Tube Screamer FAQ Version 1

[JBroll]

I also responded to it last page - there's nothing surprising about the lack of differences between THE SAME CHIP (differing only in manufacturer), their tests left out a massive factor in our selection (noise in high-gain situations), and their testing method is about as scientific as a Pepsi Challenge taken by allergic smokers.

Jeff

 

[Metaltastic]

Jeff, I've been debating over on the Boogie board about boosts and Tube Screamers, and am in need of your input. The story thus far:

It would defeat the purpose since it's just a clean gain boost, and most people use "boost" pedals more for their low filtering effect (mainly the Tube Screamer) - it doesn't matter if you get more gain from a pedal or by turning up the gain knob on the amp, the effect is the same, and it's NOT what tightens up the lows, but rather the aforementioned filtering

Thats not true... while you can find filtering on traditional tube screamer designs, a straight up clean boost can work wonders on tightening your amp. That additional kick you get from the boost makes the preamp tubes compress more... with more compression, you get a tightening effect as well as additional harmonics depending on the design. The only benefit the filtering will give you is a more specific tone, where as a straight up clean boost retains the tone of the orginal signal.

Well you're talking tightening in terms of compression, so how is that different than just turning the gain knob up? When I say tightening, I mean in the lows, and that's where the filtering/thinning of the TS (and its associated mid-hump) help so much, cuz maintaining the original signal is a bad thing IMO when it's mud/flub-city! (as it is with any Rectifier tweaked for high gain IMO, as well as most other amps)

Turning up your gain knob and slamming the preamp with a hotter signal is two totally different monsters. The hotter signal provided by the boost from either a clean boost or OD setup as a clean boost will cause your preamp to compress more into its natural clipping point... at that point the signal gets very smooth and tight. The most importnat point is your not adjust any eq in your tone... simply using the natural tightening effect of a preamp compressed to the point of clipping.

Now with a TS which has a natural mid-hump and some cut in the lows, your adjusting the eq curve while also causing compression... so its the same as a clean boost but with the eq curve altered. But dont think for one second its just the filtering causing the tightness... its the compression that tightens your preamp, and the mid-hump will help things pop a little more and in turn will tighten even more.

And if you think maintaining the original signal just hotter (as you would with a clean boost) with a Recto is mud city then you need to work on dialing your amp in appropriately with the boost.

(like that little bait in the end?) So what sayest thou? YOU'RE MY LIFELINE DAMMIT!!

 

[JBroll]

He's talking about yanking the gain up and 'retaining the tone of the original signal'... I'm not sure how he thinks gain knobs work, or why he doesn't seem to think that proper bass control before clipping is the most essential part of a pleasant distortion next to having an *input signal*, but I'd stay clear of that bait.

Jeff

 

[Metaltastic]

Is there any truth about it being different to "slam the input with a hotter signal" and about the preamp's "natural clipping point" and such, rather than increasing the gain with the amp's knob?

 

[JBroll]

Looking at what claims to be a Dual Rec schematic (note: I'm not fully convinced of the authenticity, so this post concerns ONLY what I can tell from *that schematic* and is not to be taken as divine revelation, relied upon in mission-critical systems, bet on, or otherwise taken to be anything more than a few notes on what the schematic says)... there is precisely one tube that comes before the gain control (V1, and from the looks of it only half of it is used), so if pissing off that one tube (before any kind of equalization - specifically, bass taming) is that big a deal, you could use a skullfuckingly loud input signal to overdrive it. (Note: a signal at this level would overdrive any amp's input stage.) Keep in mind, though, that slamming one tube really hard isn't exactly the classiest way to get distortion - the reason you have eighteen thousand tubes in those buggers is that smoothing out the distortion by having several gain stages doing something will lead to generally more usable sounds than getting the same amount of mess from one gain stage. Now, you are talking about a truly cuntripping input signal at this point... strictly speaking there will be a difference, but with what you do I'm not sure you'll want it. (End disclaimer, again... don't bet a kidney on this shit - this is an amateur reading a schematic whose authenticity he can't verify after drinking more than his mother would like. I wouldn't even bring this part of the discussion over there, because there's no telling what the fuck would happen if they had in their presence a guy who completely despised tubes and would rather trust the scientifically-justifiable than the passed-down-between-generations-of-blues-rock-wankers-who-thought-they-were-smarter-than-they-really-were...)

