My favourite discovery about the TS was turning the gain almost all the way up and using the volume control to put the amount of dirt“ into the sound of the amp as you want. It works very very nicely with AC 30s and other valve amps. And my tone knob works just fine on mids and highs for the TS. I should say that the TS9 I utilise is on a UE - 300 that I bought in 1982. It was my first “pedal“ though there are three: an absolutely unusable compressor that hisses more than football fans, a beautiful CS9 chorus and the aforementioned TS9. (Full disclosure).
Funny, a Tube Screamer is one of the few overdrive pedals I can tolerate, because it doesn't sound like a transistor being tortured like almost every other fuzz/distortion box. And they DO have tone controls on them. And they can be modified to have a much flatter response. I use it as a clean boost in front of a Marshall, anyway, and not as a fuzz box.
Gamer, I agree! Actually just change the response cap in the feedback loop to the next size larger (.047 stock, change to .1)and the response cleans up, bass returns and it's Santana in a box.
Implying there's something wrong about transistors being tortured. Hell, I often prefer solid state high gain amps (I don't mean stuff like Line 6 Spider that has a modeling digital preamp section, I mean analog gear with transistor clipping, like Randall RG/Century, old VH/SS Ampeg, some GX line Crates, Hughes & Kettner, AMT stuff and such) to tubes. Sometimes tubes just sound too sterile. But I'm into extreme metal.
Yeah, I mean it's just a specific sound like any other OD, which is sometimes perfect - I recently had a project where I had to record some short high-register lines and the thicker warm tone of the TS worked great. Also, having an original makes a difference - I also have a reissue that sounds nothing like it.
@@Admiral_Bongo I get you. Actually one of my bucket list amps is a Gallien-Krueger 2100SEL. Not a tube to be found in it, and what an overdrive monster! But it is fair to say that I really have very little love for transistor overdrive pedals. I can't think of one I like when used as a distortion generator.
I used to hate tube screamers, but years later I started to like them. Main thing is they sound pretty horrible in front of a clean amp. Amp needs to be breaking up to use the TS to shape/tighten your sound. Doesn’t sound good unless you already a good sound coming from your amp that needs a little seasoning 😎
I first tried mine into a clean, mid forward SS amp. That is probably the worst possible way to use it! Fortunately I sometimes learn from my mistakes.
Sound great I'm front Marshall... Boogie's....Supers...list goes on...snobbish attitude and I don't agree with much he says here... mids totally cut in a mix To each his own
@Soy Orbison It works well if you want a slightly driven tone. But that's all it will do, regardless of knob twisting. Most people want more gain in the rock world.
It sounds bad in front of a squeaky clean amp because there's a high pass circuit in the tubes creamers clipping stage, bass is less clipped in relation to the mids and highs. You can hear the clean bass and distorted mids and highs. I prefer the bb preamp or od1 for 4558 chip overdrives.
6:50 for those of you who don't want to sift through the whole video to find what the thumbnail references. I hate when content creators do this. Just make your first question the one in the thumbnail. Don't try to trick me into watching half your video just to get to it.
Do you only watch videos to get answers to the thumbnails? That’s weird. He answers the question therefore delivering on the promise of the thumbnail. You can see how long the video is before you click play.
mtsalmela80 is correct that preserving (or even boosting) a guitar’s mids is almost universally considered to be the most essential way to get it to cut through and sit right in a mix. I’m not saying Rhett’s wrong, but mtsalmela80 definitely isn’t either
Mid-heavy guitars make a mix muddy. Some of the best songs have crappy guitar tones when isolated, but they fit right in when mixed. It's all about serving the song. You're the only guitar, or even the only rhythm instrument? High mid levels may be beneficial. Need to sit well in a large mix and have your tone cut through? It's best to scoop some of those mids out.
Rhett...you are such a professional at what you do...you are really to be complimented. Now and then I think back to the video you made back awhile where you humbly thanked the TH-cam community and basically confessed that without guitar you'd never have become 'you'. I too am amazed that someone can discover their calling in the way that you did...and then figure out a way to be so totally successful at it. Whenever you drop a new video, I'm always so impressed not only by the quality of production, but also the command you have over the presentation, knowledge and content. Thank you...you truly are one of the best on TH-cam.
my TS808 has never left my board since I got it. the drive is always at 0 lol. “I hear people all the time (I even remember hearing myself) who just dime the ‘drive knob’ and think the ‘volume’ is a master knob for it. It’s a concept known as ‘gain staging’ - it has to do with the way that the volume of each part of your signal chain interacts with the next. The ‘volume’ knob of an 808 is the most important. That’s by definition, the overdrive part of it. The ‘overdrive’ should be thought of as the ‘cheat’ knob…Just remember that turning that ‘cheat’ knob too high also cheats you of the natural tonal characteristics of your guitar. Do work that volume knob, though.”- John Mayer
Never was a big TS guy. Then I got into SRV… and if I stack it with another pedal that has OD and compression, into a micro tube amp (based on a Blues Jr), it sounds pretty good. It’s all about the application. As far as overdrives go, it’s at the bottom; I like the SD1 better, and the Blues Driver even more. My favorite overdrive pedal, though, is old school- the ColorSound PowerBoost.
The way I've always used an over drive pedal is just as purely a saturater after a compressor in the chain. You place the gate at the middle and the sparkle that really comes out after that is really good, but you have to bring down presence on your amp, because there is going to a bit more top end. That way it doesn't push things to sound unpractically tinny.
I used to not understand the hype around Tube Screamers. They’ve always been cool but not as cool as they’ve been made to seem. That is until I got the Palisades by EQD. Completely changed my opinion on the TS circuit. I use a Way Huge Saucy Box as my baseline light gain and the Palisades for a medium and high gain and it is phenomenal. I have a Les Paul and Jazzmaster and play through a Vox AC 15 and the Saucy Box/Palisades set up is pure gold. There are a multitude of amazing sounds you can get out of this pedal. Highly recommend checking them out if you haven’t.
Sounds sweet... I use TS-9 with a recto or modern Marshall, as the baseline, I use a DLS from Catalinbread, and want to get the palisades, save the extra pedal and better tone control....I just need the extra kick
@@shreyashshrestha6085 Was Gary a prolific Tubescreamer user? I associate him much more with the DS-1, but in earnest he seems to have been using whatever he could get his hands on without it making much of a difference (case in point: Digitech Bad Monkey).
Thank you Rhett for putting into words what I’ve always felt about Tube Screamers. People always ask me why I don’t have one on my board or why I don’t like them and the best response I could ever muster is that I don’t need more mid range
A suggestion if I may? I built my tube screamer pedal using the StewMac kit for a couple reasons. First, because I just wanted to! You know, it's cool to make your own pedal. But the other big thing about this is that you have the ability to change the chip inside that shapes the sound. They supply the chip that is the reference or signature sound but they also carry in stock, variations on that. You can have one pedal and with a little screwdriver and about a minute and a half, you can have a different pedal. Food for thought if anyone is looking to get a screamer pedal. It's not a love/hate thing at all as Rhett says. It's another color on your palate. There's a use for it!
Never been a fan of Tube Screamers. Except.. I had an old TS808 that was found in a box of other pedals in a storage shed by a friend of mine who brought the box over. All the pedals were rusted and dirty and couldn't get them to power up. I immediately eyed the TS808. Cleaned it, and replaced the battery connector and viola! I don't know what or why but this TS808 is unbelievable and doesn't have that crazy mid/eq thing. It's very smooth with the eq and very transparent. Hard to describe. One of my favorite pedals and what makes it better, it cost me less than $10 for cleaner and the battery connector. 🤘🏼
The one that got away for me was a tele that was hanging on the wall at an Austin studio. I used it for a couple of solos and every time I hear those songs I am so jealous. They probably would not have sold it, but I did not even ask. I just did not realize how good it was at the time.
This is probably goofy, but mine was a Hamer Steve Stevens. Will never forget that weapon. I moved right in, instant home. But the price was out of reach - probably the explanation for most of the "one that got away" stories, even if it's not your story... or maybe you just assumed it would be out of reach even if they would have sold it. I get that. I never saw another Steve Stevens since after that one. I don't know how many they made, I thought they were common at the time. Late 80's.
