A Ibanez Tubescreamer TS808 through 72 Line 6 Helix HX Stomp Guitar Amps

[Alberto_MDR]

One of my geek tests ... Same pedal, 72 different amps.

https://youtu.be/IooCYtJADIg

[zappazapper]

2 hours ago, Alberto_MDR said:

One of my geek tests ... Same pedal, 72 different amps.

https://youtu.be/IooCYtJADIg

I mean, cool, but for me the main thing that a Tube Screamer does isn't so much the way it sounds, but the way it feels. It makes it so everything feels lighter and easier. So playing a loop 72 times through 72 amps kind of misses the point for me. You have to PLAY through those 72 amps to really get a feel for what it can do. 

[Alberto_MDR]

1 hour ago, zappazapper said:

I mean, cool, but for me the main thing that a Tube Screamer does isn't so much the way it sounds, but the way it feels. It makes it so everything feels lighter and easier. So playing a loop 72 times through 72 amps kind of misses the point for me. You have to PLAY through those 72 amps to really get a feel for what it can do. 

Well for me the idea was precisely to prove that a ts alone does not mean much. And that depending on the amp everything will change. We tend to talk about ts as if they weren't dependent on the guitar, the amp, or the rest of the chain.

[zappazapper]

43 minutes ago, Alberto_MDR said:

Well for me the idea was precisely to prove that a ts alone does not mean much. And that depending on the amp everything will change. We tend to talk about ts as if they weren't dependent on the guitar, the amp, or the rest of the chain.

I don't know where you're getting that. My understanding of the typical use of a TS, and indeed the way I use it myself, is as a gain boost to drive an amp into saturation or distortion. In this case, the amp is the critical element in the chain. You can put a TS in front of any amp and it will make it sound like MORE of that amp. Beyond that there really are no similarities. Every opinion that I've ever heard of the TS's own sound that results from turning up the gain knob is that it's nothing special. I don't know who's saying it's got a sound of its own. But I wouldn't say it doesn't mean much. It's the only pedal that does what it does, even if it doesn't really have its own sound. It's the first pedal I reach for when I just want MORE of whatever I'm hearing. 

[Alberto_MDR]

13 hours ago, zappazapper said:

I don't know where you're getting that. My understanding of the typical use of a TS, and indeed the way I use it myself, is as a gain boost to drive an amp into saturation or distortion. In this case, the amp is the critical element in the chain. You can put a TS in front of any amp and it will make it sound like MORE of that amp. Beyond that there really are no similarities. Every opinion that I've ever heard of the TS's own sound that results from turning up the gain knob is that it's nothing special. I don't know who's saying it's got a sound of its own. But I wouldn't say it doesn't mean much. It's the only pedal that does what it does, even if it doesn't really have its own sound. It's the first pedal I reach for when I just want MORE of whatever I'm hearing. 

The pedal is used to try to mimic the sound of a vintage tube amplifier. The classic Tube Screamer sound includes a "mid-hump", which means that the circuit accentuates frequencies between the bass and treble ranges (mid-frequencies). Some guitarists prefer this sort of equalization, as it helps to keep their sound from getting lost in the overall audio mix of the band.

[zappazapper]

1 hour ago, Alberto_MDR said:

The pedal is used to try to mimic the sound of a vintage tube amplifier. The classic Tube Screamer sound includes a "mid-hump", which means that the circuit accentuates frequencies between the bass and treble ranges (mid-frequencies). Some guitarists prefer this sort of equalization, as it helps to keep their sound from getting lost in the overall audio mix of the band.

OK, well, that might have been their intention when they designed it but the way most people have used it is to add more gain and definition, and it's been particularly useful to those players looking for tighter and more effortless palm muting when using high-gain distortion. I mean, that's how I found out about them - I read that for Kill 'Em All, James Hetfield put one in front of his Marshall JMP, an amp that doesn't really come with that kind of tight palm muting sound on its own. Maybe other people have used it differently, but it's always been my understanding that that's its most useful application. And back when I got my X3 Live, I did exactly what you did in your video and put a Tube Screamer model in front of every amp in the X3L, and I think I reached the same conclusion you did - it doesn't have a sound of its own, at least not if you use the settings most typically used (gain 0, tone half, volume full), it just gives you more of what the amp already does, and more importantly, makes playing feel more effortless. And so again I'll make the case that your test of running a loop through a Tube Screamer in front of every amp on the Helix only tells half the story because you're missing the opportunity to compare how every amp FEELS with and without the TS.