TUBE SCREAMER QUESTIONS (AND LOTS OF YELLING!!!!!)

J

JBroll

I MIX WITH PHYSICS!!!!
Mar 8, 2006
5,918
2
38
San Antonio, TX, USA
Okay, I'm getting near the 'done' stage of the first shot at this Tube Screamer FAQ. I need questions, though.

Lots.

Of.

Fucking.

Questions.

Technical details, usage tips, mod ideas, whatthefuckever - shoot me. This will make the read a lot more detailed and useful, so if there's something you want to know, ask it and I'll get to it as well as I can. If there's something you want to know but are afraid to ask (never know, gotta throw this out there), PM me and I'll get you an answer without divulging your identity... although if you really feel uneasy about asking about a bloody stompbox you've got some strange bloody fetishes.

Thanks for the help so far, and hopefully this will be something interesting and useful.

Jeff
 
Errr, can a Tube Screamer over an SD-1 help me with getting chicks, same as a Mac over a PC supposedly does?


Oh shit, you wanted realistic questions, sorry..........ignore me as usual....lah de dah..........
 
No, actually, the yellow of the SD-1 has been scientifically proven to have a larger babe-magnetic field. Despite popular opinion, Macs do not seem to offer a measurable advantage over PCs because the only test subjects (those who use computer preferences to attract the opposite sex) do not get laid enough to display a trend one way or the other.

Jeff
 
JBroll said:
No, actually, the yellow of the SD-1 has been scientifically proven to have a larger babe-magnetic field. Despite popular opinion, Macs do not seem to offer a measurable advantage over PCs because the only test subjects (those who use computer preferences to attract the opposite sex) do not get laid enough to display a trend one way or the other.

Jeff
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up, I assume this will be on the Tube Screamer FAQ? :p And I have both a Tube Screamer and an SD-1, go me!



P.S Sorry, I'm drunk, so I'm talking even more shit than usual haha.
 
What is the technical difference between a tubescreamer (overdrive) and a straight forward distortion pedal (SD1, MT2 etc) that make the tubescreamer best for placing it before a hi-gain amp?

Is it best to only use the tubescreamer to increase sustain/tighten sound - or would one want to use one as a level boost (reword: when setting the level of the tubescreamer, do you want the overall volume to be equal between on/off)?

Is there a difference in using a tubescreamer that runs at 9v and one that runs at 18v? If so, what are the advantages of either?

Is there an advantage to using AC power to battery? Or does cleaner power have an effect on the effectiveness of the tubescreamer?
 
That's a great start - the first two have been answered, but the second two I haven't spent much time with.

First, the main advantage of a TS is that it shapes the sound to be much more midrange-heavy. Amps get hit more by midrange. Your guitar sound lives in the midrange. Having a middier sound brings the 'meat' of the guitar out more to get hit by the amp, so it comes across more powerfully. Cutting treble smooths out the sound, and cutting bass tightens the low end, so the amp gets to spend most of its time hitting the part of the guitar's signal that distorts best. Too much bass and things 'fart out', too much treble and things get piercing. More detail in the full text, but for right now the midrange hump is what really makes the pedal worthwhile. EDIT: The SD-1 is an overdrive very similar to the TS series. It can be - and has been, many times - used in place of a Tube Screamer. END EDIT

Second, I usually just have mine set at unity, but that's entirely your call. If you need the volume boost, by all means use it. I'd say to just use the gain knob, for simplicity, but whatever.

I know that some pedals don't take well to 18V because of their components - I've heard that a lot of pedals have 16V capacitors that will pop if they're used at 18V, so I wouldn't recommend it. I see no reason why the circuit would need it - it's hardly starved for energy by any stretch - and there would be tweaking necessary to make the thing run well at 18V, so I'd say to not worry about it.

It depends on a few things - how clean your wall power is (some places were wired well, other places were wired by crackheads with no idea how to do anything cleanly, so the adapter is largely dependent on how well your electrical work is done), how much you hate batteries, and how regular the two supplies can be: battery voltage drops as the battery starts to die, leaving a 'raunchier' sound out of some pedals and an outright shitty mess out of others (I put the Tube Screamer in the second category), so unless you can't be trusted with batteries I'd say to just go for those. Rechargables can be tricky, so make sure you get good ones and test them with a multimeter as they die down to make sure the voltage and current don't start dropping, or you'll just be annoyed after about half-charge.

