Ibanez TS9DX Tube Screamer

[progrmr]

I bought this from the a local guy via CS yesterday to put in front of my Epi Valve Junior.

Problem is - it's VERY dark sounding. Even with the tone knob maxed my strat sounds like it has a wet blanket on it. I cut the pedal off and play through the amp and the guitar sounds great. Pedal on = tone sucked out and quack gone.

Same with my Austin LP. Maybe both guitars need hotter pickups or something? Anyone have any experience with this pedal? Or is it maybe the Valve Junior?

[Eric]

Have you ever owned a tubescreamer-esque pedal? I imagine you have, but IMO the ones I've owned have not been very transparent. They're honky and have that nasal mid-range hump that people love. If you're unfamiliar with that type of pedal, I might say it's just what the pedal does. If it's something else, I'll leave it to the electronics experts.

[progrmr]

Actually I haven't owned a TS type pedal before.

I thought I'd get a pedal to put a touch of overdrive on the signal for some nice blues when playing at low volumes. Maybe a boss blues driver ( which I have owned before but never put it in front of a valve junior) would be more what I'm looking for.

I'll have to give this one a couple days and see if I can make it work.

[Eric]

It could be that I still haven't addressed the actual issue. As far as using it goes, I've had TS ODs, disliked them, sold them, and bought them again. At this point, I think my Bad Monkey will stay with me for the foreseeable future. It's not super awesome as a pedal to add distortion, since it's fairly low-gain, but it completely rocks as a lead boost. It pushes the amp into the nice gritty lead territory and to me it sounds the equivalent of your guitar yelling. It's really good at cutting through the mix in a band situation. I think they have their uses for just adding a touch of dirt too, but I use mine almost exclusively as a lead boost.

[Spudman]

If you have the ability to take it to a store and compare the sound I would recommend doing that. You might have gotten a lemon. Like Eric, says they aren't very transparent. A better option that I really like into a 5 watter is the Danelectro Cool Cat Drive or the Blues Driver or Bad Monkey or a Rat. It just depends on what you are after.

Still, a TS working properly shouldn't sound muffled but it won't be very bright either.

[deeaa]

Pedals don't sound the same with different amps. I don't know if it's more to do with impedance issues or just frequency emphasis or what, but I've noticed many if not all pedals sound completely different in front of different amps.

I had the valve Jr. and tried a bunch of pedals with it, and then I modded the hell outta the Jr. It sounded pretty damn good by the time I sold it off :-)

That said, I find the TS type pedals tend to have this non-transparent kinda fuzzy effect; it usually works best to add some lively yet not shrill 'hair' on top of a sound, it more like rounds off the excess sharpness and gives it some grit. I've had many traditional type TS pedals and grown tired of that sound. The old TS-9 one did sound great in front of a Fender DeVille but not in front of my amps since.

The Danelectro Transparent mentioned is quite different - like many newer slightly TS type pedals it's indeed transparent in that it doesn't murk up the sound. I found the dane to be too coarse for my taste though, you know, not a lot of 'revs' in the engine, it's more like brum-brum-brum type crunch than smooth overdrive. At least on my rigs. One of my all time favorites in TS type OD's that don't murk up the sound is the Marshall Jackhammer in OD mode - it's a real JCM800 in a box, very ACDC with plenty of clarity and punch but not cold. I understand the Bad Monkey is also favored by many. Both are quite cheap.

But, it so depends on the amp what works with it. I used to have this green DOD FX-100 (I think) drive pedal that sounded really weird with my main rig, pretty much just ruined the sound, but made a small Roland Cube sound absolutely friggin' insanely good. I'm still kicking myself over the head for not getting a cube too instead of selling that pedal :-)

I currently use the Jackhammer and a real tube OD, and keep changing my mind over which is better all the time.

[tunghaichuan]

As a reality check, I hooked up my TS-9DX to a stock Epi Valve Junior. The speaker cab is a Thiele cab loaded with a Celestion G12M-70 (the Celestion everybody loves to hate :)). I tried out the TS-9DX with both of my guitars, one has single coils but they are not particularly bright for single coils. The other has Seymour Duncan Hot Stat Strat pickps, which are humbuckers that are single-coil sized.

The TS-9DX is a dark pedal. I had to crank up the tone knob to 3 o'clock to get it where I like it. Even with the tone control maxed out it still wasn't too bright. With the tone control turned down to 9 o'clock, the pedal did give the "blanket over the speaker" tone.

Tube Screamer pedals are mid-rangey. Just the nature of the beast. If you're single coil pickups are bright and you have to crank up the tone all the way, there may be something wrong with the pedal, but I doubt it. You may want to check one out at a music store just to see.

FWIW, I only like the TS-9 mode on that pedal. The other modes are too bassy/flubby. Supposedly, the TS-9 mode is like a normal TS-9 pedal, but with a tad more gain.

HTH.

[progrmr]

That's very helpful - thanks! I don't think the pedal is busted, just not quite what I'm looking for.

[FrankenFretter]

I have a TS10 that DVM modded to TS808 specs, as well as the higher gain and sym/asym mod. I've always liked the TS style pedals, and they don't sound too dark to me. Then again, I think maybe I like the tone on the darker side. The TS seems to add a nice thickness, akin to a "Fat" setting. I use mine as more of a booster than anything else. For overdrive, I use a Washburn Soloist Distortion, which sound more like an OD than a distortion to me. I rarely turn the tone knob on that one past noon. I had a Bad Monkey for a while, but decided that I didn't need two TS type pedals. There are times that I miss that Monkey, though.

[sunvalleylaw]

I really love my ZYS screamer that DVM built me. Very versatile, and somehow more clear than my Bad Monkey. But I wouldn't give up the Bad Monkey either. It has its own good qualities. Less clear, yes, but nice and warm and a really good eq on it. Maybe you might want to go check out a Bad Monkey or see if Vood would build you a good clear sounding Screamer.