Ibanez Tube Screamer
First developed by Maxon as a competitor to the Boss OD-1, it was sold outside of Japan under the Ibanez brand and became popular among guitarists for its characteristic mid-boosted tone and amp-like distortion.
Many guitarists have used it to create their signature sound, and it is considered one of the most successful, widely copied, and modified overdrive pedals in the history of the electric guitar.
[3][2] In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ibanez and its parent company Hoshino Gakki were best known for producing their own branded copies of guitars made by Gibson, Fender, and Rickenbacker.
[4] By the middle of the decade, Ibanez began adding effects pedals to their product line and wished for a model to compete with the Boss OD-1.
While both pedals could produce overdrive-type distortion at lower gain levels, at higher settings the Overdrive became fuzz-like and the OD-855 had a significant low-end emphasis.
[4] The TS9 and TS808 pedals have been reissued, and according to the company, feature the same circuitry, electronics and design components that helped shape the Tube Screamer sound.
[7] In doing so, he used an innovative circuit, using the monolithic operational amplifier device, introduced in early 70s, to create a pedal sound different from the "discrete" transistorized 60's fuzzes.
Thought of this way, it is said that this "preserves the original dynamics of the input signal which otherwise would get lost at the threshold of clipping" and "avoids muddiness and vastly improves clarity and responsiveness.
As well, Tamura added a simple but effective post-distortion equalization circuit with a first-order high-pass shelving filter that "is linearly dependent on its gain", an approach called "progressivity".
Much has been made of the operational amplifier chips used in the various versions of the Tube Screamer pedal, and several "fairy tales" about the merits of these devices have been written on the subject.
[1] The (RC)4558 is a low priced, general purpose dual operational amplifier, introduced mid 70s by Texas Instruments as an "improved" version of the early 741, and used in thousands of consumer and industrial designs.
[citation needed] The TA75558 (yet another version, made by Toshiba), standard in the TS10 alongside the 4558, is strangely regarded as the "ugly duckling of TS opamps".
[17] The Tube Screamer is widely used in genres as diverse as country, blues and heavy metal, and has since spawned numerous clones and modified versions.
