Ibanez TS808

The Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer is an overdrive pedal made by Ibanez, produced from 1979 to 1980 and designed by Susumu Tamura, a Japanese engineer working for Nisshin Onpa, the company behind the Maxon brand¹. It is a mid-focused overdrive heard on countless records from Stevie Ray Vaughan onward², and its soft-clip circuit has become, in Maxon's words, "the most copied, cloned and modified guitar effect of all time"³.

The pedal's own manual describes it as "adding a classic standard tone characterized by the tubelike distortion, good sustain, and smooth overdrive"¹. Maxon describes the "808" as known for its warmth and organic, tube-like quality, and says it became the go-to amp-pushing pedal for countless guitarists³.

A mid-focused soft-clipping overdrive

The TS808 is an overdrive/distortion pedal that is mild compared to many⁹². Its character comes from two things working together: a mid-focused voicing, and soft clipping. Origin Effects' technical analysis describes the circuit as "soft-clipping the signal with a pair of diodes"⁸, which means the diodes shape the waveform gradually rather than chopping it flat as a hard-clipping distortion pedal does.

The result is a pedal that pushes an amp rather than replacing its sound. Several name players, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Johnson among them, used Tube Screamers for their amp-boosting functions¹⁰. Stevie Ray Vaughan used the Ibanez TS808 from 1981 through 1982¹⁰, and the TS-808 model was made famous by him for what the Tokai Registry calls "his trademark juicy Strat tone"⁹.

The tone control is a big part of the voicing. MusicRadar's buying guide notes that "the pedal's tone control effectively operates as a low-pass or high-pass filter depending on its position"¹¹.

How the circuit works

GuitarPCB's circuit analysis breaks the Tube Screamer into simpler blocks¹:

• JFET bypass switching
• Power supply
• Input buffer
• Clipper amplifier
• Tone/volume control
• Output buffer

The clipping happens in the clipper amplifier stage. The symmetric clipping is produced by 2 diodes in the feedback path of the non-inverting op-amp amplifier¹. Because both diodes clip the same way, the TS-808 distorts the positive and negative halves of the waveform equally, unlike the Boss OD-1's asymmetric circuit¹². The clipping diodes are MA150 types with a forward voltage of 1V¹.

With the gain set to minimum, the clipping amplifier gives a range of clean, unclipped sounds while the input stays below roughly 90mV peak¹. The gain control range runs from 12 to 118 (41dB) in the clipping amplifier stage¹. Input impedance is 446K, close to the 510K biasing resistor R2¹.

The pedal is not true bypass. It needs a JFET switch circuit to activate and deactivate the effect, and in both states the signal always passes through the input and output buffers, so it works as a buffer even when bypassed¹. The stereo input jack doubles as an on-off switch, switching the battery's negative terminal to ground when the guitar jack is connected¹.

The JRC4558 op-amp and 2SC1815 transistors

The TS808's sound is often attributed to its parts, and the parts are ordinary. The JRC4558 or RC4558 chip was used throughout the life of the TS-808⁹², and the original pedal featured a common JRC 4558D integrated circuit chip¹³. The dual op-amp was made by Japan Radio Company in its Japanese facilities, and GuitarPCB notes the mythology around the chip is strongly linked to that origin¹.

General Guitar Gadgets is blunt about the transistors: "There is nothing magical about the sound of the original 2SC1815 transistors, in fact they are very 'ordinary' transistors"². The 2SC1815 is a cheap, high gain (β=350), low noise transistor used in the input buffer's emitter follower stage¹.

The very first narrow box version from 1979 was different. Aion FX notes it is "notable for its use of two dual op-amps instead of using bipolar transistors for the input and output buffers"¹⁴. It used two 1458 chips, the first version of the low-tech dual op-amp¹⁵, which are very similar in specification to the JRC4558D but not exactly the same, with all other component values identical to the stock Tube Screamer¹⁴.

History: Susumu Tamura, Maxon and the Boss OD-1

In 1979, Japanese electronics engineer Susumu Tamura designed the Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer to compete with the Boss OD-1⁷³. The pedal he developed was the Maxon OD808, which was then rebranded for Ibanez as the TS808 Tube Screamer¹⁶. The Maxon company of Japan produced the Ibanez line of effects at the time¹⁷.

The Tube Screamer as players know it started in the late 70s with the TS-808 model⁹, and Premier Guitar dates the TS808 to 1979 to 1981¹³. ToneHome gives the production run as 1979 to 1980⁴.

The original came in several versions¹:

The narrow box first version was only made for a short time¹⁴. ToneHome rates the TS-808's collectibility as extremely high⁴.

Reissues, hand-wired and modified versions

Due to the pedal's success, several versions and reissues were released over the years with small circuit variations¹. ToneHome records the TS-808 as reissued from 2003 to the present⁴, with a narrow box reissue in 2014 issued as a limited edition of 1500 units for the US market and 3500 units worldwide⁵. The reissue TS-808 uses the 2002-plus TS9 reissue board made by Ibanez, not the older Maxon board of the original TS808 and pre-2002 TS9¹⁵. Analog Man notes the reissue "does have the correct JRC4558D op amp and output resistors, so it sounds better than the TS9 reissue"¹⁵.

The 35th Anniversary TS-808 used the same circuit as a normal TS-808 except the input and output transistor buffers used an op-amp IC chip instead of transistors; the originals used 1458 chips while the reissues use a newer spec 4558 chip¹⁸.

The current flagship is the hand-wired TS808HW V2, launched on 4 November 2024. It is an analog overdrive and booster with true bypass, running on 9V DC center negative at 7mA¹⁹²⁰. Ibanez's R&D team did extensive testing to improve the circuit's performance²¹, and it arrives with the JRC NJM4558 op-amp, which the brand describes as essential to the Tube Screamer's sound²¹. It uses high-end components such as MOGAMI OFC cables¹⁹, aims to stay true to the pedal's transparent and mid-range-focused tone¹⁹, and has a 6dB higher maximum output¹⁹. Gearnews reported it available at Thomann²².

Modified versions include:

• The TS808TM2 Tamura-Mod v2, a new modification by Tamura with increased output level, accentuated lows and lower-mids, and a Carling SPST plunger footswitch²³
• The Fortin-Modded TS808, modified by amp designer Mike Fortin with red LEDs in the clipping stage for a more organic, amp-like tone and an output level 2.5+ times louder than stock²⁴; it has since been discontinued²⁵
• The TS808 No.1 Kit, a variant of the Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer²⁶

Who uses it

• Stevie Ray Vaughan used the TS-808 for his trademark juicy Strat tone⁹, and used the Ibanez TS808 from 1981 through 1982¹⁰.
• Eric Johnson used Tube Screamers for their amp-boosting functions¹⁰.

TS808 vs TS9

Analog Man describes the TS-808 as "a smoother, richer sound with less harshness in the high end. It is more transparent and allows more of the..." player's tone through, with a wider and more natural tonal spectrum¹⁸. Delicious Audio calls the TS9 "slightly edgier-sounding than the original TS808" and says its slight mid hump allows the guitar to better cut through the mix²⁰. Fromel Electronics offers separate mod kits for the TS-808 and the TS-9²⁷.

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