Tube screamers sound great when other guitarist are playing them, they sound thin to me when I use one. It just hasn’t worked for me even with boutique amps, 57 custom shop R.I. Twin, Deluxe, Champ, Matchless HC 30, Two Rock Type 3, and a handwired Fender Princeton. I even bought the $300-$400 one years ago, the hand wired, special tin box numbered limited edition, do all end all search for the perfect tone pedal. I like a Nobles, Timmy, OCD, Hot Cake, Rockbox, Hermida, etc. I am a mostly clean and crank the amp tone kind of player. Rhett if you got the doctor to install metal insert sleeve, you can eat all the Mexican and Cajun food you want for the rest of your life without having any bad side effects or needing antacids. A 8 ounce magnet surgically inserted into your picking hand adds a beautiful ebow effect sound. LOL 😂 Good luck, I broke both my clavicle and scapula bone years ago in an auto accident, 19 total, my vehicle was knocked over 1/10 of a mile from the point of impact. Trust me, please follow the doctor’s advice and physical therapy regimen, this is the one time you can fully trust what they tell you about proper healing, use caution with the scrips, they can change your life in a bad way, don’t over exert yourself thinking you can heal faster and better than the other guy, stick to your assigned regimen unless it causes you severe pain. Use a heating pad and/or ice pack, which ever one works for you. The jell packs melt to fast, use two freezer zip lock baggies one stuffed inside the other and fill it 1/2 to 3/4 full of ice from your freezer, wrap a towel around it and apply it when needed to help with the pain and swelling, night time is always the worst for pain, barometric pressure changes. Good luck. 👍🙏🎸😎✌️
Rhett, I think I subscribe to your channel back in January or February. I had begun finishing a five-year project, which resulted in my favorite guitar ever, My butterscotch blonde custom-built slimline telecaster, with the Lindy Fralin blues pickups for tele, classic maple classic C shaped neck. It sounds AMAZING. (but, over the past few years, I needed to learn exactly what “amazing” means). I watched literally hundreds of hours Of TH-cam videos, comparing different pick ups, different neck shapes, brass or nickel saddles, every tiny detail I wanted to have a reason why I chose it, but I lacked the knowledge, the vocabulary to identify and describe what sounds I liked, and those I did not. In February I began taking guitar lessons for the first time in my 27 years of self-taught guitar playing (i’m pretty good in my own lane as a solo acoustic artist, but it was a tremendous exposure when you put me on stage with “seasoned” band musicians). I recently reviewed my lesson goals from February with my teacher, and I laughed at how a 49 year old man actually wrote down, “Learn the difference between clean, and distorted, and where on the spectrum does Chorus fit in, and are there other things like Chorus that I’m hearing, like that ‘Tree-MELLOW’ sound from ‘crimson and Clover’?” My teacher was masterful in interpreting the new things I was learning on TH-cam, that severely confusing me. I leaned on you heavily, as I did Rick Beato (Who, two years ago, ruined the way that I will listen to music forever. In the best possible way. That’s an entirely different conversation, but for instance, I cannot unhear the “Pat Boone Debby Boone” drum fill. If it’s in a song, it hits my ear clearer than stepping on a Lego-again, in a great way). :) I just completed the first version of my peddleboard. It’s filled with sounds I’ve been listening to for years, but never knew what to call them, or how to find them. With the help of @Gabe Cummins, my guitar teacher, I now hear these things and can play them. I’m posting today because I realized that there is great value in many different outlets to seek my information. Watching your videos inspires outstanding questions for me to ask during my lessons. This makes me into a better musician, a better bandmate, and a more responsible and respectful musician when it comes to understanding and knowing why I love my instruments so much. Without your videos, I’m certain this doesn’t happen the way that it did. I’m 50 years old in a few months, and all this knowledge has been available to me for the last 27 years that I’ve been playing guitar. Only in 2020 Did I have the time to stop and appreciate these opportunities for growth. What’s even better, is I’ve identified thousands of ways to improve. Thank you, and I’m glad to see you playing again. Oh, also, the other guy that appears with you and Rick, absolutely changed the way that I maintain my guitars with your video about guitar hacks. The way I string them, the way oil the fret boards, and the way I insist on putting 13s on my 1971 vintage Gibson J 40, because that’s the way I like that sound. Thanks for everything brother.
In the end a Tube Screamer is like hamburger helper... you can't use it by itself. If your amp has no meat to it, you won't get it by adding this pedal... you will just get a generic tone on top of a generic tone. The tube screamer is low on bass and low mid tones, but they're there, because those tones break up at a different rate and would require a second gain stage, so enter the one on your amp, with it's own EQ. The reason this is, is because of something called the Fletcher Munson curve (maybe, I think that's close). But as I mentioned earlier it's because the mids are the most crucial element of the guitars tone to be processed because they are the resonant frequency that exists in those pickups and strings. Once you overdrive the strings in the most readily over drivable frequency group, You then can shape the EQ and allow for a more forgiving amp style overdrive to shape the sound once the mids have been shaped and given the proper amount of sustain and overdrive. If you don't let the amp make these corrections to the tone then you're going to get something that sounds horrible. For instance, you can't take a TS9 and plug it straight into the board if you want a good sound. TS808, maybe... But in the end the TS9 is only a tool to be used with an older, drivable amplifier with its own character. In and of themselves they do not have much character, but allow amplifiers to show their own characters.
I think Fletcher Munson curve is about how the human ear doesn't hear frequencies change volume at the same rate like adding 5db to the full range of a source doesn't mean you'll perceive the low mids being increased by the same amount I might be wrong too tho LOL
@@caixiuying8901 you're not wrong, I believe, but the phenomenon is also a factor in amplification. Also especially evident in compression. Ever hear those house dance songs where the kick drum swallows up the whole mix... like every time the kick drum slams, all the instruments disappear temporarily? That's another use of tge FMC. Also if your building a big PA, you're going to pay twice as much for subs, than mains, because they take a lot more power.
Ditto on the Tube Screamers. There are a lot of great variations, but the basic Tube Screamer is a tone killer. As for no Plan B, well, you're running it right now. And doing great. I've been down that road. You take a detour on to a different road, until you can get back to your main road.
Regarding your "taking a break" from playing (ouch, maybe a bad pun), I'm interested in what happens to your guitar playing style and ability once you're back into it for a while, maybe a few months or a year from now. Will your playing be significantly different after (and presumably because of) taking time off? Might it be actually better than if you hadn't had this accident (perhaps by continuously playing, you would be in a rut and this time off helps get you out of it)? Will your style change? You of course can't answer now, but I'm hoping you someday do a video on how this time off might have changed your guitar playing. And of course I'm hoping you heal up and get well soon!
Yes, very interesting. Maybe there will be an unexpected jump in improvement if some hidden bad habits will be unlearned? I find that a break can make me forget about previously learned riff/ chord ruts and cause me to experiment more with much different combinations.
@@squirelova1815 This is a GREAT thread! I play almost every day, rarely miss a day. When I do occasionally miss two days in a row, new techniques that I've been struggling to get ingrained usually are conquered. The weirdest thing, right?
@@jfo3000 It is rather strange, isn't it? Maybe it's just muscle/ligament fatigue recovery or improved neurological memory imprinting from the short refreshing breaks? It sometimes works for me to develop new and improved song chord progressions on songs where I may have "possibly" been in a rut. I say "possibly" because I can't always say for sure if the new modified progression is really "improved" or if I was just bored with the previous song version before(?) ha ha! I guess that's where comparing recordings comes into play, also maybe done after giving the song a break. I also recommended in Jaguar guitar review discussions that people with smaller to average sized hands also try a Jaguar/24" scale length= to be able to finally reach new notes, especially with the pinky, to extend their chord note choices. Leo Fender designed the more accessible short scale Jaguar for Jazz men! Duh! No wonder! Plus, the Jaguar types have more harmonics/less of the fundamental. Even worse though, I think that NOT taking an occasional break from playing and not taking care of your joints with hydration, Vitamin C, bone broth supplements/capsules and anti inflammatory things like turmeric, aloe, bosweilla, fish oil ect. can definitely lead to interfering pain and arthritis. Bosweilla btw absolutely saved my left fretting hand from worsening chronic pain even though I had been religiously taking top notch organic vitamins from the Synergy Company (in Utah) and almost everything else good and natural you can think of for my aching back and knees. But, yes, sometimes you really do actually NEED, NEED, NEED a break to regenerate your cartilidge and ligaments from all that repetetive guitar work. Maybe...that's why Eddie Van Halen & Steve Lukather are ALSO a piano players? ha ha.
