ibanez tubescreamer ts9 VS Maxon OD808

[littleredguitars2]

I've been using the tubescreamer for a few months now and its great but I'm noticing tons of guys swearing by the maxon od808 and I'm just curious why and how they compare? Thanks!

[Kiichi]

From what I know the 808 is less middy mostly. That after all is the defining quality of the tubescreamer. Different versions of both do exist though. I think to recall the 808 also is a bit more agressive. Personally I also like the 808 more of the two as it is more natural to me.

Personally I swear by the Klon(e) build by our Juansolo, just like many here do. It also is an overdrive, but one without that mid character. It takes the signal, makes it louder, adds treble and gain, all to taste, without touching the rest. Very tranparent pedal, great sounds and almost all settings are great. It is THE more pedal. Gives you more of all the good stuff. It really has that mojo to me.
If you donīt want / need the mid character of the TS types (both ts9 and 808) this is highly recommended.

[littleredguitars2]

That sounds pretty awesome. Do you have a link?

[Dave Sloven]

I deliberately went for the OD-9 as I wanted that mid hump.  It just depends on what you are after.  Not sure if I'd call the 808 more aggressive.  If you already have a TS-9 you will find that the OD-808 is different in having less of a hump. If you have a TS-808 don't bother as it would be very similar.

There are quite a few shootouts of the Maxon pedals on youtube, including this one comparing five versions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak_nWBdEMhg

[littleredguitars2]

thanks for the input man i'll check it out. looks like a cool video.

[tekbow]

difference between them is easily summed up as "not an awful lot". in physical terms you're talking a couple of output resistors (forget the chip mojo, the chip has nothing to do with clipping in the circuit).

In real terms the 9 is a touch, and i really mean vaguely, more aggressive, the 808 is more open and smooth. but theese are minute differences. There's no real "mid hump" differences between them.

I've got an original 84 TS9 ( with "mojo" chip"), a keeley modified 808, and i've a/b'd them against a maxon, a stock 808 RI and RI Ts9. the result was no difference unless you're REALLY looking for it.

My vote is get a Visual Sound Route 808. much less money than either of the Ibanez or Maxon pedals, all the common mods built in and a GREAT buffer (VS really do have an awesome buffer in their pedals). It's what i would spend my money on if i knew then what i know now.

Basically Maxon are the people who designed and built the TS's for ibanez up until about the mid to late 90's. Even early maxon made TS9 Ri's are going for silly money.. It's kind of like Swiss army knives. Victorinox make the "original" swiss army knife and Wenger make the " Genuine" swiss army knife, but they're both swiss army knives.

Maxon play off being the original makers and charge lots of money, and Ibanez are the original brand. and charge lots of money. and a million and one other makers make clones at varying levels of price. The most outrageous of the standard production ones is the TS808HW (handwired). they don't use "premium" or "hand selected" components, they use the same bog standard stuff out of the same parts bins as the other pedals.

and don't get me started on "hard to find original production JRC 4558 chips"... Rant. rant rant rant. Ranty ranty rant

[Dave Sloven]

My Maxon OD-9 was $179.  The local guitar shop has the Ibanez TS-9 reduced to $223 from a RRP of $279, so I think I did fairly well.

Honestly though as stated above by tekbow the differences between these pedals is slight.  If you are happy/unhappy with your TS9 I doubt you are going to more/less so with an OD-808

The OD-808 is not true bypass, if that's important to you. The OD-9 is.  I'm assuming that you could change the switch in your TS-9 to true bypass if it is not like that already.

[tekbow]

Oh, forgot to add, the VS route 808 is really cheap compared to the Maxon/Ibanez pedals. I know Agent Orange knows this, but for the OP's info, buffers in a chain are not a bad thing, it's all about context. Thats why i like the VS stuff so much.

also, if you get an 808 or TS9 etc etc from whoever some are relay switched, some are TB, whole myriad. for the relay switched ones, this little item to convert them to TB without drilling holes is supposed to be good.

http://www.pedalmods.com/news.html

saying that.. if you want it to TB something without modding the case, get it, if you get it because you want to improve your buffered tone, don't. I don't know where all this snake oil about Boss and Ibby pedals having cr@ppy buffers arose from.

