The Tube Screamer is the best-known, most used, copied, and cloned overdrive pedal of all time. It has witnessed, from the feet of guitar Gods in all genres, the roar of countless fans around the globe.
Yes, we’ll go into detail at the end, but it’s the one piece of gear bringing Billy Joe from Green Day, David Gilmour from Pink Floyd, Kirk Hammett from Metallica, and Trey Anastasio from Phish together. It might seem unbelievable, but it’s true.
But, even if you don’t want to unveil the secret weapon of bluesmeisters and rock gods, I’ll also share with you why it has never left my board in 18 years.
It’s overdrive time.
Table of Contents
What Does the Tube Screamer Do?
Almost two decades ago I had my hair very long. I played in a metal band. To be more specific, in a Nu Metal band. Those were the times of cargo, wide pants, red caps, and bigger-than-life t-shirts. We tuned low and rocked hard.
My best friend at the time, the other guitarist in the band, wanted to sell a pedal, so he showed it to me. I asked, being very naïve, “What is it?” And he said, “It’s a Tube Screamer” So, I asked again, “But what does it do?” And he looked back at me, puzzled, and just shrugged his shoulders.
I bought it very cheap and, after gluing the insides twice, and over 300 gigs later, it’s still velcroed to my board. It’s been a paramount part of my tone for almost two decades, and I feel I couldn’t live without it.
Yet, if someone asks me what it does, I look just as puzzled as my friend. My usual response is that “It makes everything sound better”. But that’s just the easy answer because, in all these years, I’ve used it in many different scenarios.
So, read on and find out the many things you can do with it.
How Do I Use My TS-9?
When I got my first Tube Screamer I was playing my guitar tuned down to drop-C. My ’81 Ibanez Studio with dual humbuckers sounded mean and huge thanks to many different distortion pedals, of which I particularly remember a Snarling Dogs “Black Dog”. It was tight and thick.
Well, the moment I put those two pedals together, my tone suddenly appeared on top of the mix, or better yet, cut through the mix. And our mix was dense, believe me.
I didn’t know the concept of cascading gain pedals back then. So I just put the new pedal after the Wah. I was instantly in love and that’s how it’s been 90% of the time since then. I just leave it on the entire show.
It just makes everything sound better, it’s the truth.
How Do I Use My TS-808?
In a very weird story that involves me working in a call center and an old hippie who fled San Francisco but used to hang out with The Grateful Dead (according to him) living and working abroad as a customer service rep, I got an ‘80s original TS-808.
We’ll dive into it later on in this article, but the TS-808 and the TS-9 are very different. I mean, they’re both overdrive pedals and add those beautiful mids and a nice kick to the signal. Yet, they’re wildly different in terms of how they respond to your picking hand and how they push your tube amp.
The TS-9 makes a terrific always-on pedal because it just makes everything sound better without adding too much of itself to the signal. The 808, in change, is a much moodier pedal, with more bite and personality. Therefore, the 808 is my go-to lead pedal. I use it to boost the signal and give it that ominous push that can cut the mix (and the fabric of reality).
Do I Use Them Both Together? (Spoiler: Hell Yeah!)
Well, turning both Tube Screamers on is not a common occasion. I mean, you just can’t use that combination to play a base riff or chords while someone is singing on top. This is because you’re pushing so many mids across that the guitar takes up the place of the vocals in the mix.
So, when my guitar tone is slightly pushed, which can be a breaking-point black face Deluxe Reverb and the TS-9 with gain in zero, I engage the 808 to play clean leads, fills, or riffs. That means pushing the signal forward without distorting it.
For example, doing it with a guitar that has humbuckers, you really benefit from the natural compression of the pickups. What you get is that sweet, creamy-yet-clean lead tone that just slaps.
But that’s not all, because I also use them both ON when I do have my distortion pedal engaged. That has a great clean-up effect on the tone. It pushes the guitar mids so much that what you get is distortion behind the soaring guitar tone.
Exceptional for solos with a little analog delay on top.