The one song that changed the way I play guitar and increased my ability the most was John Mayer’s why Georgia from the first acoustic cd. I had never heard guitar that sounded like that before. It was in the beginning of the summer and I went out to buy the cd and spent the entire summer learning ever note of every song. By the end of the summer I went from someone who played guitar to someone who people thought was a virtuoso. Obviously I am no virtuoso. But it really did take me from knowing a few chords to being able to play like John Mayer.
That’s very interesting. It seems we took the same information but came to a different conclusion. With the bass filled out with the bass and some of the drums, highs with some cymbals I find I want the boost of the mid. It’s the only way I can cut through the mix when playing live.
I love my tube screamers because I love my tight hi gain chug. What makes a good high gain tone for me is boosting the mid and high frequencies and completely scooping as much bass as possible without it sounding thin and wimpy(all of this goes into the front of the amp). I personally try to have the least overdrive gain as possible and leave the bulk of the clipping to the pre/power tubes. After that I can now scoop the mids on the tonestack and maybe do another scoop in the FX loop. I use this all the time, and it works perfectly for me. This might help in the metal scene, but then again, a lot of other genres usually use lower gain tones where pushing mids into a preamp might turn into a honky mess that a graphic EQ just can't fix. I'll just summarise with: TS on a high gain amp = yes TS on a clean/crunch amp = probably not
I bought an original TS-808 when I first started playing, because I had a tiny solid-state amp and I thought....well, you know. I was jealous of other guys who had MXR Distortion + pedals, not knowing the difference between overdrive and distortion. I wasn't partial to the tube screamer, but I kept it around. One day decades later, I find out that this thing is some kind of mojo legend. I laughed because to me it was just another old pedal. Then I got a serious face on when I saw what they were going for on Reverb. Like you, I like it just fine, I just never thought of it as being a big deal.
Tube screamers work great for higher gain rhythm tones -- if you feed too much bass into a high gain amp, you get excessive clipping and sustain in the bass which results in a muddy tone. When you push the gain, it's often desirable to push it less in the bass (where you get a muddy boomy sound especially on palm mutes) and less in the treble (where you get fizz) and focus it on the mids. You will still get plenty of low bass and high treble (the extra harmonic content you get from clipping those mids creates plenty of treble), you just won't have as much sustain or distortion hitting those frequency ranges. If you're dealing with a band, it becomes important to avoid having too muddy a tone so that you don't antagonize your bass player.
It’s an opinion Rhett. There are so many variants on the TS for a reason-it’s mid push allows me to cut through a mix like nothing else. Even most “D” style boxes are born out of the TS. I consider you to be a very knowledgeable cat and a monster player but I disagree with your disdain for TS pedals.
Rhett is a fox. His life is youtube and this title is a clickbait. And we are all here =) click click click. Perfect for him Easy Today youtube is for this kind of "king"..
Never understood the cult of tubescreamer. And I also love mids (my band does some Queens of the Stone Age covers for instance which often time means rolling the treble and bass all the way down). Haven’t found a place for it in more aggressive rock.
flats for slide is the move! i love stringing my jaguar with flats because not only does it tame the notorious brightness but the flatwound strings make the slide nearly noiseless. in combination with the bright single coil pickups, it gives a great, full-range slide sound.
Rhett, GREAT video today! I have been playing for 40 yrs (off and on) and have known about flat wounds since college, but avoided them because I didn't have the knowledge of how they were made - until today. Thanks! Also, though I love a good Tube Screamer circuit, I fully get your reasons for not liking them, and depending on your amp set up, they can or can't compliment. But your arguments made perfect sense to me. Hope your wing heals up quick. I miss your playing on your videos. :-)
I’ve always liked the TS as more of a clean boost after my first OD, I’ve only really noticed losing myself in the mix if I have too much gain and the amp is naturally midrangey. (Vox/Matchless)
Hey Rhett . First off glad to see your doing well. I wish you a speedy recovery. I was wondering if you could go through your filming process. Like a behind the scenes of your filming and editing process. I have always been curious how you do lighting ,setup the camera, get multiple shots etc.
The Vulf compressor is a plug-in recreation of the vinyl sim effect off the old Boss SP-303 sampler, famously used by J Dilla and Madlib. I had one for years and stupidly sold it to a friend for a lot less than they go for these days.
Hey mate, been following and watching your channel for fair while now. Really enjoy your way you get your info across and are not heavy handed on pushing anything, rather giving your option on what you have found works with or doesn’t work as well with. I really would love to get hold of your courses as huge blues and old school rock. Coming on 50 real soon, being on a veterans pension and just me and my service dog (golden retriever white long hair) who reads me better than I do. Enjoys laying in front of pedal board and listen to me play. Which once had a great marriage of 12 yrs two great kids, yet when the mental health side went upside on me. Guess she was not prepared for me to find the guts to ask for help. I used to play and jam with a bunch of married friends who would get together almost every weekend . Often playing till sun rise around a back yard fire all the kids asleep from videos in one of our houses lol. I would make some dry rice in plastic drink containers and they would call themselves the shakers and one Tamborine. With the occasional never ending hey Jude when the girls would be little to many drinks etc. yet really good times I pulled out my 23 yr old Ibanez performance acoustic the other day showing the odd blood stain in rosewood from playing till sun rose. Lots of big laughs and I’d say some not to bad sounding jams. I live in Australia the land of everything price jacked to do with music especially pedals and guitars which can be few thousand difference. Then the courses are all USA dollars and my pension a d trying to put some quality pedals together. Makes life suck alittle as no extra bush or danger pay etc. means hard budgeting . Amps even just a nice head is not even close to exchange rates. Being old school I’m a huge tube amp guy yet finally afforded Logic x software but no interface as I want one that will let me find tone and start making little recordings to help get back my memory of songs that once would just flow out. Jamming alone gets hard as Trooper (the dog lol) not great at returning criticism or wow that’s sounding nice. Yet just part of my lucky dip, getting physically injured then medically discharged from something I loved and was not to bad at. Then the black dog PTSD hit out of know place 1.5 yrs. which left me with nothing as I didn’t even try going to court to get what should been my bits. Leaving everything so my kids would not be without, But also my two you g ones where given many untrue stories from partners jealous new partner. 🤷♂️ which I thought crap your jealous because you didn’t become a soldier or failed, plus had work ethic of zero. Not my fault but had big chip yet smile shake my hand. Now lucky to get a return text and they let my calls ring out. But just how s**t goes. Keep up your great work and I hope to get hold of at least your finding tone course one day. Just to help bring back more to my last things I can do which is guitar and photography. From the land down under thanks for your effort you put into your videos. Stay strong and in good Health mate. Cheers Matt n Trooper 👍😎🇦🇺
Having your glass slide melted down to install in your shoulder is the next coolest thing after that guy died and his nephew had his remains made into a guitar. So metal.