To be fair i shouldn't really damn keeley and Aman modded pedals. it's just the mods they make the most of (the chip change) are pure and utter nonsense. the mods they hype the least (eq modification etc) are the ones that make the most difference. but then modding a TS to remove the mid hump is making the pedal "not" a TS anymore.

but again, as i said, even the difference in the modded pedals is slight. more than between, say a TS9 and 808 made by whoever, but still slight

[Dave Sloven]

saying that.. if you want it to TB something without modding the case, get it, if you get it because you want to improve your buffered tone, don't. I don't know where all this snake oil about Boss and Ibby pedals having cr@ppy buffers arose from.

Tekbow talks sense.

I know where this snake oil comes from.  If you have ever done a course in selling you would know that anxiety sells products.  People who sell products needle away at your anxieties regarding your playing, sound, whatever.  Your feeling that maybe you just don't sound 'great' enough.  Then these anxieties circulate via 'tech talk', including on forums like this one.

The differences between Ibanez style pedals with three knobs are really slight.  There are some other ones with more or less knobs that sound different.  There are quite a few differences between some in that video I posted.  That said the video convinced me to get the standard OD-9/TS-9 style overdrive with the classic mid hump.

I would suggest staying with what you've got and maybe invest in an MXR 10-band EQ or something like that if you don't already have one.  You could use it to tune out the mid hump!

[dave_mc]

they're full of shite

they're both very, very close.

what everyone has been saying, in other words. if you don't like ts-style ods, then get a different style of overdrive (timmy/blues driver/bluesbreaker/klon or something like that). if you do, odds are your current one sounds close enough to all the other ones that you're just chasing your tail.

[Dave Sloven]

Yeah even listening to the video above the OD-808 and OD-9 are VERY close.  The others sound different but in my opinion not really in a good way.  If you are happy enough with the TS-9 that the alternative for you would be an OD-808 I just say put a good EQ in there somewhere if you want to change the sound a bit.  You will find that the EQ is much more useful than a second pedal that sounds almost the same.

[Telerocker]

It depends on your guitar and amp too. In some cases the OD9, in others the 808 will work better. If you like the midhump you can't go wrong with these green fellows. I like the VOP, imho best of the bunch.

[tekbow]

On the subject of the differences in sound on that vid, with these kind of demo's (and correct me if i'm wrong but i'm on an oilrig and can't really stream vids) they tend to set the pedals to similar setting in terms of physical pot positions. Differences in the tone can be accounted for and will be affected more by variations in component tolerences in the circuits (esp. the pots) than any of the "mythical" TS9/808 differences.

[Dave Sloven]

That's true.  He placed them all on as similar a pot position he could manage.  That really doesn't give you much of an idea as to the scope of sounds provided by adjusting each pot.

[tekbow]

here's the thing about tubescreamers, very much to do with what telerocker and agent orange are saying.

Different pedals work well for different amps. i have never understood the use of a tubescreamer to boost a marshall or 5150 etc. Maybe because they're known as a boost pedal, primarily because of SRV. But here's the thing. SRV was Fender user, and LOTS of country players use TS's. and they generally use Fenders. Why does this combo sound so good? because fenders are typically amps with a scooped character. the TS adds in what isn't there.

Guitars live in the midrange. I used to post on rig talk a lot and the amount of times someone would post something along the lines of "I have X,Y,Z metal amp and am getting lost in the mix". They would then go on to explain that they scooped all the mids out of their eq for the classic "scooped mids" thing. THEN people would chip in with "Boost with a TS" or the OP would discover TS boosting. So basically using a pedal with a mid hump to add the mids back in that they scooped out using the EQ in the first place + a volume boost.

Marshalls, 5150's and a lot of rock oriented amps have all the midrange you could need (not "you" directed at the OP or anyone here, "you" in the collective general usage), adding more mids on top of the mids that are there just muddies things up IMO.