Finally, since I play live with an SG Jr. and a Fender Mustang, I also use the TS-808 to match the levels of the guitars live. When I play the SG, the TS-9 is ON with the gain in zero and level at noon. When I play the Mustang, I turn that one OFF and the 808 ON with the gain at 9 o’clock and level at 3 o’clock.
Some Common Scenarios & Pedal Combinations
As I said before, I played with my Tube Screamers in many different scenarios. Let me share with you some of what I learned and the settings to achieve it. I’ll also tell you about the settings and combinations that really worked for me.
As an Always-On Pedal
I already addressed this earlier, but let me add a little to it. The Tube Screamer is a great always-on pedal that works amazingly in most scenarios, but there’s one I wouldn’t recommend: a driven tube amp.
If you plug a guitar into a mildly overdriven amp and you love that tone, there’s no room for the TS-9. This is because the broken overdriven sound is already there.
That said, whenever I turn it off, I feel there’s a hole in my tone, right in the mids (around 1 KHz to 3 KHz). But if you’re not used to it, you won’t miss anything and might feel the pedal compresses your tone too much and you lose some high-end.
In that scenario, a tube amp on the edge of breakup, read the next category.
Suggested Settings
- Gain: 1
- Volume: 5
- Tone: 4 to 6
As a Base Overdrive
If your base tone is already a little broken, and the amp’s giving you that beautiful, organic overdrive, then you can use your Tube Screamer as your base overdrive. This means that pedal that you step on for the dirty songs while remaining overdriven and organic, and you turn it off in the “clean” songs.
When in that scenario, you’ll feel that the low-end gets tighter and the mids are propelled forward. It’s essential to match the tone knob to your guitar since a bright guitar with pushed mids and a high setting of the tone knob on the pedal might turn into a shrill experience.
On the other hand, you can always tame those highs from the pedal.
The same happens the other way around and you can use the tone knob of your Tube Screamer to “open up” the tone of the guitar. You’ll infuse some mids and high-end into a dark instrument that might make you cut through the mix better.
Suggested Settings
- Gain: 4 to 7 depending on the guitar
- Volume: 6 to 8
- Tone: 3 to 8 depending on the guitar
As a Clean Boost
Although you’ll hear many people say that the Tube Screamer is a mid-infusing gadget, it does a good job at respecting your instrument’s tone. That said, it does push the mids a bit and help you go into a mildly overdriven but very notorious solo.
This is, for example, the way I use the 808. I feed the super-clean, scooped tone of the Deluxe Reverb straight into the 808 with pushed volume and very little gain. Although it’s not technically totally clean, it feels articulated and pushed, not into distortion territory, but well into overdrive.
Finally, in this setting, guitars like Telecasters have more spank and twang, which is great for the cutting tone.
Suggested Settings
- Gain: 3 to 5
- Volume: 8
- Tone: 4 to 7 depending on the guitar
As a Solo Distorted Boost
This is the gateway the Tube Screamer had to go straight into the heart of metal players. It’s what I call “The Kirk Hammett” trick. Believe it or not, the man who fueled Metallica into stardom with heart-stopping solos and great riffs, played a Tube Screamer his entire career.
The trick is that, if you play in a band that scoops mids (like any self-respecting metal guitarist should) and you suddenly turn on a pedal that gives you a ton of mids, you cut through the mix like a sharp scalpel.
Regardless of how you put your tone and gain knobs, you must have the Level knob pushed. Otherwise, the pedal won’t give you that cutting effect you need to push your leads forward.
Suggested Settings
- Gain: 3 to 6
- Volume: 10
- Tone: 4 to 6
Tube Screamers and Gain Staging
Tube Screamers are amazing gain-staging pedals. They react organically with each other, with other pedals, and also with amplifiers.
Tube Screamer + Distortion Pedal
This was my setup for years as I played with a post-punk band. I did the obvious move that we all do, scaling down from 11 pedals to 3 pedals. I got tired of faulty cables and dragging around a massive monolith I called my pedalboard.
Those 3 pedals were a tuner, my TS-9, and a distortion pedal. I mean, even in that utterly minimalistic approach I couldn’t get rid of the green wonder. I tried it, but my tone was just missing something.
