George,
I don't like the nasal quality of tube screamers either. They tend to bleed off lows and add mids. I guess that's why they're one of the few pedals that actually sound good with Fender amps, which are typically midscooped and don't have the tighest low end to begin with. I'm a big fan of SRV but I never liked it when he used the TS. Like yourself I can hear it a mile away. I wasn't too fond of Cesar Diaz's take on the Fuzz Face either, the Texas Square Face Fuzz he built for SRV. I guess Stevie was so used to TS-like mids that Diaz made his TSFF to include those mids as well. If you listen to the In Step album, the first album to feature the Diaz fuzz, you'll hear a fuzzy TS. Not my thang, I'm afraid.
I've said it before on this forum but the only good pedal based on the TS circuit in my book is the Menatone Red Snapper. It's Brian Mena's take on the TS and he must not have liked the loss of low end and midhump either. So he made it transparent instead. It makes for a really cool clean boost. You actually get more of your original amp and guitar tone thru the pedal. If you set all the three controls on the pedal on 9 o'clock and then play something like an E chord while kicking the pedal on and off I guarantee you you will hardly hear the difference. The pedal then allows you to add high-end 'bite' and drive (oh, and volume of course). The drive sounds very natural across the entire range, from a light crunch to fuzzy overtones. I like the Snapper a lot. I consider it the pedal the TS Ibanez/Maxon should have made had they given it a bit more R&D. Just my $0.002.
George, you're a fellow TMB user. Have I described the three boost modes correctly IYO?
Mike
TMB showed up today
Moderator: VelvetGeorge
-
bluefuzzguitar
- Senior Member
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:15 pm
- Location: Nijmegen, Holland (Europe)
- Contact:
-
edwardz
- Senior Member
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:02 pm
- Location: Somewhere in East Central Ohio...