Rock Slide was invented by a local guitar store owner "Mark's Guitar" in Spokane, Wa. Mark passed away but his store is still going strong here in Spokane. Inventing The Rock Slide guitar slide; A Brief History author: Mark Morse, Founder/Inventor While playing the club circuit in the late seventies, I was always less than satisfied with the guitar slides available at music stores. It always bugged me how slides would pinch the inside of my 2nd knuckle. While home on a break I decided to grind out the cutaway section of a chrome slide I had at the time. It immediately made a big difference in the comfort & stability. This got me thinking some years later that the concept could be taken much further.While the cutaway was convenient the interior was still “pipe like”. My research led me to a creative metal manufacturing company in Spokane, Washington that utilized computer driven Swiss screw machine technology. I decided to utilize CNC and CAD drawings to take my project to the next level. Once the design was finalized and patented, we loaded our design into the computers and The Rock Slide was born. This type of manufacturing is common in the automotive and aerospace industries and produces consistent, identical slides. We have now sold over 55,000 slides and the feedback from players is always great. Be sure to check out the “Sizing” information as well as the Artists/Reviews page.
You’re right about Robben Ford and Help the poor. Phenomenal player, I’ve seen him three times once with Larry Carlton. I always leave with my mouth wide-open wondering how he can merge blues and jazz so seamlessly.
you kinda had me thinking....you actually got my ATTENTION with this statement !! But you cleared it up. Thanks, I LOVE MIDRANGE I LOVE TUBE SCREAMER!!! But I admire your musical theories and you are a GREAT guitar player Rett. Thanks
One of my favorite things to do with a tube screamer type pedal is to put an eq pedal in the effects loop and scoop out some of that boxy midrange. You get the benefit of the extra gain without all the muddiness
7:38 Funny you mention it. I specifically use a TS as a mid boost. Usually targeting a sound something like the guitar tone on "Would I Lie To You" by Eurythmics.
Tube Screamers definitely have their place. I used to play a Strat through a Blackfaced 69’ Twin Reverb and my TS-808 clone sounded great. I’ve went to using tweeds and playing more Gibson or similar guitars in recent years and they don’t fit nearly as well. I’ve changed to a OCD or a blues Driver since I changed to tweed and vintage Marshall clones.
I use the TS for amps that have no channel switching. The amp provides the rhythm distortion and TS is the “boost” for lead. It’s a cheap solution for people who can’t afford channel switching.
I miss using flat wounds. Years ago i had a ESP LTD EC1000 with EMGx humbuckers and always used flat wound chromes on it. I loved it. Its been about 4 years since i used them. Now i need to buy a pack. 😁
I'm reminded of that movie where Babe Ruth allegedly had someone else run the bases for his homeruns! Rhett now has an intern to play his riffs for his videos. Hope you heal soon!
Love your content Rhett! I’ve been playing for 13 years and I still learn new, useful things every video. Gonna check out your courses soon because my music theory knowledge is pretty shameful for how long I’ve been playing 😂 Hope you heal up quick. Rock on.
@@olivergolding8927 I have a good, distortion pedal, I also have this because it’s a different sound. Different things do… different things, you are aware of this right?
It's all about knowing how to use a Tube Screamer. Turn the drive all the way off, max out the level and put the tone at exactly 12 noon. Then, use the drive on your amp + or _ to get the sound you want. I use an eq pedal as well, the Fish and Chips.
TS works fine IMO before a heavy analog overdrive to compress and tighten your sound, it actually makes your guitar ''scream'' more. But it colors the sounds if added to clean sound.
I was part of a worship band for six years. I would bring two pieces of gear, my Strat and my 1983 Tube Screamer (amp was there for my use). The other guitarist who would play on other scheduled days used a Bradshaw rack system. I was considered ‘the rock guy.’ Last I heard, he got a TS and used nothing else.
Last minute things you do always before you go on stage ? what you do to deal with Anxiety ? How many tunes do you think it takes to pull off a gig.? Talk about how you make a great set list to build an audience up and create a great show, talk about stage presence and what it takes to come off looking professional. what is your practice schedule. How many times a week does a band need to practice ? jus throwing stuff at ya brother, Much love.
What I don't like about Tubescreamers is the loss of bass in the signal, even though I play through a 66 pro reverb mainly. That's why I like a modern take on the pedal that can allow for a tweaking of the bottom end a bit. They do work best on Fender style amps but can still get a bit too harsh or shrill in the mids.
@@seanbeadles7421 Good point. I guess I meant in relation to how expensive the original 8s are and that they've reissued it, but not the 9 or 10 etc. Cheers.
I agree, I don’t particularly care for the tone of a tube screamer. Also, my favorite guitar ASAT classic. Has flat wounds. Love it. Love the feel the tone all that and I’m not even a jazz musician.
I use 9 flats on a few of my guitars. They feel like 10s and for me they don't feel too difficult to bend but certainly not as easy as 9 rounds. You don't get that string sound when sliding up or down the fret board. They do seem to last a little longer but since I don't gig anymore that's not an issue.
Great Tube Screamer tip at 10 minutes 10 seconds roll the gain down great tip. Cage triads and intervals Another great tip! Robben Ford solo learning that. Another great tip, this is just a darn good video. Thank you. 👍👍👍👍👍( 5 thumbs up heck YEAH )
Triads and their inversions were a HUGELY important thing for me.
6:58 for the tube screamer question
The Tube Screamer I have on my AC30 sounds like heaven. When I first played it through the AC30, I was trembling because of how amazing it sounded.
Tube screamer works well with Mesa Boogies amps, too.
My favourite discovery about the TS was turning the gain almost all the way up and using the volume control to put the amount of dirt“ into the sound of the amp as you want. It works very very nicely with AC 30s and other valve amps. And my tone knob works just fine on mids and highs for the TS. I should say that the TS9 I utilise is on a UE - 300 that I bought in 1982. It was my first “pedal“ though there are three: an absolutely unusable compressor that hisses more than football fans, a beautiful CS9 chorus and the aforementioned TS9. (Full disclosure).
TS is legendary for a reason
They work best with amps with a mid scoop sound
@@michaelgreen5206 and Fender Blues Jrs
Tube Screamer is what it's called when Rick makes a video about blockers. 😂
Rick might actually find this comment hilarious
Give this man a cookie this jokes got layers!
😆
Perfect.
Comment king right here folks
Funny, a Tube Screamer is one of the few overdrive pedals I can tolerate, because it doesn't sound like a transistor being tortured like almost every other fuzz/distortion box. And they DO have tone controls on them. And they can be modified to have a much flatter response. I use it as a clean boost in front of a Marshall, anyway, and not as a fuzz box.
Gamer, I agree! Actually just change the response cap in the feedback loop to the next size larger (.047 stock, change to .1)and the response cleans up, bass returns and it's Santana in a box.
Implying there's something wrong about transistors being tortured. Hell, I often prefer solid state high gain amps (I don't mean stuff like Line 6 Spider that has a modeling digital preamp section, I mean analog gear with transistor clipping, like Randall RG/Century, old VH/SS Ampeg, some GX line Crates, Hughes & Kettner, AMT stuff and such) to tubes. Sometimes tubes just sound too sterile. But I'm into extreme metal.
Yeah, I mean it's just a specific sound like any other OD, which is sometimes perfect - I recently had a project where I had to record some short high-register lines and the thicker warm tone of the TS worked great. Also, having an original makes a difference - I also have a reissue that sounds nothing like it.
@@Admiral_Bongo those old ampeg vh140 absolutely rip dude
@@Admiral_Bongo I get you. Actually one of my bucket list amps is a Gallien-Krueger 2100SEL. Not a tube to be found in it, and what an overdrive monster! But it is fair to say that I really have very little love for transistor overdrive pedals. I can't think of one I like when used as a distortion generator.
I used to hate tube screamers, but years later I started to like them. Main thing is they sound pretty horrible in front of a clean amp. Amp needs to be breaking up to use the TS to shape/tighten your sound. Doesn’t sound good unless you already a good sound coming from your amp that needs a little seasoning 😎
They are pretty good in a clean amp if you turn the drive down and more of a booster
I first tried mine into a clean, mid forward SS amp. That is probably the worst possible way to use it! Fortunately I sometimes learn from my mistakes.
Sound great I'm front Marshall... Boogie's....Supers...list goes on...snobbish attitude and I don't agree with much he says here... mids totally cut in a mix To each his own
@Soy Orbison It works well if you want a slightly driven tone. But that's all it will do, regardless of knob twisting. Most people want more gain in the rock world.