So, guitar into a Tube Screamer and then into a distortion pedal is my favorite combination. The tone feels fuller and more powerful, and you always have that mids edge when you’re playing “clean” with the TS-9 on.
Tube Screamer + Fuzz Pedal
Fuzz pedals are weird and wild animals that once unleashed take over your tone. These ferocious pedals sometimes feel like you turn them on and the guitar just disappears from the mix.
Well, if you go from the guitar into the TS and then into the Fuzz, then that’s calling mayhem with a pushed guitar that goes straight to the forefront of the stage.
My recipe is going from the guitar straight into the TS-9 and then into the Big Muff Pi.
Distortion/Fuzz + Tube Screamer
Doing the same thing above but with the TS after the distortion or fuzz pedal, you get a cleaner tone that’s great to cut through the mix. In other words, you feel that the tone cleans up and focuses more. As a result, you’ll lose some of the creamy gain but will cut through the mix better.
Some Famous Tube Screamer Lovers
- Stevie Ray Vaughan
- Lee Ritenour
- Mark Knopfler
- Trey Anastasio
- Kirk Hammett
- John Mayer
- Gary Moore
- Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden)
- Joan Jett
- Ola Englund
- Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys)
- The Edge (U2)
- Johnny Buckland (Coldplay)
- Gary Clark Jr.
- Jack Johnson
- Billie Joe Armstrong
- Keith Richards
- Keith Urban
- Carlos Santana
- Andy Timmons
- Jerry Cantrell
- Steve Vai
- Noel Gallagher
… And the list could go on forever.
My Tube Screamer, My Sound, Everywhere
When you tour a lot and don’t have a great budget for amp rentals, you’re left with what the venue has to offer. In that scenario, you might encounter any beaten old transistor amp like those Peavey Bandit or Marshall Valvestate amps we’ve all played through countless times.
Well, if you have a TS on your pedalboard (two in my case), you can make any amp sound a little closer to the sound in your head, to the tone you love.
I know I said it before, but it can’t be said enough. It makes everything sound better, including old Peaveys and transistorized Marshalls.
Different Versions, Do They Sound the Same?
Before we wrap this up, you’ll read and hear a lot about the different versions of the Tube Screamer. I’m not going to go into the history of the pedal or the different chips, but I’ve tried them all.
TS-808: The One That Started it All
The best visual indicator to identify this version is that it has a square, small footswitch.
To my ears, the 808 is the spicier one when compared to the TS-9. It is also the most open and musical but it’s also slightly more compressed. That said, it’s also the most notorious of them when turned on or off.
Finally, it makes a great boost when used alone.
TS-9: The Most Popular
This is, by far, the best-known version of the TS, the first one with a bigger, rectangular silver footswitch. It’s milder-sounding with less compression and a more organic feel.
The TS-9 is the perfect pedal to be used with the gain in zero. It just makes everything sound better.
TS-10: The Secret Weapon
John Mayer’s Tube Screamer of choice is this weirdo. To my ears, it sits right between the 808 and the 9. It’s not as moody but it’s not as soft either. The pedal comes in this eighties futuristic casing that’s just a lot of fun to have at your feet.
This is a discontinued pedal that’s hard to find, so unless you’re ready to search for it and pay a good price, the ones above will do just fine; even the mini version.
TS-5: What Happened?
For a minute there, Ibanez lost it completely. The Soundtank series is as bad and as low as guitar pedals go. Their plastic housing, machine-soldered interior, and cheap components take away all the magic goodness the real deal brings to the tone.
The highs are shrill and the lows muddy and uncompressed. This is not, to my ears at least, the kind of tone TS pedals should be judged by.
Closing Thoughts
The Tube Screamer hasn’t just been my go-to overdrive pedal for the last two decades but the choice of countless guitar players. Can that be just a coincidence or a marketing trick? Can you market your way to that kind of reputation?
The Tube Screamer is part of the musical DNA of generations. You can hear it in countless recordings by true guitar heroes and during the live shows by some of the biggest bands in history.
If you haven’t already, it’s about time you go try one for yourself and hear what it can do for your tone.
Happy (overdriven) playing!