Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Strymon

The Strymon Blue Sky Reverberator features multi-function knobs and the ability to toggle between two sounds with the Favorite switch.
Strymon effects is the brainchild of founder Terry Burton, but the Westlake Village, California, company runs on the collective power of an engineering brain trust—a gang of self-declared “left-brain artists”—that, in some ways, represents a shift toward acceptance of digital in the boutique marketplace. Because, unlike many boutique pedal houses, Strymon enthusiastically embraces digital signal processing (DSP) technology. While scorned by some analog purists, DSP enables Strymon to create some of the most authentic vintage sounds available to guitarists.

Strymon’s DSP pedals—the Blue Sky Reverberator, the Orbit Flanger, the Ola Chorus & Vibrato, and the Brigadier Delay (all reviewed in the July 2010 issue of PG)—have drawn raves for their approximations of analog sounds. And the company’s latest pedal, the El Capistan (see the review on p. 182), may be the most refined realization of Strymon’s aspirations—a processing powerhouse in a pedal that can simulate the fuzzy warmth, irregularities, and imperfections of tape delay and transport the user to truly bizarre sonic realms that only complex digital processing makes possible.


Strymon’s Dave Fruehling holds the title of Firmware Architect Genius.


Strymon’s analog engineer, Gregg Stock, explores old-school ways with a
heavily modified, Floyd Rose-equipped Gibson Explorer.



Strymon founder Terry Burton with an SG and a Brigadier delay (foreground).



Pete Celi brainstorms DSP algorithms that generate analog sounds.
Burton was just a teenager when he caught the pedal bug. And like most builders, he was blown away by the sound of the analog classics—in his case, a Thomas Organ-built Crybaby wah and an A/DA flanger that would ultimately inspire the Strymon Orbit.

“My uncle let me borrow his A/DA Flanger, Crybaby, and a Yamaha SPX90, and I abused the privilege by taking everything apart and reassembling it at least 20 times in an attempt to find out how things worked,” explains Burton. “I’m currently still ‘borrowing’ the A/DA and the Crybaby after many years.”

Burton’s abuse of the Yamaha SPX90 may have opened his mind to the potential of digital circuits as he was falling in love with analog sounds, but he was also inspired by some distinctly contemporary sounds overlooked by many pedal hounds: Andy Summers’ modulation and delay on Police records, the modulation sounds achieved by the Pretenders and the Cure, and the aggressive guitar-straight-into-amp tones of Fugazi. That wide perspective on musical history—and the open-mindedness about what defines a great tone or great record—is a big part of the Strymon design mindset.“Obviously, delay, reverb and modulation all existed before we started making our own. Sometimes we try to take existing effects into uncharted territory and sometimes we are trying to solve a specific set of problems that existed in analog circuits,”says Burton.

“When we developed the Brigadier Delay, we knew that the nicer, high-voltage analog bucket-brigade chips were nearly impossible to get and that all analog delays suffered from certain problems like poor signal-to-noise ratios, distortion, and limited headroom. Of course, these ‘problems’ are part of what make analog delays cool,”Burton admits. “So we implemented discrete bucket brigade stages in DSP and added a control for ‘bucket loss.’ That single control lets you have a cleaner analog delay than has ever existed before or a very dirty and noisy one. With El Capistan, the goal was to capture all of the electrical and mechanical nuances that make classic tape delays sound the way they do—and put that technology in a small form factor without the maintenance nightmares that plague traditional tape delays.”

Burton and his team understand why players treasure analog sounds. But unlike many players who have chosen sides along the digital-analog divide, Burton sees digital as a way to look backward and forward simultaneously. “I think the analog fixation that many players have is not unfounded,”Burton says. “And there certainly have been many digital products released over the years that have failed to deliver the goods. We are keenly aware of this when undertaking our DSP designs. But if we’re successful in achieving our design goals, the technology becomes irrelevant. What we know and love is making hardware, and we want our hardware to be not only great sounding, but also fun and satisfying to use. Traditionalist or not, if someone sits down in front of a pedal and that pedal inspires them musically, then it’s a successful design. My hope is that we’re always using the authentic sounds as a foundation and building from there. In addition to making things that conjure the days of old, we also want to create sounds that haven’t even existed before. And, we’ve got lots of projects cooking in our labs.”