It sounds bad in front of a squeaky clean amp because there's a high pass circuit in the tubes creamers clipping stage, bass is less clipped in relation to the mids and highs. You can hear the clean bass and distorted mids and highs.
I prefer the bb preamp or od1 for 4558 chip overdrives.
6:50 for those of you who don't want to sift through the whole video to find what the thumbnail references.
I hate when content creators do this. Just make your first question the one in the thumbnail. Don't try to trick me into watching half your video just to get to it.
Do you only watch videos to get answers to the thumbnails? That’s weird. He answers the question therefore delivering on the promise of the thumbnail. You can see how long the video is before you click play.
@@kochjb32 Down vote, click elsewhere if it’s not at the beginning. If you’re a hardcore fan, sure watch the whole thing…….But that’s not all of us.
Thanks for this
Right. And he seem so insincere.
That is the first time I've ever heard someone say excess mids would result in your tone getting lost in a mix
Saturated. That's why Rhett said to roll off some gain, de- saturate for more definition and clarity.
Wait foreal? I thought this was a known thing.
mtsalmela80 is correct that preserving (or even boosting) a guitar’s mids is almost universally considered to be the most essential way to get it to cut through and sit right in a mix. I’m not saying Rhett’s wrong, but mtsalmela80 definitely isn’t either
Mid-heavy guitars make a mix muddy. Some of the best songs have crappy guitar tones when isolated, but they fit right in when mixed. It's all about serving the song. You're the only guitar, or even the only rhythm instrument? High mid levels may be beneficial. Need to sit well in a large mix and have your tone cut through? It's best to scoop some of those mids out.
Depends on which mids.
Rhett...you are such a professional at what you do...you are really to be complimented. Now and then I think back to the video you made back awhile where you humbly thanked the TH-cam community and basically confessed that without guitar you'd never have become 'you'. I too am amazed that someone can discover their calling in the way that you did...and then figure out a way to be so totally successful at it. Whenever you drop a new video, I'm always so impressed not only by the quality of production, but also the command you have over the presentation, knowledge and content. Thank you...you truly are one of the best on TH-cam.
10:30 - I call that the "Julian Lage Interval". He uses it to end "Nocturne" and I quite dig it. Cheers to Chris, his playing is ace!
Ahaha yes he loves that half step bend double stop thing 😂😂
Got a Febreeze Plugin ad right after the the “favorite plugin” part - gotta love technology.
Really enjoying your one armed content!
He's better than a lot of youtubers with both arms ;)
my TS808 has never left my board since I got it. the drive is always at 0 lol.
“I hear people all the time (I even remember hearing myself) who just dime the ‘drive knob’ and think the ‘volume’ is a master knob for it. It’s a concept known as ‘gain staging’ - it has to do with the way that the volume of each part of your signal chain interacts with the next. The ‘volume’ knob of an 808 is the most important. That’s by definition, the overdrive part of it. The ‘overdrive’ should be thought of as the ‘cheat’ knob…Just remember that turning that ‘cheat’ knob too high also cheats you of the natural tonal characteristics of your guitar. Do work that volume knob, though.”- John Mayer
I've always used TS pedals as boosts, put that volume up and gain low!!
Yeah, this. I reckon Rhett’s amps would sound amazing using the classic “gain on 0, volume on 10, tone to taste” TS approach.
I love the mid sound. Too many guitarists are over sweeping the mids now and making the guitar sound kinda...lifeless.
I call it smooching the mids...
“I don’t like tube screamers”
Karma breaks his arm.
😂🙄😁🥸
@@johndrowe5281 k
It was well deserved
@@samtheman123😂😂😂
Never was a big TS guy. Then I got into SRV… and if I stack it with another pedal that has OD and compression, into a micro tube amp (based on a Blues Jr), it sounds pretty good. It’s all about the application. As far as overdrives go, it’s at the bottom; I like the SD1 better, and the Blues Driver even more. My favorite overdrive pedal, though, is old school- the ColorSound PowerBoost.
The way I've always used an over drive pedal is just as purely a saturater after a compressor in the chain. You place the gate at the middle and the sparkle that really comes out after that is really good, but you have to bring down presence on your amp, because there is going to a bit more top end. That way it doesn't push things to sound unpractically tinny.
Thx for the continued content. Hope your recovery is goimg well.
Love the “I’ll show you, not tell you” approach to this Q&A, Rhett! Get well soon!
I used to not understand the hype around Tube Screamers. They’ve always been cool but not as cool as they’ve been made to seem. That is until I got the Palisades by EQD. Completely changed my opinion on the TS circuit. I use a Way Huge Saucy Box as my baseline light gain and the Palisades for a medium and high gain and it is phenomenal. I have a Les Paul and Jazzmaster and play through a Vox AC 15 and the Saucy Box/Palisades set up is pure gold. There are a multitude of amazing sounds you can get out of this pedal. Highly recommend checking them out if you haven’t.
Sounds sweet... I use TS-9 with a recto or modern Marshall, as the baseline, I use a DLS from Catalinbread, and want to get the palisades, save the extra pedal and better tone control....I just need the extra kick
Rhett: I don't like Tube Screamers
The ghost of Stevie Ray Vaughan has entered the chat....
And Gary Moore
@@shreyashshrestha6085 And countless other guitarists…
@@shreyashshrestha6085 Was Gary a prolific Tubescreamer user? I associate him much more with the DS-1, but in earnest he seems to have been using whatever he could get his hands on without it making much of a difference (case in point: Digitech Bad Monkey).
@@kospandx ohh hmm, i just seen him talk about it once i seen his pedal board i think
@@shreyashshrestha6085 and Michael Landau LOL the king of tone!
Thank you Rhett for putting into words what I’ve always felt about Tube Screamers. People always ask me why I don’t have one on my board or why I don’t like them and the best response I could ever muster is that I don’t need more mid range
A suggestion if I may? I built my tube screamer pedal using the StewMac kit for a couple reasons. First, because I just wanted to! You know, it's cool to make your own pedal. But the other big thing about this is that you have the ability to change the chip inside that shapes the sound. They supply the chip that is the reference or signature sound but they also carry in stock, variations on that. You can have one pedal and with a little screwdriver and about a minute and a half, you can have a different pedal. Food for thought if anyone is looking to get a screamer pedal. It's not a love/hate thing at all as Rhett says. It's another color on your palate. There's a use for it!
Never been a fan of Tube Screamers. Except.. I had an old TS808 that was found in a box of other pedals in a storage shed by a friend of mine who brought the box over. All the pedals were rusted and dirty and couldn't get them to power up. I immediately eyed the TS808. Cleaned it, and replaced the battery connector and viola! I don't know what or why but this TS808 is unbelievable and doesn't have that crazy mid/eq thing. It's very smooth with the eq and very transparent. Hard to describe. One of my favorite pedals and what makes it better, it cost me less than $10 for cleaner and the battery connector. 🤘🏼
The one that got away for me was a tele that was hanging on the wall at an Austin studio. I used it for a couple of solos and every time I hear those songs I am so jealous. They probably would not have sold it, but I did not even ask. I just did not realize how good it was at the time.
This is probably goofy, but mine was a Hamer Steve Stevens.
Will never forget that weapon. I moved right in, instant home. But the price was out of reach - probably the explanation for most of the "one that got away" stories, even if it's not your story... or maybe you just assumed it would be out of reach even if they would have sold it. I get that.
I never saw another Steve Stevens since after that one. I don't know how many they made, I thought they were common at the time. Late 80's.
That jazz guitar playing was outstanding.