To step back and go into more detail on the original posts... the first you quoted is essentially stating that more gain means tighter tone. (I'll let your experience determine your take on that.)

The second quote is accurate (*twitch*) in that there will be a difference between a hot input signal and a higher gain knob setting, as far as one goddamned tube's input signal is concerned, but to blather on about 'natural clipping point' and pretend that using EQ before the amp is a grave offense is simply hilarious. There is nothing natural about clipping - the whole *point* is to feed an electronic gizmo more signal than it ever signed up to take.

Throughout, he is saying 'compression' (which would make his statements much more valid, if it were even half the bloody story) and not 'clipping' (which is what's actually going on any time a tube makes a decent sound - even the 'tube clean' sparkle is mild clipping that doesn't sound scratchy), which makes me suspicious. There's also no indication that he's really clear on what you want on the TS, but since that omission may be due to limited samples of his posts I'm holding back on that.

I'd be less concerned about missing out on godly tone due to the absence of a massive clean boost and more concerned about easily-foreseen attempts to lure you into feng shui and transcendental meditation to reach your full 'Spirit Phoenix Potential' or some similarly whacked-the-fuck-right-out shit. There's enough technobabble to seem coherent, but if this were even a tenth of the story life would be much simpler.

Jeff

 

[Metaltastic]

Hahahahahaha, spot on as always Jeff, and much appreciated - and don't worry, I had absolutely zero inclination to deviate from the TS path, I was just curious as to whether factually what he was saying held up!

 

[JBroll]

Right... well, pending further investigation...

(Read: until someone donates a bloody Dual Rec to the JBroll Foundation For Utter Rubbish, convinces me that tubes aren't a bunch of pratty nonsense to make people pay far more than they should for being loud, and gives me enough time alone with the thing to make some people wonder if the amount of time I've spent confusing the shiny little bastard is long enough to qualify as grounds for common-law fucking marriage...)

I'm going to have to stick to the TS recommendation.

As always, it's important to be able to tell the difference between when I'm talking out of my ass and when I'm talking out of my ass *scientifically*, but I think here my wild conjectures and gin-fueled bitterness will suffice until someone with more patience with electronics comes to settle the deal conclusively. In any case, I wouldn't buy one of those SD booster gizmos, as making a comparably clean boost is far easier than the two- or three-hour work you and I have to do to pay for something at that price.

Jeff

 

[tarnationsauce2]

Usage​

Put it in front of the amp, with low gain, tone wherever you think it sounds open but not harsh, and about unity gain. We're not looking to have it boosting things – that's what the gain knob is for. We're looking to have the pedal tighten the sound, compress and juice the mids somewhat, and clean up the high end. That's it.

How is everyone dealing with clean tone and the TS?

A friend of mine has a Dual Recto and I suggested the TS to tighten the low end and clean the fizzyness ita bit.

Only problem is with his clean tone. He does have delay and chorus that he only uses with clean tone.
He took the TS out because he didn't like hitting 2 buttons (TS and Channel) at the same time.

Do most people just leave the TS on all the time (with clean tone)? The description on "Usage" seems that the pedal would be passing pretty much clean tone.

 

[JBroll]

I turn mine off for clean sounds.

I don't see how the description even comes close to saying that the pedal would pass a clean tone.

If your friend doesn't like hitting too many buttons, how exactly does he activate the clean effects?

Jeff

 

[Metaltastic]

I turn mine off for clean sounds.

I don't see how the description even comes close to saying that the pedal would pass a clean tone.

If your friend doesn't like hitting too many buttons, how exactly does he activate the clean effects?

Jeff

Well you can toggle the loop on/off on Rectifiers (or set it to only be on for one channel), so he probably has them always-on in the loop. I admit the two-pedal-stomp for cleans would be a bit annoying, but god it is fucking worth it, and nowhere near as annoying as the flubtacular flub of omitting the TS before one of those amps!