Read more: http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Nov/5_Boutique_Stompbox_Builders_You_Should_Know.aspx?Page=2#ixzz2O4hD3xAX
Red Witch

Red Witch founder Ben Fulton’s design approach is heavily influenced by sounds he gleans from recording artists that share a “purity of expression.”
The seeds for New Zealand’s Red Witch pedals were sown when founder Ben Fulton’s girlfriend bought him a Holden 50-watt amp head in need of work. The repairs, as well as the need for some effects to put in front of the amp when it was healthy again, prompted a fascination with preamp, amp-modulation, and pitch-modulation circuits that led to his first effect—the Moon Phaser. The project was originally intended for Fulton’s personal use, but his friends dug the little pedal and the requests started coming in so fast that a business was born.

Today, Red Witch’s line includes the Deluxe Moon Phaser, the Pentavocal Trem, the Empress Chorus, the Fuzz God II, the Famulus Distortion, and the Titan Delay. The motivation behind each of these pedals is the same that guided the design of the first Moon Phaser: “The boutique pedal scene was much smaller eight or nine years ago, and there were a lot of guys building clones of classic, out-of-production pedals,”says Fulton, recalling the early days of Red Witch. “There were a lot less folks doing new or innovative stuff. I’ve never had any interest in copying or cloning other people’s designs. Manufacturing anything—your own idea or someone else’s—is a huge amount of work. So I figured from the outset that I’d prefer to put my time and energy into something that was unique, different, and, most importantly, my own.”

Though he was eager to carve out his own niche, Fulton knew what sounds he liked on record. Not surprisingly, Fulton’s list of sonic influences was broad and varied, ranging from experimental Japanese guitar expressionist Keiji Haino to pioneers like Jimmy Page and Mick Ronson—players that, as Fulton put it, had “a purity of expression.”

“Page’s palate has had an influence,”Fulton says. “The range of tones that he got with guitar, amp, and pedal combinations in the studio is staggering—layer upon layer of guitar parts, each with a slightly different treatment. Beautiful.”Another Brit was also a huge influence on Fulton’s sonic philosophy. “I loved Alvin Lee’s guitar sound, that blistering playing in the late ’60s—very clear and articulate. I guess with our Fuzz God II and Famulus distortion, I really strived to get that clear, punchy sound happening. No additional frequencies, nothing that would allow the guitar to get muddy in the mix.”

Fulton’s interest in not just the specific pedal tones but the overall playing approach of the greats keeps him from obsessing over emulation, which means he can focus on the flavors that make his pedals different. It also means he can refine them to the point of being practical rather than a gimmick. “I’ve designed every device to offer guitar players really useable flavors in the specific effect genre—and then something totally new that’s not available elsewhere, but that’s also totally useable.

“There’s no point offering bells and whistles that you’d never use,” he continues.“For instance, our Moon Phaser offers three different styles of phasing, as well as a gentle tremolo setting. In addition, it offers our unique Tremophase—where the phase shift occurs at the same time as the tremolo’s volume pulse. No one else has done that before, and the Red Witch Moon Phaser remains the only source of this new, useable sound.”

For all his concerns with practicality, Fulton also doesn’t mind tinkering with radical sounds. Though even his pursuit of more“out” sounds are in the name of musical ends. “I’ve always loved contrast within a piece of music,” he says, describing one of his musical guidelines for design. “You want to make a section of song seem really loud? Play really quietly before it. And vice versa. The Fuzz God can do really subtle fuzz sounds—but then you can click one footswitch and enter a world of sonic insanity. It allows you to shift between two extremes very easily.”