Tube screamers sound great when other guitarist are playing them, they sound thin to me when I use one. It just hasn’t worked for me even with boutique amps, 57 custom shop R.I. Twin, Deluxe, Champ, Matchless HC 30, Two Rock Type 3, and a handwired Fender Princeton. I even bought the $300-$400 one years ago, the hand wired, special tin box numbered limited edition, do all end all search for the perfect tone pedal. I like a Nobles, Timmy, OCD, Hot Cake, Rockbox, Hermida, etc. I am a mostly clean and crank the amp tone kind of player. Rhett if you got the doctor to install metal insert sleeve, you can eat all the Mexican and Cajun food you want for the rest of your life without having any bad side effects or needing antacids. A 8 ounce magnet surgically inserted into your picking hand adds a beautiful ebow effect sound. LOL 😂 Good luck, I broke both my clavicle and scapula bone years ago in an auto accident, 19 total, my vehicle was knocked over 1/10 of a mile from the point of impact. Trust me, please follow the doctor’s advice and physical therapy regimen, this is the one time you can fully trust what they tell you about proper healing, use caution with the scrips, they can change your life in a bad way, don’t over exert yourself thinking you can heal faster and better than the other guy, stick to your assigned regimen unless it causes you severe pain. Use a heating pad and/or ice pack, which ever one works for you. The jell packs melt to fast, use two freezer zip lock baggies one stuffed inside the other and fill it 1/2 to 3/4 full of ice from your freezer, wrap a towel around it and apply it when needed to help with the pain and swelling, night time is always the worst for pain, barometric pressure changes. Good luck. 👍🙏🎸😎✌️
Rhett, I think I subscribe to your channel back in January or February. I had begun finishing a five-year project, which resulted in my favorite guitar ever, My butterscotch blonde custom-built slimline telecaster, with the Lindy Fralin blues pickups for tele, classic maple classic C shaped neck. It sounds AMAZING. (but, over the past few years, I needed to learn exactly what “amazing” means). I watched literally hundreds of hours Of TH-cam videos, comparing different pick ups, different neck shapes, brass or nickel saddles, every tiny detail I wanted to have a reason why I chose it, but I lacked the knowledge, the vocabulary to identify and describe what sounds I liked, and those I did not. In February I began taking guitar lessons for the first time in my 27 years of self-taught guitar playing (i’m pretty good in my own lane as a solo acoustic artist, but it was a tremendous exposure when you put me on stage with “seasoned” band musicians). I recently reviewed my lesson goals from February with my teacher, and I laughed at how a 49 year old man actually wrote down, “Learn the difference between clean, and distorted, and where on the spectrum does Chorus fit in, and are there other things like Chorus that I’m hearing, like that ‘Tree-MELLOW’ sound from ‘crimson and Clover’?” My teacher was masterful in interpreting the new things I was learning on TH-cam, that severely confusing me. I leaned on you heavily, as I did Rick Beato (Who, two years ago, ruined the way that I will listen to music forever. In the best possible way. That’s an entirely different conversation, but for instance, I cannot unhear the “Pat Boone Debby Boone” drum fill. If it’s in a song, it hits my ear clearer than stepping on a Lego-again, in a great way). :) I just completed the first version of my peddleboard. It’s filled with sounds I’ve been listening to for years, but never knew what to call them, or how to find them. With the help of @Gabe Cummins, my guitar teacher, I now hear these things and can play them. I’m posting today because I realized that there is great value in many different outlets to seek my information. Watching your videos inspires outstanding questions for me to ask during my lessons. This makes me into a better musician, a better bandmate, and a more responsible and respectful musician when it comes to understanding and knowing why I love my instruments so much. Without your videos, I’m certain this doesn’t happen the way that it did. I’m 50 years old in a few months, and all this knowledge has been available to me for the last 27 years that I’ve been playing guitar. Only in 2020 Did I have the time to stop and appreciate these opportunities for growth. What’s even better, is I’ve identified thousands of ways to improve. Thank you, and I’m glad to see you playing again. Oh, also, the other guy that appears with you and Rick, absolutely changed the way that I maintain my guitars with your video about guitar hacks. The way I string them, the way oil the fret boards, and the way I insist on putting 13s on my 1971 vintage Gibson J 40, because that’s the way I like that sound. Thanks for everything brother.
I admire the depth of his reply…even if I were huge ‘TS head’ I would have to acknowledge the realities he describes. Big ups
the best theory i’ve learned was from Hotel California. helped me with a lot of different licks between the blues and harmonic minor scales.
In the end a Tube Screamer is like hamburger helper... you can't use it by itself. If your amp has no meat to it, you won't get it by adding this pedal... you will just get a generic tone on top of a generic tone. The tube screamer is low on bass and low mid tones, but they're there, because those tones break up at a different rate and would require a second gain stage, so enter the one on your amp, with it's own EQ. The reason this is, is because of something called the Fletcher Munson curve (maybe, I think that's close). But as I mentioned earlier it's because the mids are the most crucial element of the guitars tone to be processed because they are the resonant frequency that exists in those pickups and strings. Once you overdrive the strings in the most readily over drivable frequency group, You then can shape the EQ and allow for a more forgiving amp style overdrive to shape the sound once the mids have been shaped and given the proper amount of sustain and overdrive. If you don't let the amp make these corrections to the tone then you're going to get something that sounds horrible. For instance, you can't take a TS9 and plug it straight into the board if you want a good sound. TS808, maybe... But in the end the TS9 is only a tool to be used with an older, drivable amplifier with its own character. In and of themselves they do not have much character, but allow amplifiers to show their own characters.
I think Fletcher Munson curve is about how the human ear doesn't hear frequencies change volume at the same rate
like adding 5db to the full range of a source doesn't mean you'll perceive the low mids being increased by the same amount
I might be wrong too tho LOL
I think after you have calculated the air speed velocity of a south african swallow, the real question at the end of the day is: can you play?? 😉
@@caixiuying8901 you're not wrong, I believe, but the phenomenon is also a factor in amplification. Also especially evident in compression. Ever hear those house dance songs where the kick drum swallows up the whole mix... like every time the kick drum slams, all the instruments disappear temporarily? That's another use of tge FMC. Also if your building a big PA, you're going to pay twice as much for subs, than mains, because they take a lot more power.
I'd like to thank Chris for throwing in the Scofield chord at the end of the tube screamer demo! 👍
To me, Tube Screamers work best as a clean boost.
Ditto on the Tube Screamers. There are a lot of great variations, but the basic Tube Screamer is a tone killer. As for no Plan B, well, you're running it right now. And doing great. I've been down that road. You take a detour on to a different road, until you can get back to your main road.
Regarding your "taking a break" from playing (ouch, maybe a bad pun), I'm interested in what happens to your guitar playing style and ability once you're back into it for a while, maybe a few months or a year from now. Will your playing be significantly different after (and presumably because of) taking time off? Might it be actually better than if you hadn't had this accident (perhaps by continuously playing, you would be in a rut and this time off helps get you out of it)? Will your style change? You of course can't answer now, but I'm hoping you someday do a video on how this time off might have changed your guitar playing.
And of course I'm hoping you heal up and get well soon!
I “came back to soon” from a shoulder dislocation.” In my bulletproof 20s. I Dislocated it again.
I paid more attention to the doctor in the 30s
Yes, very interesting. Maybe there will be an unexpected jump in improvement if some hidden bad habits will be unlearned? I find that a break can make me forget about previously learned riff/ chord ruts and cause me to experiment more with much different combinations.
@@squirelova1815 This is a GREAT thread! I play almost every day, rarely miss a day. When I do occasionally miss two days in a row, new techniques that I've been struggling to get ingrained usually are conquered. The weirdest thing, right?
@@jfo3000 It is rather strange, isn't it? Maybe it's just muscle/ligament fatigue recovery or improved neurological memory imprinting from the short refreshing breaks? It sometimes works for me to develop new and improved song chord progressions on songs where I may have "possibly" been in a rut. I say "possibly" because I can't always say for sure if the new modified progression is really "improved" or if I was just bored with the previous song version before(?) ha ha! I guess that's where comparing recordings comes into play, also maybe done after giving the song a break. I also recommended in Jaguar guitar review discussions that people with smaller to average sized hands also try a Jaguar/24" scale length= to be able to finally reach new notes, especially with the pinky, to extend their chord note choices. Leo Fender designed the more accessible short scale Jaguar for Jazz men! Duh! No wonder! Plus, the Jaguar types have more harmonics/less of the fundamental. Even worse though, I think that NOT taking an occasional break from playing and not taking care of your joints with hydration, Vitamin C, bone broth supplements/capsules and anti inflammatory things like turmeric, aloe, bosweilla, fish oil ect. can definitely lead to interfering pain and arthritis. Bosweilla btw absolutely saved my left fretting hand from worsening chronic pain even though I had been religiously taking top notch organic vitamins from the Synergy Company (in Utah) and almost everything else good and natural you can think of for my aching back and knees. But, yes, sometimes you really do actually NEED, NEED, NEED a break to regenerate your cartilidge and ligaments from all that repetetive guitar work. Maybe...that's why Eddie Van Halen & Steve Lukather are ALSO a piano players? ha ha.
