a tube screamer

but here's a variety of TS users to

pique your interest stevie ray vaughan

as i mentioned before no one artist

likely did more to cement the TS and a

history of pedals than SRV though it's

wildly debated which he used and/or

preferred it's now generally recognized

that he tried them all out as they

became available so the 808 TS 9 and TS

10 though he used different versions

over the time the way he used them was

pretty consistent turn up the level to

push the front of the amp keep the

overdrive on the low side and crank the

tone to add as much Sparkle as he could

to his fairly dark tone coming off a

strat with heavy strings tuned down to

e-flat Trey Anastasio probably more

known for his semi hollow clean tones

when Trey steps on a pedal for a little

dirt

it's a ts9 actually 2t s 9s set to two

different settings the first being light

overdrive high level and two o'clock

tone for just a touch of hair and sort

of a clean boost the second is the full

monty dimed overdrive dimed level and

the tone set at about the same two

o'clock running into a ross compressor

kirk hammett

this is the one on the list that

surprised me in my research because I

think I Metallica guitar tones as the

iconic scooped metal onslaught but of

course for that very reason the TS 9s

mid-range push is the right medicine to

punch through for a solo Kirk's TS 9s

are often set with a dime to overdrive

mild push on the level and four o'clock

tone all designed to cut through and

fill back in some of the mids not often

found in the two guitar tones of

Metallica the edge when you think of the

edge you immediately hear those chiming

delay Joshua Tree clean tones but when

he goes to overdrive it's most often a

ts9 that light bit of bite is found by

pushing the overdrive to about two

o'clock the level just passed in the

unity gain and the tone rolled back just

a touch to soften the brightness in the

high mids coming from the ts9 eric

johnson ej has long included ao8 in his

rig clearly visible in the rig run down

some pedal board picks circulating on

the internet from those we can see just

what we might expect the tone is rolled

all the way off the overdrive is set

between noon and 1:00 o'clock and the

levels right around unity at noon this

shows that with the level and gain

control set pretty close to neutral the

journal base cut mids forward character

of the pedal is what Eric is embracing

in his 808 Joe Bonamassa though Joe is

running a greatly simplified rig these

days on batteries no less he's had a

long-standing love of tube screamer type

pedals to create his crunch and lead

tones of the few pedals he is using

these days there are TS variants created

for him by his buddy George trips from

way huge done lot by mxr according to

trips in an interview on that pedal show

his overrated special is just what is an

overrated screamer ok the tube screamer

with a 500 Hertz control Joe is often

using the TS pedal to juice both the

drive and the level while also rolling

the tone up to about two o'clock to add

those cutting upper mids any history of

the tube screamer would be incomplete

without talking about the immense impact

of the circuit design on the world of

overdrive pedals almost every discussion

of a new overdrive pedal starts with is

it another tube screamer clone if as

Oscar Wilde put it imitation is the

sincerest form of flattery then the TS

circuit receives never-ending flattery

from the pedal building world

a full debate about what constitutes a

cloned pedal and the politics of that

would fill more than one video so let's

try to keep ourselves restricted to the

parts that made up the original

tubescreamer

it was perhaps the first to incorporate

in an IC chip that chip the Japanese jrc

455 8 is the one that most people often

credit with the majority of pixie dust

sprinkled in the original 808 that IC

chip is responsible for the

characteristic symmetrical clipping of

the input waveform additionally in this

light to medium overdrive pedal we have

FET bypass switching and 3 we finish it

off with transistor buffers at both the

input and the output stages it might be

argued that if you have all these in

place you're looking at a tube screamer

clone at one level or another I'm sure

we've all read endless lists of pedals

considered to be TS clones mistakenly

many of these lists start by listing the

Maxon pedals as the best

tube screamer clones out there hopefully

this video will help folks understand

that the original designers release of

the exact same pedals cannot really be

seen as clones and it might be argued

that you can trace the beginning of many

boutique pedal builders careers to

modding tube screamers so let's look at

some pedals influenced by the TS the JH

s bonzai j chest cut to the chase and

created a pedal that has nine different

screamers in one reverb done a great

video interview with JH s founder Jeff

Scott on the hows and whys of how he did

this I used a bit of it earlier here

where he's talking about the differences

in chips

I found this fascinating because he

talks about why he included some of the

rare RTS style circuits in the pedal the

J rocket blue note a TS style pedal that

is very popular with blues and jazz

players the rocket blue note is

available in two different versions with

slightly different features they share

the fat knob which allow you to dial the

low mid characteristics to fit your rig

the way huge overrated special as I

mentioned when talking about Joe

Bonamassa is use of screamers the way

huge / red special or the double and

special is what's usually up front for

crunch and boost duties with Joe like

many TS versions the innovation here is

the control that they give you over the

all-important mid-range frequencies the

mad professor little green wonder this

pedal came to my attention on an episode

of the true tone lounge where Zack

childs is interviewing guitarist

producer John Leventhal

funny enough John doesn't have it on its

board in the episode but he raves about

it as his favorite overdrive Leventhal

is a player's player and any of his

preferences are worth paying attention

to in my book both the hand wired and

more affordable PCB versions were based

on bjorn joules original BJ Fe design

the Jackson Broken Arrow probably the

most technologically advanced screamer

based pedal out there it provides three

bands of EQ and multiple switchable gain

stages this along with a separate boost

function is available in the double

switches on the front providing a

tremendous range of Ts goodness and uses

Maxon apex 808 Tamura though I said it's

impossible called max on a clone as it

was the original after all I'd be remiss

if I didn't mention something that was

just announced at Winter NAMM 2020 I'd

heard from the guys at godlike max ons

us distributor that Maxim was working

with the original 808 designer

Tamura on an ultimate version pedal to

celebrate the 40th anniversary this

worked stretched on for three years and

though I'm sure they'd rather have

popped it out during 2019 but we'll all

be glad for the extra time they put in

to produce this new apex AOA and would

that soon-to-be-released nugget we're

up-to-date if you feel like I missed

something big or if you have your own

favorite tube screamer story please add

it in the comments

I rely all of you to keep me on my toes

I need to send a thank you out to Zack

Hillman for his excellent article on

reverb on creating tube screamer tones

of famous players I need to thank Brian

wampler for his permission to use the

video clip on his comparison of game

pots to illustrate part variation and

screamers I need to thank Dan Orkin that

reverb for permission to use the clip

from their video on the ghs Banzai we're

just Scott expresses his opinions on

chips one of the things I like about

Josh this is sort of damn the torpedoes

approach to public speaking I'd like to

thank Jackson audio for the permission

to use the music from one of their

broken era videos for the intro and

outro music illustrating the TS goodness

available there and as is often the case

I need to thank Perry McManus and Dave

Onorato for editing another big script

thanks for watching remember if you want

to help us keep going stop by the store

and grab a t-shirt buck the links in the

description until next time thanks for

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