Cathouse Pedals The Screamer

What it does and how it is controlled

The control panel carries three knobs: Gain, Tone and Volume¹. The Tone control has what Pedal of the Day called "a big range on the perfectly tuned Tone control, making it great for both bass and guitar", so the pedal can sit under a bass as well as a guitar¹. The reviewer also noted "Loads of volume to work with, a big range on the perfectly tuned Tone control", meaning the Volume knob gives plenty of level to push an amp or clean channel¹.

The distinguishing feature is a side toggle switch that selects one of three clipping profiles¹:

• Unclipped boost: the pedal acts as a clean level boost with no clipping¹
• Germanium clipping: a softer clipping profile¹
• Silicon clipping: a firmer clipping profile¹

Pedal of the Day described the toggle as letting you "select from unclipped boost, germanium clipping or silicon clipping profiles"¹. For a player, that means one pedal can be a straight boost into an amp's front end, a softer overdrive-style drive, or a harder distortion, changed at the flick of a switch rather than by swapping pedals.

The controls are simple by design. JHS says each pedal in the 3 Series has "three simple controls and one toggle that offer a wide range of sounds"², and on the Screamer that toggle is a +/- mini switch that changes the clipping, selecting between asymmetrical clipping (up) and symmetrical clipping (down)³. Guitar World's review notes that the pedal "vows to deliver more clean headroom, better usability as a boost and more versatile drive and tone controls" than the circuit it is based on⁴.

Other pedals called Screamer

The name Screamer has a long history in effects, and several other pedals share it. They are different products from different makers, but a player comparing options under this name may come across them:

The JHS Pedals 3 Series Screamer, released in 2022, is an overdrive built on the Ibanez TubeScreamer circuit with JHS's modifications; Guitar World reported that it "vows to deliver more clean headroom, better usability as a boost and more versatile drive and tone controls"⁴. On the JHS demo video, Josh Scott said of the mods: "I dare say that these mods make it even more stackable because of how it opens up some of that crunchiness and the mid-range"⁵. The Jeds Pedals Super Screamer, by contrast, is not a finished pedal at all but a DIY kit, aimed at what the maker calls an intermediate level builder⁶.

Videos

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