Is The Tube Screamer Circuit The Perfect Punk Pedal? I Tried 8 To Find Out

My first overdrive pedal ever was the TS9, so I compared it next to a ton of cool alternatives in a punk context.

What’s the gist: Instead of trying to find the best TS-inpired pedal out there, I played a bunch of punk music through 8 different takes on the circuit to show what type of TS pedal may be best for you.

Who are the players: In this article you’ll find a big range of pedals in terms of price, origin, and feature set.

Pedal	Price (USD)	Distinct Feature	Grab your own
Drunk Beaver Pedals Forest Song	$175.00	Tube screamer-ish with variable clipping	Drunk Beaver
Joyo Vintage Overdrive	$34.99	Cheap tube screamer clone	Amazon
Browne Amplification Gritador	$229.00	High end, boutique screamer	Browne Amps
Heather Brown Electronicals Blessed Mother	$220.00	Klon meets TS808 with a clean blend knob	Reverb
Summer School Electronics Science Fair	$164.99	Blendable tube screamer & RAT	Reverb
Audio! Audio! Superdrive	$224.00	Tube screamer base with 3-band EQ, clipping modes, gain mods, and buffer modes	Audio! Audio!
JSA Hot Toddy	$124.93	More of Timmy, which is arguably derived from TS	Reverb
Ibanez TS9 (stock)	$99.99	Plain old tube screamer	Sweetwater

First Comparison – Punk Riff

For a quick sound check I’ve dialed in all 8 pedals to sound relatively similar (if possible) and played one of my favorite original punk riffs. That’s the same riff, through the same amp (UAFX Dream), with the same guitar (Maybach Little Wing), but 8 different TS-inspired pedals. Which pedal really sticks out to you?

We’re obviously going to use the Ibanez TS9 as a basis to compare the rest, as that’s been one of my favorite pedals for years and is the inspiration behind this article. The TS9 sounds good, a bit quiet compared to some of the more updated, modern circuits, but I didn’t want to juice it off the bat. The goal was to dial in a mild TS sound. The Joyo sounds EXACTLY like the TS9 in this comparison, which is a good thing for you budget minded pedal fans. Likewise, the tube screamer side of the Summer School Electronics Science Fair is also clearly TS-9 and Joyo adjacent. To a slightly lesser degree, the Drunk Beaver Pedals Forest Song also felt right at home in the mix.

Then it starts to get more interesting as it was harder to get pure tube screamer sounds from there. The Browne Amplification Gritador sounded amazing, but it felt more like the TS-9 but with a boost in volume and high end sparkle, so just slightly different. Meanwhile the Heather Brown Blessed Mother and Hot Toddy were noticeably more well rounded, with a little less sparkle but a lot more evenness in the EQ, which makes sense based on their Klon- and Timmy-inspired circuitry. However, they still sounded remarkably close to the tube screamer for pedals that aren’t direct clones, which is an important distinction. All of these pedals *can* sound like a TS-9! Last but not least, the Audio! Audio! Superdrive was the loudest and crunchiest of the bunch, even when I dialed it into overdrive mode. This is partially because there’s no milder silicon mode like most tube screamers have, so you’re running either germanium, LED, or MOSFET to get screamer-ish tones. However, the EQ profile did sound like the others here, just with more dirt.

Second Comparison – Distinct Features

Here I’ll be playing some riffs to show off the other cool things that some of these pedals can do. Such as how they may use variable clipping, or a clean blend knob, to expand past the basic tube screamer tone.

If You Want A Tube Screamer:

Well, get the Ibanez TS9 obviously, though if you want to save a few books try the Joyo Vintage Overdrive, with its appealing $35 price tag. If you want a more hi-fi version, the Gritador from Browne Amplification sounds fantastic, and I’m super impressed by the higher gain and boost-like sounds I demonstrated above. The Gritador is probably the sweetest sounding pedal of the bunch, but that comes at a higher price.

If You Want A Tube Screamer With More Gain:

As you can hear in the second demo video, the Summer School Electronics Science Fair and Audio! Audio! Superdrive provide way more dirt, gain, and output than most other Tube Screamer-derived pedals. The Science Fair lets you blend a Tube Screamer with a RAT, so you can essentially have two through infinite pedal combinations on your board with this one pedal. This is definitely for those who want that mid-push for EQ purposes in a band, but need more gain. The Superdrive has an overwhelming number of features, including 3-band EQ, soft clipping, hard clipping, and clean boost modes, and then Ge-MOSFET-LED clipping options. It’s also super loud and crunchy, so if you want a more modern take on the TS9 DNA, this is for you.

If You Want A Tube Screamer With More Versatility:

This is where you can choose from several interesting takes on the circuit.

For cleaner and more transparent takes on the TS-thing, the Hot Toddy and Blessed Mother are where you should go. Neither is a pure TS clone like others on this list, the Hot Toddy is a Timmy-derived pedal, which shares some TS DNA, but is transparent and a little lighter in terms of drive and compression. The Blessed Mother on the other hand, brings a clean blend knob, which lets you mix in some clean signal to the drive signal. Even more interesting is that the EQ knobs only affect the driven signal, so even if you amp up the treble on the drive tone, you always preserve your clean tone.

For tube screamers with a wider array of sounds and clipping options, you definitely have the Superdrive to drool over, though the Drunk Beaver Pedals The Forest Song is slightly more stripped down for you to consider. You can choose between Germanium, LED, Boost, Silicon, Asymmetrical Silicon (think SD-1), and MOSFET clipping options all in one pedal.

So there you have it, 8 examples of the Tube Screamer sounding absolutely kick ass for punk guitar playing. Hopefully this article helped you narrow in on what you’re looking for in a TS-style drive pedal. I can’t recommend all of these brands enough, each for different reasons. Plus, I think this covers a lot more ground than just reviewing 8 pure clones of the famous green overdrive circuit.