 

[Fox Mulder]

I'm sure it gets tiring to a lot of people, which I don't particularly mean to do, but I mean it when I say that I'm only cynical and negative because bringing about change requires knowing what to change. I wouldn't be so damned negative all the time if I didn't want everything to be better, and hopefully posts like that one make up for harshing everyone's morning mellow all the bloody time...

Jeff

Nah man, I think you're the greatest poster this forum ever had.

 

[Pot]

ThK U Jbroll...i've saved some $$$ and bought a ts7

 

[JBroll]

Glad to hear it.

A warning about the switches... I've noticed that mine doesn't work as easily when the battery is low. With electronic switching this is absolutely no surprise, but make sure you try a battery swap if you get some failure to activate - it won't be long before the sound shits out anyway, so keep spares.

Jeff

 

[GuitarGuitarGuitar]

JBroll ~ thanks for your efforts over the years here. I honestly just found this forum tonight after ordering a TS7 this afternoon and after trying to soak in everything I could find out about Tubescreamer varieties and mods for the past week or so ~ had been dabbling the past few weeks performing mods on a DS-1 ~ so yeah, the perfect forum to have found and I have enjoyed the last couple hours of reading the interesting rhetoric (I vastly enjoy cursing sometimes), and the serious depth of discussion and information on a topic I've been really obsessing about a lot lately. Thanks a million!

 

[JBroll]

I'm glad you liked it - whenever you get the chance, learn something weird and do the same.

The DS-1 is a good pedal to start with for modifications, because there are a lot of reasons to mod the things (they sound pretty bad on their own, really), a lot of resources for starting places, schematics and diagrams available with a little searching, and little things (good labeling, solid construction and reliability, et cetera) that make beginner mistakes much less catastrophic. It was my first serious modification platform, in fact, and I still have the first one I screwed with and a stock pedal to start annoying. It's pretty limited in application compared to a TS or a simple booster, but it'll give you a lot of ways to see how changing one small thing can make the entire pedal become something different. The next one to go with is probably the TS circuit, just because you'll learn more about subtle details and attention to minutia, but it is in far less need of modification - after you can do a few things to the DS-1 and some TS-type pedal just start building your own.

Jeff

 

[Pot]

yup noticed that right away because i used one battery that i had around and it didn´t last a day....then i remembered what u said

 

[GuitarGuitarGuitar]

So I received the TS7 and a second one, mostly to see what two would sound like together. I applaud them together ~ just delicious sonic maelstrom in front of a high gain channel (dive-bombing, phaser, speedy runs, ridiculousness). I did the 808 mod to one of them, but I can't perceive any differences in the sound (a couple times I caught myself thinking that I did). I used the Radio Shack braid too ~ frayed it a little to help.

I'd really like to know more about other specific mods (locations, values, specs), but I can't find any resources. I suppose if I looked long enough at the schematic I could maybe think of where to start. I understand that it's limiting the frequency range, which I'm okay with and it's dynamite in front of a dirty channel as is. It really opens up harmonics and fullness when shredding away. I would though like to know how to exploit its sound through the clean channel. I like its grit ~ I had the SD-1 for a while and I liked it a whole lot, except I wanted some more grit. The TS-7 does seem to lack some clarity though, which is where I'd start looking for what I could replace that would just make it sound more alive without changing its essential tone.

On the whole other side of things, I'm interested in what the 'Silver' mod is or whatever is done to the guy from Phish's TS9 ~ I think for however removed from the original his TS9's sound is, it is appealing and apparently very usable.

The last thing I'd like to find out is how to get more 'tube spit' out of the TS7. An example might be the sound of the lead on 'Paper Tiger'; a Beck tune from Sea Changes ~ it's a sound that has has tubey sizzle. The innards of an H&K Edition Blue that I have lying around has a 4558DD (I read it's a higher gain 4558) and a few 0720 chips in it. It had a lot of spit while it worked, but was too distortiony, I thought. Any mod ideas in either of the 3 categories (clarity, Phishlike, or spit) would be most appreciated.

