01—Pedal catalog
Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer
Stevie Ray Vaughan's lead tone, and the single most famous overdrive sound in electric guitar history.
Buy the current production TS9. Cheap, reliable, and identical to the originals in every meaningful way. The most defensible $109 in a guitar player's life.
02—On the bench
The most famous overdrive pedal ever made. Originally released as the Maxon-built TS-808 in 1979, the TS9 is the 1982 cost-reduced revision that became the canonical green box on millions of pedalboards. The Tube Screamer's signature is its midrange hump — it boosts frequencies around 720 Hz by about 6 dB while rolling off bass and treble, which is exactly the shape a dirty Marshall or Fender needs to cut through a band mix. Used by Stevie Ray Vaughan to push a Vibroverb into singing distortion. Used by Eric Johnson, Trey Anastasio, Kirk Hammett, John Mayer, and a long list of players since. Cheap, reliable, and one of the few pedals genuinely worth its place in history.
- 01the canonical mid-hump — 720 Hz, +6 dB
- 02cleans up well off the guitar volume
- 03rolls off bass and treble — adds focus
- 04as a clean boost into a dirty amp, unbeatable
- 05TS9 is brighter than TS808; both are correct
03—Power
What it takes to run the TS9 Tube Screamer.
8mA at 9V
Low draw. Any standard 100mA isolated jack carries it with room to spare.
Typical published draw. Check the label on your unit for its voltage and polarity before you plug in.
- Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 PLUS →jacks 1-4 · 100mA
- Truetone 1 SPOT Pro CS6 →jacks 3-4 · 100mA
- Truetone 1 SPOT Pro CS12 →jacks 3-6 · 100mA
04—In the room
Where else this pedal lives.
- Stevie Ray Vaughan
- Eric Johnson
- John Mayer
- Trey Anastasio
- Kirk Hammett
JHS Bonsai if you want to A/B all nine TS variants; TS9 if you want the canonical one cheaply.