In the end, Fulton’s concern with musicality reinforces his own primary directive—staying creative as a pedal maker so that musicians can be creative with his creations.“I think our customers are the players out there who really pay attention to their whole approach—playing, tone, and gear,” Fulton says. “They want the classic sounds but they also want to push the boundaries. They don’t just want to emulate their heroes, they want to develop their own voice.

I try to design stuff to help folks do that. I’ve never considered whether people use them to the full extent of the box’s capabilities. As long as the pedals are helping to open new creative avenues for them, I’m happy. I think that’s part of the appeal of our stuff: you can use as few or as many of the features as you like. Either way, offering something unique opens new avenues of expression for them. I like that idea a lot!”

Read more: http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Nov/5_Boutique_Stompbox_Builders_You_Should_Know.aspx?Page=3#ixzz2O4gyL0i6
Mad Professor

Harri Koski (above) and Bjorn Juhl started Mad Professor with the aim of building the ultimate guitar amplifier. The result was the original CS-40 pictured here. Resting atop it are (left to right) the Mighty Red Distortion, Snow White Auto Wah, Mellow Yellow Tremolo, Forest Green Compressor, and Sweet Honey Overdrive.
Finland’s Mad Professor company is just eight years old, but in that time the company has built one of the most extensive lines of pedals offered by any small-scale, independent stompbox maker. The company is effectively a partnership between founder Harri Koski, amplifier specialist Jukka Monkkonen, and electronics genius Bjorn Juhl, who designs the company’s pedals.

Koski started Mad Professor after his experience operating Custom-Sounds, a company he founded in 1996 to distribute highend guitar gear in Finland. Custom-Sounds was also one of the first online boutique dealers in Europe, and had a web shop up and running by 1996. But for all his love of boutique and vintage gear, Koski was still frustrated with the limitations of much of the gear he was hearing. Meeting fellow tone obsessive Juhl led to creating the Mad Professor CS-40, the amplifier that put the Mad Professor brand on many guitarists’radar. Since then, Mad Professor has built a roster of 12 stompboxes that includes three flavors of overdrive, a phaser, a fuzz, an analog delay, a tremolo, and even auto wahs for guitar and bass.

Juhl still masterminds most of the pedal designs. He’s self-taught in the ways of effects building but has worked with musical instruments since the age of 16 and studied electronics for 30 years—ultimately drifting away from his electronic service shop and into design of his own effects pedals and products for Mad Professor.


Bjorn Juhl is an electronics autodidact and the principal designer behind Mad Professor’s pedal line.

“If I could have gotten the sounds I wanted to get at the time, I wouldn’t have bothered trying to build stompboxes,” says Juhl, recalling his earliest investigations of effects. “Back in the late ’70s, I could look at Electro-Harmonix, MXR, and Boss pedals, which are all still very good today. And I also read the excellent book Electronic Projects for Musicians by Craig Anderton. But I learned by process of elimination, too. I built little models of amplifiers to investigate exactly why certain things sounded bad and removed everything that sounded bad until just the good stuff remained.”

Like many of the builders profiled here, Juhl rejects the notion that the best pedals have been made—that the stompbox frontier was conquered decades ago. Tones that inspired him include Pete Townshend’s Live at Leeds sounds, Billy Gibbons’ vast palate, and the aggressive, monster grind of the Sex Pistols. But he’s always on the lookout for the ways in which existing pedals come up short, and listening for sounds he can imagine but doesn’t hear in the collective soundscape. “I’d actually say that the biggest inspirations for me are the most uninspiring sounds,” Juhl says. “I’m always trying to figure out why certain combinations of guitar and amplifier work, why some really don’t work, and some work just fine. Because you can change those things when you’re in the know.”

So far, Juhl, Koski, and the rest of the Mad Professor team have been successful in uncovering the little differences that pique the interest of a sizable number of tonehounds. Pete Anderson, Jerry Donahue, Marc Ford, and Jim McCarty are just a few of the players who have stocked their quiver with Mad Professor pedals. And the company remains committed to adding new tools to their line, including a forthcoming EQ pedal that found Juhl considering, among other things, the impressive bandwidth of Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin’s tape echoes.