 

[JBroll]

Think about what you want out of the mods before trying to find one - otherwise you're trying to answer a question before hearing it, and you're all but guaranteed to get it wrong. If you want more compression and fuzz, put in a pair of germanium diodes in place of the current 4148s; for less compression, get a couple of LEDs and put those in; for asymmetrical clipping, change one diode and leave the other. If you want less noise, replace the opamp and some of the capacitors with higher-quality components. To change the bass or treble balance, play with the EQ section. The list goes on, but if you don't know what you want then you're not likely to get it. The only thing I can think of for clarity is sending the pedal straight into the computer and finding some EQ change that brings some clarity back; increase the tone and decrease the drive if you haven't already, but I assume you've done that.

The Silver mod is, if I'm not mistaken, a mod by Analog man that adds more bass and treble to make the TS sound like bazillions of other distortion circuits. I suspect that you'd have better luck from another pedal, starting with something that already has that character but just needs a few tweaks.

I have no idea what Beck used, but you're not getting 'tube spit' out of the TS7 if you're referring to what I think you're referring to. The TS is *not* a tube emulator. It will not be a tube emulator. It will not help you get a 'tubey' sound unless you have a very odd definition of 'tubey' or a tube amp to put after it. You might be better off just looking for a higher-quality distortion pedal.

The 4558DD is lower noise, not higher gain. (It's still not the quietest thing you could put in there.)

Jeff

 

[GuitarGuitarGuitar]

It does make sense to define the mod before pursuing it. When I was messing with the DS-1 I put in a red and a blue LED in place of the diodes and the sound was what I thought was tubey (It's running into an old Carvin X60 tube amp ~ which interestingly has some 4558 ICs specified in its schematics), but not gritty. Anywho, what I was wondering is if you might explain asymmetrical clipping.

The spit I'm interested in is where when you pick a note, there's some real fizz as the pick leaves the string, then there's a moment of clarity in the note as it rings, then it decays with some sizzle ~ almost like there was some effort in producing the sound ~ It's hard to describe I guess, but maybe the germanium diodes might do the trick. I'll let you know how that goes.

All in all, I'll start with upgrading components with the same values and see where that leads me first. It is a very interesting pedal though, in finding different applications as is. It lends a lot of definition to individual notes regardless of talk of improving its clarity.

Hey JBroll ~ what do you make of the new handwired TS808? It's a steep price ~ there are photos of its guts online here and there if anything stands out as extra interesting.
http://fr.audiofanzine.com/tests_v3/ibanez/ts808hw/ts808hw-5_800.jpg

 

[JBroll]

Asymmetric clipping... basically, you have your waveform, which is a wiggly bunch of oscillating nonsense. If you're willing to accept oversimplification to get the basic idea down, you can view it basically as the graph of some function of time, and view clipping of any kind as a new function that behaves just like the old one for 'small' oscillations but won't allow anything past a fixed 'height' from ground. If you want to call your old waveform 'function' f, the clipped waveform will be more along the lines of min(f,c) (where c is a constant, the clipping threshold of the device) in the case of symmetric clipping. Asymmetric clipping differs from this in that the aforementioned clipping thresholds at the 'top' and 'bottom' can be different... (To view the asymmetrically-clipped waveform in the way described above, split the function f into positive and negative components - f+ = max(f,0) and f- = f - f+, so f+ is only positive, f- is only negative, and f = f+ + f- - and make the new function from the sum min(f+,c) + max(f-,c') where c and c' are the 'thresholds'.)

The attack of the note will probably be at a significantly higher volume than the decay, and you might just be hearing noise or fretting as the 'sizzle' near the end (if a pedal stops clipping at volume A, and volume A is greater than volume B, then it shouldn't clip at volume B), but to get more of that I'd just experiment with a harder pick attack. Unless something is wrong with the pedal or your ears (entirely possible, since a lot of 'dirty' things appear clean to us), that sounds like a funny thing to have happen.

The new handwired TS808s seem quite a bit like all old handwired TS808s in that they're overpriced things based on a cheap, simple circuit whose only hope for sale is the relentless belief in magic that guitarists seem to hold closer than the average mystic cult. If you want a handwired TS808, roll your own.

Jeff