I love the clean sound of my Fender NOS Blues JR., but I also love the distortion when overdriving the tubes. Does anyone have a recommendation of a pedal that would closest duplicate the sound of the overdriven amp? I've tried an Ibanez tube screamer and Deltalab tube overdrive.

Ideally, changing the volume and master volume knobs would give me the tones I'm looking for, but it's not practical having to do it by hand in the middle of a song. If anybody has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it. thanks.

jbsc, welcome to the Forum. A Tube Screamer is my favorite pedal. If you take some time to experiment with it you should be able to get the sounds you are looking for and might discover some sounds that you haven't heard before. Good luck in your tone-quest, let us know what you decide on.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Tubescreamer will be the selction of a great many people. But it does colour the sound of any amp - expect thick mids and a notable reduction in bass in your pedal overdriven tone, as opposed to natural amp overdive.

I would suggest you try a Fulltone Fulldrive 2. You can choose between a vintage sounding OD, and something more modern. Go Vintage for what you want. More importantly however, it gives you an EQ option to select FM - meaning flat mids. This gives you more of the sort of thing you are looking for, and corrects the "problems" caused by using a Tubescreamer or any of it's myriad clones.

A Fulldrive2 set to Vintage and FM along with a Strat neck pickup is glorious. And yes, I do use a Fender BJ (albeit with a Celestion V30 driver)

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

Have a go with a Blackstar HT drive or it's bigger brother HT dual

Good call..

A Blackstar HT Boost or a MXR Microamp would kick that BJ half way down the street, without changing the fundamental tone. I know, I have both.

Have you thought about trying to get the BJ on it's own to do the job? Turn the fat boost off and select more drive than you need. Back off the guitar's volume to reduce the gain on the BJ. Then when you're ready for the distortion, wind up your guitar and enage the BJ's Fat Boost with a footpedal. It's old school, but will do the job..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

there are only 2 overdrives that I use and I have tried almost all the variants of dirt boxes.

#1, LovePedal's Kanji Eternity: it has a smoother and softer tone to it like butter! it colors your tone a little "slightly darker" and with humbuckers its a little to dark sounding.

#2, OceanEFX Pearl Drive. not as smooth as the kanji and allot more like a tube screamer, but no tone loss or coloring and a little more tweakable.

both are true bypass and both clean up really great with the volume knob. also they respond fantastically to picking dynamics.

these are just my favorites that doesnt mean the others are bad. these just fit my style

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Keeley modded Boss BD-2 is heaven!

Don't like sounding ignorant, but I am in this case. Exactly what are the problems caused by using a Tubescreamer or there myriad clones?
----Danny,

All of the various TubeScreamers (TS808, TS9 [my personal favorite], TS10, TS5, TS7) color the tone. It varies how much, according to which incarnation.

It's not necessarily a bad thing--the mids are bumped up, and there can be a little reduction in the lower end (like Adey said above). I personally like the way it operates. However, some people want their exact tone overdriven Without any tone coloration.

It's a matter of personal taste. I have a TS9 reissue, and I will never part with it willingly, but there are times I turn it off and use my other overdrive (MXR M-66 Classic Overdrive), which also colors the tone, but in a totally different way.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

I don't know about the MXR MicroAmp as an overdrive pedal; I love mine (use it as a volume boost for solos or to match unequal guitar signals), but I don't notice any added overdrive/distortion, just more volume.

Ironically, I bought the MicroAmp to act as a "slave" volume for my '63 ReIssue Vibroverb when using my harp microphone. It didn't add the grit I wanted, but it sounded great as a volume boost for my guitar, so it earned a spot on the Big Ol' Board of Sonic Bliss...

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

I find my old Marshall Guv'nor (the one in the metal box)to be one of the most versatile overdrive/distortion pedals I've used.It can go from basically giving you a clean volume boost to the rauncy roar of a 100W master volume JCM 800 and all tones in between.I picked up a lightly used one for only $60-the young fella who had it wanted a more metal sounding pedal not an overdrive.
The newer Guv'nors in the plastic case are quite good and will outperform many others but the Brit made metal case ones are the best.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

i use the tonerider american overdrive, matches the overdrive on my blues deluxe fairly closely... from past experience with the tubescreamer the tonerider seems to have a bit more range as well

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blues - its a religion...

The Fulltone GT500 (2 channel pedal) has an Overdrive side and a Distortion side. The OD side is quite good and is especially good at lower gain settings when you want to be just over the break-up point but not too far in. Ideal for Classic Rock and Blues tones. It can also pump out some serious gain too if that's your thing. I also like the Fulltone Catalyst. It has a hybrid sound kinda like half way between a classic fuzz and an overdrive and makes a wonderful soloing pedal. Since buying these two pedals they are becoming my "go-to" pedals for almost every sound I want. They have everything you need and nothing you don't.

Buyer beware. Good gear costs money.
The bitterness of poor quality lasts longer than the sweetness of low price.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I use 2 TS9 with the JRC chip, both tuned oppositely and use one of them depending on the sound I want. I've used both of them together too during periods of temporary insanity.