But just as Juhl and Mad Professor look for inspiration in odd places, they look to make their products inspirational so that players will unlock their imagination when they plug in a Mad Professor box. And Juhl hopes that commitment will help players push themselves instead of relying on gear to solve problems. “Back in the ’70s, stores had one fuzz pedal and they’d tell you ‘Take this, son—this is just what you need.’ Then you’d go home and read Tom Wheeler’s book where he says there may be a little more between you and Jimmy Page than a fuzztone pedal.”


Read more: http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Nov/5_Boutique_Stompbox_Builders_You_Should_Know.aspx?Page=4#ixzz2O4gUMwAc
Crowther Audio
Crowther Audio’s Paul Crowther is one of the godfathers of the boutique stompbox movement. He built his first Hot Cake overdrive in 1976, when he was the drummer for Split Enz. The design is still considered a classic.
In the relatively young business of boutique pedals, Paul Crowther could be fairly regarded as a grizzled veteran. He built the first version of his signature pedal, the Hot Cake, in 1976 while laying drum tracks with legendary New Zealand prog/punk/new wave unit Split Enz. Perhaps it was the unique perspective of watching guitarists struggle with tone from the drum riser that ultimately drove Crowther to build the now legendary and revered Hot Cake. But his investigations were founded on a fascination with the circuitry of sound that predated his days as a professional musician.

“After hearing the Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ on the radio, I just had to make a fuzz box,” Crowther recalls. “I built the first one from a magazine project, using four germanium transistors. It had a volume control but no gain control. That was the first time I ever made a circuit with solid-state parts. It had quite a long sustain, but cut off abruptly, because it used a ‘Schmitt trigger’ circuit—definitely a one-note-at-a-time unit!”

But even then, Crowther was looking for ways to address musical needs beyond what a fuzz or wah could do. “I was playing drums in a covers band, and we were learning the Hollies’ ‘On a Carousel.’ I made a box to give a guitar that resonant, banjo-like sound in the intro. It had a six-position switch for different resonant frequencies, and it used a big radio-choke inductor. It also had a control for adding the low frequencies back in. It distorted just a little bit, too, and our lead guitarist used it for all sorts of things. I called it a Herbert Box for some obscure reason.”

When Crowther finally got around to building the Hot Cake, he’d worked on tone circuits for everything from wah pedals to organs. But Crowther ultimately relied on his ears to perceive the needs that the Hot Cake addressed—essentially how to make a guitar signal hotter and more distorted without sacrificing the best and most essential parts of the guitar-amplifier tone equation.

“The initial idea was to make a preamplifier circuit where the undistorted component of the sound has a flat response, but where the distorted component has reduced high frequencies. The overall effect of this is to make the sound spectrum of the distortion similar to the guitar sound. I think it has always been popular because guitarists find that their tone doesn’t radically change when they switch in the Hot Cake. It also handles chords quite well and has low self-generated noise.”

As the slow expansion of Crowther’s product line illustrates, he pursues a new design only when he’s interested or perceives an opportunity to fill a hole that other stompbox makers haven’t. Such are the origins of the Prunes & Custard, a harmonic generator-intermodulator (many mistake it for an envelope filer) that has found many fans among bass players and adventurous guitarists like Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.

“I wanted to make something that didn’t just clip the waveform, but was more interesting,”says Crowther. “With the P&C, which I first made in 1994, the waveform doubles back on itself, amplitude-wise, a few times. I have since heard about a synthesizer module called a wave multiplier, which does something similar—although I did come up with the P&C circuit quite independently.”

More recently, Crowther introduced the Double Hot Cake to address the needs of players that use multiple overdrives to expand their tone palette onstage—particularly those using two Hot Cakes. In typical Crowther fashion, however, the Double Hot Cake adds dimension that a simple two-overdrive setup could not. “I finally came up with the idea of an arrangement where, when both Hot Cakes were switched on, Hot Cake A would drive Hot Cake B, but Hot Cake A’s controls would have no effect, and A’s Drive would be controlled by an extra Drive pot. I also added an extra clipping stage in between A and B, so that it goes a little bit into fuzz world and adds an extra mid boost. Hotcake A is the slightly less edgy ‘bluesberry’ version, while B is the normal old circuit.”