Jeff
 
"Some overdrive pedals I have tried in the past seem to blend their sound 'in parallel' to the clean, unaffected signal, which makes my tone fartier. Other pedals seem to alter the signal wholesale, which makes my tone grittier. Which way does the [insert TS model here] work?"
 
Does it make the sound "smaller" if I drive the balance knob too much?
What does the balance thing actually do? Compress the signal? Same for (Over)drive?
Would you recommend using a tubescreamer in rehearsal/live? Why/why not?
 
iekobrid said:
"Some overdrive pedals I have tried in the past seem to blend their sound 'in parallel' to the clean, unaffected signal, which makes my tone fartier. Other pedals seem to alter the signal wholesale, which makes my tone grittier. Which way does the [insert TS model here] work?"
Click to expand...

The stock Tube Screamer does not attempt to blend clean and processed signals. Many pedals do this in an attempt to make the sound more natural while giving more sustain and compression, but the Tube Screamer does not - this would defeat the purpose of putting it in front of an amplifier to tighten things up.

abyssofdreams said:
Does it make the sound "smaller" if I drive the balance knob too much?
What does the balance thing actually do? Compress the signal? Same for (Over)drive?
Would you recommend using a tubescreamer in rehearsal/live? Why/why not?
Click to expand...

By 'Balance' knob I'm assuming that you mean the output level - original TS808s and some new pedals had the Volume knob labeled Balance. Set it to whatever volume you want - I'd have it set so that it is about as loud as the guitar signal, others have it boosting somewhat, whatever.

The Drive knob varies the amount of distortion - which, technically, involves compressing it in the same way any distortion compresses the signal. An overdrive or distortion unit amplifies the signal too much and then lops off the tops and bottoms of the signal, resulting in compression and the 'grit' or 'grind' (because where before the waveform was rounded and smooth, there is now a distinct 'edge' at the tops and bottoms of the signal, which sounds 'fuzzy' or 'hairy') associated with overdrive and distortion.

I would recommend using a Tube Screamer wherever it sounds good, and turning it off wherever it doesn't. That's really all there is to it - it's not going to make your technique better or worse, it's not going to completely revolutionize everything your band does, it's not going to eat your drummer... it's just going to change the signal in a way that allows for it to be distorted better.

Jeff
 
cobhc said:
Is there any alternative to a Tube Screamer, that DOES eat your drummer?
Click to expand...

While the average grizzly bear does not tighten up your sound if you put it between your guitar and your amp (note that attempting to use any orifice as an 'input' may result in severe injury or death), I've found that they're handy enough on their own for such purposes.

Jeff
 
You've tolfd us many times that a cheap Ibanez TS can be modded out to any spec with very little work, which is quite cheap in comparisson to the actual pedals. Can this be/ have you tried that with a Digitech Bad Monkey? Or, is there infact any difference between the Digitech and the basic TS9/ TS808 other than the extra tone knob?
 
Actually, I've never tried it with a Bad Monkey, but I do know that it isn't digital (like the brand would imply) so I'll have to pop one open and look for you. That's one of the odd ones that I've never had around, but I'll be on the lookout for it.

Jeff
 
i know that these things pretty much all do the same thing regardless what brand..

but do certain ones work any better with certain amps?
 
I've never noticed enough of a difference, myself. Then again, considering you could set things up so that going between a 808, a 9, and an SD-1 took all of fifteen seconds, you could try it.

I'd probably have to say that, all other things held the same, you'll be really hard-pressed to find any differences between a 9 and an 808 through the amount of distortion we're using. And no, I don't mean grab a 9 and an 808 and go to town... I mean pop your box open, install a switch to go between 9 and 808, and see if you notice anything - the differences between different pedals of the same make can be bigger than different makes sometimes - and if you can pinpoint a world-changing difference, I'll send you a free picture of me not killing you with a knife.

Jeff
 
We call it 'marketing' - if 'voodoo'-obsessed guitarists with too much money want to spend two and three times as much as they have to so that they can think they're getting a better sound... they will.

See the "Boutique Pedals" thread I made in Equipment.

Jeff
 
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