Working on a video about this as we speak.
I use flat wounds on one of my strats I think they are 11s with a unwound G
They help tone down some of the brightness that strats can have.
The one song that changed the way I play guitar and increased my ability the most was John Mayer’s why Georgia from the first acoustic cd. I had never heard guitar that sounded like that before. It was in the beginning of the summer and I went out to buy the cd and spent the entire summer learning ever note of every song. By the end of the summer I went from someone who played guitar to someone who people thought was a virtuoso. Obviously I am no virtuoso. But it really did take me from knowing a few chords to being able to play like John Mayer.
I totally love Chris' playing ! More jazz please !
Glad the recovery is going well, and very excited to check out your new course!
That D'Angelico is a thing of beauty! Get well & back to playing soon Rhett!
That D’Angelico is a beauty! Flats are ideal for hollow body “jazz boxes” and lap steel sliders.
That’s very interesting. It seems we took the same information but came to a different conclusion. With the bass filled out with the bass and some of the drums, highs with some cymbals I find I want the boost of the mid. It’s the only way I can cut through the mix when playing live.
I love my tube screamers because I love my tight hi gain chug. What makes a good high gain tone for me is boosting the mid and high frequencies and completely scooping as much bass as possible without it sounding thin and wimpy(all of this goes into the front of the amp). I personally try to have the least overdrive gain as possible and leave the bulk of the clipping to the pre/power tubes. After that I can now scoop the mids on the tonestack and maybe do another scoop in the FX loop. I use this all the time, and it works perfectly for me.
This might help in the metal scene, but then again, a lot of other genres usually use lower gain tones where pushing mids into a preamp might turn into a honky mess that a graphic EQ just can't fix.
I'll just summarise with: TS on a high gain amp = yes
TS on a clean/crunch amp = probably not
I love ts + boss blues driver into clean low 5w fender clone + 4w vox on edge, glorious but I only got an audience of two
Both excellent pedals Rhett just buys mostly expensive trendy hip pedals and amps except for his own lil Lark amp but that's cool
I’m keen for that triad + CAGED + learn the fretboard course! I’d love to have a single learning resource to “unlock the fretboard”
Flatwound gives such a waaaaaaaaaaaarm tone, I freaking LOVE that warm tone
I bought an original TS-808 when I first started playing, because I had a tiny solid-state amp and I thought....well, you know. I was jealous of other guys who had MXR Distortion + pedals, not knowing the difference between overdrive and distortion. I wasn't partial to the tube screamer, but I kept it around. One day decades later, I find out that this thing is some kind of mojo legend. I laughed because to me it was just another old pedal. Then I got a serious face on when I saw what they were going for on Reverb. Like you, I like it just fine, I just never thought of it as being a big deal.
@12:57 Great playing Chris! So much for the forgetting all that Jazz stuff.
Tube screamers work great for higher gain rhythm tones -- if you feed too much bass into a high gain amp, you get excessive clipping and sustain in the bass which results in a muddy tone. When you push the gain, it's often desirable to push it less in the bass (where you get a muddy boomy sound especially on palm mutes) and less in the treble (where you get fizz) and focus it on the mids. You will still get plenty of low bass and high treble (the extra harmonic content you get from clipping those mids creates plenty of treble), you just won't have as much sustain or distortion hitting those frequency ranges.
If you're dealing with a band, it becomes important to avoid having too muddy a tone so that you don't antagonize your bass player.
It’s an opinion Rhett. There are so many variants on the TS for a reason-it’s mid push allows me to cut through a mix like nothing else. Even most “D” style boxes are born out of the TS. I consider you to be a very knowledgeable cat and a monster player but I disagree with your disdain for TS pedals.
I'm with you @JD Silva ✌
Rhett is a fox. His life is youtube and this title is a clickbait. And we are all here =) click click click.
Perfect for him
Easy
Today youtube is for this kind of "king"..
He doesn’t express disdain lol…he just has nice enough amps to not need mid boost…
He's literally just saying he doesn't like it with the amps he normally uses. 🤷♂️ Maybe you have a different amp, or just a different taste.
@@vandemonia yeah cuz no one has used a tube screamer on a good amp to great effect ever
Never understood the cult of tubescreamer. And I also love mids (my band does some Queens of the Stone Age covers for instance which often time means rolling the treble and bass all the way down). Haven’t found a place for it in more aggressive rock.
flats for slide is the move! i love stringing my jaguar with flats because not only does it tame the notorious brightness but the flatwound strings make the slide nearly noiseless. in combination with the bright single coil pickups, it gives a great, full-range slide sound.
Rhett, GREAT video today! I have been playing for 40 yrs (off and on) and have known about flat wounds since college, but avoided them because I didn't have the knowledge of how they were made - until today. Thanks! Also, though I love a good Tube Screamer circuit, I fully get your reasons for not liking them, and depending on your amp set up, they can or can't compliment. But your arguments made perfect sense to me. Hope your wing heals up quick. I miss your playing on your videos. :-)
HA brass rods in your shoulder for slide tone. hilarious. Get well soon man!
I’ve always liked the TS as more of a clean boost after my first OD, I’ve only really noticed losing myself in the mix if I have too much gain and the amp is naturally midrangey. (Vox/Matchless)
Hey Rhett . First off glad to see your doing well. I wish you a speedy recovery.
I was wondering if you could go through your filming process. Like a behind the scenes of your filming and editing process. I have always been curious how you do lighting ,setup the camera, get multiple shots etc.
Can't wait for your arm to be healed, I bet you will be super inspired when getting back to playing! Your content is amazing by the way!
Tube screamers are the best. They add that nice high end sizzle and tighten up the lows. To each their own! ;)
The Vulf compressor is a plug-in recreation of the vinyl sim effect off the old Boss SP-303 sampler, famously used by J Dilla and Madlib. I had one for years and stupidly sold it to a friend for a lot less than they go for these days.
Hey mate, been following and watching your channel for fair while now. Really enjoy your way you get your info across and are not heavy handed on pushing anything, rather giving your option on what you have found works with or doesn’t work as well with. I really would love to get hold of your courses as huge blues and old school rock. Coming on 50 real soon, being on a veterans pension and just me and my service dog (golden retriever white long hair) who reads me better than I do. Enjoys laying in front of pedal board and listen to me play. Which once had a great marriage of 12 yrs two great kids, yet when the mental health side went upside on me. Guess she was not prepared for me to find the guts to ask for help. I used to play and jam with a bunch of married friends who would get together almost every weekend . Often playing till sun rise around a back yard fire all the kids asleep from videos in one of our houses lol. I would make some dry rice in plastic drink containers and they would call themselves the shakers and one Tamborine. With the occasional never ending hey Jude when the girls would be little to many drinks etc. yet really good times I pulled out my 23 yr old Ibanez performance acoustic the other day showing the odd blood stain in rosewood from playing till sun rose. Lots of big laughs and I’d say some not to bad sounding jams. I live in Australia the land of everything price jacked to do with music especially pedals and guitars which can be few thousand difference. Then the courses are all USA dollars and my pension a d trying to put some quality pedals together. Makes life suck alittle as no extra bush or danger pay etc. means hard budgeting . Amps even just a nice head is not even close to exchange rates. Being old school I’m a huge tube amp guy yet finally afforded Logic x software but no interface as I want one that will let me find tone and start making little recordings to help get back my memory of songs that once would just flow out. Jamming alone gets hard as Trooper (the dog lol) not great at returning criticism or wow that’s sounding nice. Yet just part of my lucky dip, getting physically injured then medically discharged from something I loved and was not to bad at. Then the black dog PTSD hit out of know place 1.5 yrs. which left me with nothing as I didn’t even try going to court to get what should been my bits. Leaving everything so my kids would not be without, But also my two you g ones where given many untrue stories from partners jealous new partner. 🤷♂️ which I thought crap your jealous because you didn’t become a soldier or failed, plus had work ethic of zero. Not my fault but had big chip yet smile shake my hand. Now lucky to get a return text and they let my calls ring out. But just how s**t goes. Keep up your great work and I hope to get hold of at least your finding tone course one day. Just to help bring back more to my last things I can do which is guitar and photography. From the land down under thanks for your effort you put into your videos. Stay strong and in good Health mate. Cheers Matt n Trooper 👍😎🇦🇺
I agree with you about TS used over a clean amp. But I think it's a nice "colour boost" over a crunch sound.