Like any good engineer (or drummer, for that matter), Crowther doesn’t come off as sentimental about a so-called Golden Age of stompboxes. He likes what works, what’s useful, and what makes more interesting music. He does, however, see good analog circuits as a ticket to achieving a more musical signal chain. “There is something rather appealing about a fuzz circuit that uses germanium transistors. And there is also something quite subtle in the nonlinearity of a tube that makes for a less clinical sound.

I believe it produces a very subtle intermodulation distortion that can help bring the sound of an electronic instrument to life.”

One also gets the feeling that Crowther may have a few surprises up is sleeve yet. “I did try to make an electronic Leslie in 1973. It was not too successful, but it sure made for an interesting tremolo. There could be something there. And there are a few other ideas spinning around in my head.”


Read more: http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Nov/5_Boutique_Stompbox_Builders_You_Should_Know.aspx?Page=5#ixzz2O4fhm4ck
Empress EffectsOur interview with Steve Bragg of Empress was made possible because Bragg had just blown up a converter for a new analog delay. Such is the life of a stompbox builder pushing the envelope. Empress Effects—which manufactures the Superdelay (which won a Premier Gear award in our November 2009 review), the Vintage Modified Superdelay, and the Tap Tremolo in Ottawa, Canada—is another company that’s carving out new territory in the high-end stompbox realm by wholeheartedly embracing digital technology while maintaining an appreciation for what made early analog circuits sound so good.


Like scientists amalgamating the best of old and new technologies, the Empress gang—(left to right) Mike Stack, Jason Fee, Steve Bragg, and Dan Junkins—embrace digital processing to extend an effect’s potential in ways analog circuitry alone cannot.

Unlike some builders, Bragg didn’t fall in love with any particular pedal in his formative years. He was more interested in pedals as a means for learning the way electronic circuits work, and he gravitated toward making effects for keyboard players. He did, however, love the way certain songs and records sounded. And his first pedal—a sort of syncopated tremolo that ultimately found its way into the Empress Tremolo—was inspired by the song “Vow”by Garbage.

“I love the idea of combining electronic and acoustic components, using drum triggers, having one instrument affect another, or having effects sync to tempo,” Bragg says. “There’s a bunch of bands I listened to growing up—like Archive, Radiohead, Björk, My Bloody Valentine, and Garbage—that do that kind of stuff really well. Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead continues to be a big inspiration.”

That contemporary frame of reference may have released Bragg from the baggage that keeps many analog devotees unwaveringly in the anti-digital camp. He readily embraced the possibilities afforded by having analog circuits and digital processing working in concert to enhance a guitarist’s potential. “I really like the idea of having an analog circuit controlled by a microprocessor. This makes a bunch of interesting stuff possible: tap tempo, presets, programmable triggering, arbitrary waveforms, and completely new effects that would be impossible or really difficult with a purely analog design.”

Apparently, many forward-thinking guitarists agreed with Bragg. “After releasing the Superdelay, I got a lot of requests to add mods so it could work with other gear,” he explains. “Some people wanted to use CV [control voltage] to control it. Some people wanted to use relays to control the tempo instead of the tap stomp switch. Some wanted MIDI controllability. Unfortunately, there’s not enough room on a pedal for a lot of jacks. So we’ve been working for the past two years on a control port that will accept a bunch of different inputs: mechanical switches for remote tapping, expression and CV inputs, MIDI, and audio input. It’s been a pain in the ass, but it’s finally all working. Our first pedal with this control port will be the Empress Phaser, which we’ll be releasing sometime soon.”

