Maxon Reissue Series OD808 Overdrive

Product Information

While all of these pedals are great, they all have different qualities which make some more suitable than others. Do I want something traditional or modern? A nice chunky boost who cuts the bad, bad bass frequencies and turns my Gibson SGs into real metal machines! Of course you can have some nice texas blues sounds with drive turned up in front of a clean amp but I prefer the nice mid-boost and cut through the mix. Also on stage - what a sound! Like most Tube Screamer clones, the East River Drive is a simple but tonally impressive affair. With volume, tone and drive knobs laid out in a fairly standard fashion aboard the heavy duty metal enclosure, this pedal feels like something which should cost a whole lot more. The possible variation in tone is huge when you take into consideration the fact that you’ve only got three tweakable parameters, and it’s one of the many reasons why we speak of the East River Drive so highly.

For over 40 years Maxon’s legendary "808" overdrive circuit has been an essential ingredient to achieving great guitar tone. Whether it’s used as a booster to drive an amp, as a Dirt box for crunch and extra sustain or as an EQ to shape the tone of a high-gain amp, the 808 in its many incarnations has shown up in more rigs and on more recordings than anyone would care to count. a simple 3-knob take on the Tube Screamer with a wider gain range, easily getting into distortion territory at high gain levels.

I'm not saying it's not as good as the Maxon because it probably is but the Maxon gives me everything I want. Plus you can beat the hell out of it and it won't stop working!I have an OD9 and a Barber Direct Drive with the mod PCB. With the extra trim pots in the DD you can make that thing as tight, loose, low gain, high gain as you want. For TS pedals the OD9 is my favorite but I prefer the DD as a gain boost for my Marshall (2204). And the Barber is built like a tank. For this weeks review we will be looking at the Maxon OD808, possibly the best overdrive pedal I’ve had the chance to experiment with. It’s honestly soeasy to get a good overdrive tone from it. Use the OD808 as a standalone effect going through a clean channel, use it to boost your overdrive channel even further into filthy saturation territory, or even go the way of using two of the pedals together to help you blast out those dynamic riffs with conviction. In recent years the OD808 has been adopted as the overdrive of choice by a generation of guitarists in a most unlikely musical genre – metal.

For those who can't get enough of the original Ibanez Tube Screamer, there are multiple options at different price points that you can get your hands on today. saying that.. if you want it to TB something without modding the case, get it, if you get it because you want to improve your buffered tone, don't. I don't know where all this snake oil about Boss and Ibby pedals having cr@ppy buffers arose from. Different pedals work well for different amps. i have never understood the use of a tubescreamer to boost a marshall or 5150 etc. Maybe because they're known as a boost pedal, primarily because of SRV. But here's the thing. SRV was Fender user, and LOTS of country players use TS's. and they generally use Fenders. Why does this combo sound so good? because fenders are typically amps with a scooped character. the TS adds in what isn't there. To be fair i shouldn't really damn keeley and Aman modded pedals. it's just the mods they make the most of (the chip change) are pure and utter nonsense. the mods they hype the least (eq modification etc) are the ones that make the most difference. but then modding a TS to remove the mid hump is making the pedal "not" a TS anymore. The OD808X features a low-impedance buffered bypass, allowing it to drive long cable lengths or other effect units without loss of signal.In real terms the 9 is a touch, and i really mean vaguely, more aggressive, the 808 is more open and smooth. but theese are minute differences. There's no real "mid hump" differences between them. If you’re after that iconic Tube Screamer sound but struggling to justify the price tag that can come with some TS-style pedals, then the East River Drive by Electro Harmonix could be your new favorite drive pedal.

When a product reaches this level of popularity (or even a much lesser level, for that matter!), it’s only normal for the industry to take note and try to “join the revenue party.” That’s why the Tube Screamer has become one of the most cloned and referenced pedals of all time. Traditionally-voiced pedals will get you closer to that old-school TS tone that Stevie Ray Vaughan and The Edge made so famous, whereas the more modern voicings of some pedals may take you down the higher-gain route. Why should you buy a clone over the real thing? The Ibanez Tube Screamer is an iconic pedal, and the sound it produces is better than any imitation, right? It's a good question, and one where the answer is different for everyone. an overdrive + boost that marries a Tube Screamer-style channel with a silicon treble booster, probably of Dallas Rangemaster origins.Largely based on the classic TS808, the front end of the Sidecar is designed to provide a greater low-end response, a wider range of gain and a little more headroom than a standard 808 – enabling any player to achieve some pretty impressive tone-sculpting feats. There are two germanium diodes in the clipping section of the Sidecar which deliver a slightly softer response, keeping your dynamics and feel intact rather than slamming the signal with loads of dirt early on.

At Guitar World, our team of seasoned musicians has extensive experience playing and testing various guitar products, including boatloads of Tube Screamer clones. As passionate guitar enthusiasts, we understand the importance of achieving the right sound and tone, so we draw on our knowledge gained from using these products in live performances, studio recordings, and rehearsals to identify the best products for our guides. The main volume, drive and tone controls – while fairly self-explanatory – offer the user a pretty vast range of tones to work with. Finding your favorite tone on the Bonsai is surprisingly difficult, which is mostly down to the abundance of choice, but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable experience altogether. Imagine having a pedalboard full of TS-style pedals – including some of the most rare, sought after options on the market. It’s a real treat. I have an OD9 and OD820. I always use the OD820, but sometimes break out the OD9. I have had mine for 3 years but don't use it as much as my OD820, but I still have kept it around so long because it's such a great pedal. It's the best. Rich overdrive that doesn’t lose definition with cranked, grinding amps. Great low-gain tones. Responsive. When Ibanez reissued its TS-9 Tube Screamer in 1996 (circuit still manufactured by Maxon), some wondered why they didn’t choose to reissue its TS-808 model instead. Thankfully though, modifications were easy enough to perform to turn the TS-9 reissue into a genuine TS-808 and many offer that service today.Like any green overdrive pedal you can get your hands on nowadays, its inspiration is fairly obvious – but as a result, the tones you can achieve from this unit are seriously impressive. The Green Mile has two working modes –‘warm’ and ‘hot’– both providing smooth, tube-esque levels of dirt. As you’d expect, ‘warm’ mode imparts a natural-sounding drive which is fairly touch-sensitive, and ‘hot’ mode takes the gain levels up a notch for more crunch. Careful with used units, the ones featuring the JRC 2043DD chip don't sound very good (according to Analog Man) Even though this modestly proportioned and rather plain box commits the apparently cardinal sin of not having a full-bypass switch, the sound is just sweeter and warmer than all the others. When originally constructing my pedal board, I went to great lengths to maintain an unbuffered signal path because I did not like the super-metallic brightness that buffered pedals introduced. Particularly bad with Overdrive pedals. I deliberately went for the OD-9 as I wanted that mid hump. It just depends on what you are after. Not sure if I'd call the 808 more aggressive. If you already have a TS-9 you will find that the OD-808 is different in having less of a hump. If you have a TS-808 don't bother as it would be very similar.