Glad to hear you're getting better ☺️👍
I am pleasantly surprised by the number of good, meaningful questions asked.
(The answers are good, too...)
Great Q&A! Thanks Rhett! Also, good job Chris!
Having your glass slide melted down to install in your shoulder is the next coolest thing after that guy died and his nephew had his remains made into a guitar. So metal.
Rock Slide was invented by a local guitar store owner "Mark's Guitar" in Spokane, Wa. Mark passed away but his store is still going strong here in Spokane.
Inventing The Rock Slide guitar slide; A Brief History
author: Mark Morse, Founder/Inventor
While playing the club circuit in the late seventies, I was always less than satisfied with the guitar slides available at music stores. It always bugged me how slides would pinch the inside of my 2nd knuckle. While home on a break I decided to grind out the cutaway section of a chrome slide I had at the time. It immediately made a big difference in the comfort & stability. This got me thinking some years later that the concept could be taken much further.While the cutaway was convenient the interior was still “pipe like”. My research led me to a creative metal manufacturing company in Spokane, Washington that utilized computer driven Swiss screw machine technology. I decided to utilize CNC and CAD drawings to take my project to the next level. Once the design was finalized and patented, we loaded our design into the computers and The Rock Slide was born.
This type of manufacturing is common in the automotive and aerospace industries and produces consistent, identical slides. We have now sold over 55,000 slides and the feedback from players is always great. Be sure to check out the “Sizing” information as well as the Artists/Reviews page.
"Help the Poor!" Amazing song from one of my all-time favorite albums 👍🏻👍🏻
Get well soon!
You’re right about Robben Ford and Help the poor. Phenomenal player, I’ve seen him three times once with Larry Carlton. I always leave with my mouth wide-open wondering how he can merge blues and jazz so seamlessly.
you kinda had me thinking....you actually got my ATTENTION with this statement !! But you cleared it up. Thanks, I LOVE MIDRANGE I LOVE TUBE SCREAMER!!! But I admire your musical theories and you are a GREAT guitar player Rett. Thanks
Triads opened up a new world for me as a beginner
I wouldn’t play a gig without my TS9 Tube Screamer.
You are a wide man
Great Q&A, @Rhett Shull. Easily my favorite guitar channel on TH-cam!
One of my favorite things to do with a tube screamer type pedal is to put an eq pedal in the effects loop and scoop out some of that boxy midrange. You get the benefit of the extra gain without all the muddiness
lol
Finally someone adding a little bit of Jazz playing to Rhett's videos :-)
7:38 Funny you mention it. I specifically use a TS as a mid boost. Usually targeting a sound something like the guitar tone on "Would I Lie To You" by Eurythmics.
Tube Screamers definitely have their place. I used to play a Strat through a Blackfaced 69’ Twin Reverb and my TS-808 clone sounded great. I’ve went to using tweeds and playing more Gibson or similar guitars in recent years and they don’t fit nearly as well. I’ve changed to a OCD or a blues Driver since I changed to tweed and vintage Marshall clones.
Finally someone who gets me. Ive always hated tube screamers but 8 out of ten people i ever met swore by them
Good too see you up and rolling man
What up fellow Shulligans!
Nice.
Haha. What do you call Rick's followers? Beators?
Beatols?
Beatches?
@@caseyspaos448 Beatniks
I use the TS for amps that have no channel switching.
The amp provides the rhythm distortion and TS is the “boost” for lead.
It’s a cheap solution for people who can’t afford channel switching.
I miss using flat wounds. Years ago i had a ESP LTD EC1000 with EMGx humbuckers and always used flat wound chromes on it. I loved it. Its been about 4 years since i used them. Now i need to buy a pack. 😁
I'm reminded of that movie where Babe Ruth allegedly had someone else run the bases for his homeruns! Rhett now has an intern to play his riffs for his videos. Hope you heal soon!
Love your content Rhett! I’ve been playing for 13 years and I still learn new, useful things every video. Gonna check out your courses soon because my music theory knowledge is pretty shameful for how long I’ve been playing 😂 Hope you heal up quick. Rock on.
Thanks for the reminder on intervals and triads my friend. Hope you've been healing well
The demo spin on your Q&As is very cool. Thumbs up
You were able to put on a t shirt, that's great! Wishing you continued recovery, friend.
Tube screamers are great to pair with a big muff cause it basically just adds back in the mids that get completely taken out by the muff
or you could just get a good distortion pedal
@@olivergolding8927 I have a good, distortion pedal, I also have this because it’s a different sound. Different things do… different things, you are aware of this right?
Right on Rhett! I hate the TS from the bottom of my heart.
It's all about knowing how to use a Tube Screamer. Turn the drive all the way off, max out the level and put the tone at exactly 12 noon. Then, use the drive on your amp + or _ to get the sound you want. I use an eq pedal as well, the Fish and Chips.
TS works fine IMO before a heavy analog overdrive to compress and tighten your sound, it actually makes your guitar ''scream'' more. But it colors the sounds if added to clean sound.
Man Chris has the best job ever
I was part of a worship band for six years. I would bring two pieces of gear, my Strat and my 1983 Tube Screamer (amp was there for my use). The other guitarist who would play on other scheduled days used a Bradshaw rack system. I was considered ‘the rock guy.’ Last I heard, he got a TS and used nothing else.
Last minute things you do always before you go on stage ? what you do to deal with Anxiety ? How many tunes do you think it takes to pull off a gig.? Talk about how you make a great set list to build an audience up and create a great show, talk about stage presence and what it takes to come off looking professional. what is your practice schedule. How many times a week does a band need to practice ? jus throwing stuff at ya brother, Much love.
What I don't like about Tubescreamers is the loss of bass in the signal, even though I play through a 66 pro reverb mainly. That's why I like a modern take on the pedal that can allow for a tweaking of the bottom end a bit. They do work best on Fender style amps but can still get a bit too harsh or shrill in the mids.
The ts8 isn’t the only official tube screamer, the later model 9 and 9+ produced by Ibanez had bass boost options
@@seanbeadles7421 Good point. I guess I meant in relation to how expensive the original 8s are and that they've reissued it, but not the 9 or 10 etc. Cheers.
I agree, I don’t particularly care for the tone of a tube screamer. Also, my favorite guitar ASAT classic. Has flat wounds. Love it. Love the feel the tone all that and I’m not even a jazz musician.
I use 9 flats on a few of my guitars. They feel like 10s and for me they don't feel too difficult to bend but certainly not as easy as 9 rounds. You don't get that string sound when sliding up or down the fret board. They do seem to last a little longer but since I don't gig anymore that's not an issue.
I knew that guitar was the one that got away. That was an amazing guitar too! As soon as you read that question i knew what you were going to say.
For me the one that got away was the Les Paul Goldtop in Soundgear, Gt Yarmouth, UK in 1983
That Robin for guitar solo is bad ass! His tone is killer too.
Great Tube Screamer tip at 10 minutes 10 seconds roll the gain down great tip. Cage triads and intervals
Another great tip! Robben Ford solo learning that. Another great tip, this is just a darn good video. Thank you. 👍👍👍👍👍( 5 thumbs up heck YEAH )