Bragg and Empress’ open-minded stance extends to the components that go into their pedals, as well. They refuse to be constrained by the emphasis on older components and instead go with parts that last and sound best. “We designed our pedals to be as clean as possible,” Bragg says. “That means using op-amps, for the most part, and staying away from transistors that can create headroom, noise, and impedance issues in the audio path. I see a lot of funny hype in effects marketing material, where Teflon wires, expensive capacitors, gold-plated PCBs [printed circuit boards], and carbon-composite resistors or 1 percent resistors are touted as audiophile. I have serious doubts as to whether these kinds of things affect the sound in an appreciable way.”

The same emphasis on clarity and quality makes Empress less concerned with emulating revered stompboxes, even though they regard many classic pedals as benchmarks.“We’ve never been too concerned with recreating what another pedal can do. But if we make a pedal with a lot of features, we want to make sure its basic sound is as good as the standard go-to pedal. For instance, when designing the phaser, we set out to make a pedal that could do stuff no other phaser could. But if it didn’t sound as good as an MXR Phase 90, then we’d have a problem.” Even so, Bragg says, “I think it’s dangerous to design with someone else in mind. Instead, I just pretend that I’m a really creative musician—I know, it’s a stretch!—and I ask myself what kind of stuff I would need to make interesting sounds. So far, I think we’ve only scratched the surface.”


Read more: http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Nov/5_Boutique_Stompbox_Builders_You_Should_Know.aspx?Page=6#ixzz2O4fHYpyw
A Legacy of MidsIn the past decade, the Tube Screamer has continued to evolve with new editions such as the TS7 Tone-Lok, the TS808 reissue, the TS9B—the first Tube Screamer for bass—and the 2010 introduction of the Tube Screamer amp—an ultra-portable, low-wattage amp (available in head and combo versions) that incorporates a selectable Tube Screamer circuit in its preamp. So far, 15-watt head and combo models are available, although models with varying wattages are rumored to be in the works.

Despite the Tube Screamer’s many variations, Ibanez electronics merchandiser Frank Facciolo says its legendary sound is rooted in its characteristic midrange presence. Lomas agrees. “It’s still one of the best things to overdrive any tube amplifier with,” he says. “It just does magical things to tubes.”
2000-2010
Model: TS7
Series: ToneLok
Knob Configuration: Overdrive, Tone, Level
Notes: Knobs can be recessed into the pedal to avoid setting changes or knob breakage. Hot switch adds extra distortion.
Country of Origin: China
2004-Present
Model: TS808 Reissue
Series: N/A
Knob Configuration: Overdrive, Tone, Level
Notes: Faithful reproduction of the original Ts808.
Country of Origin: Japan
2008-Present
Model: TS808HW
Series: N/A
Knob Configuration: Overdrive, Tone, Level
Notes: Handwired version of the TS808. First TS to feature true-bypass switching. Very limited production.
Country of Origin: Japan
2011
Model: TS9B
Series: 9 Series
Knob Configuration: Drive, Level, Bass, Treble, Mix
Notes: First Tube Screamer designed for bassists. Features
a 2-band EQ and a mix control.
Country of Origin: Japan


Read more: http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2011/Nov/Green_Giant_History_of_the_Tube_Screamer.aspx?Page=5#ixzz2O4cawRWQ
Rebirth of a ClassicPerhaps the resurrection of the TS9 was inevitable, but Lomas contributed to its legacy first by insisting on the 1992 reissue of the TS9, and then by developing the TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer. He says when he took over product development in 1990, he immediately started pushing for a TS9 reissue. Used TS9s were selling in stores for well over $250, when Ibanez itself was selling used units to dealers for five bucks. Lomas says management was wary. Nisshin wanted to move toward digital technology and had no interest in going “backward” to the old analog products—which is somewhat ironic, Lomas notes, considering that Nisshin is producing many of the older analog effects now. “At the time,” he says, “they thought we were crazy.”

But money often talks when words fall short. After prolonged browbeating, Nisshin started to see the dollar signs that had convinced Lomas, and they authorized the reissue. Lomas recalls how he and his colleagues spent weeks buying every original TS9 they could get their hands on in order to ensure that the pending reissue was an exact replica. As they cracked open and examined the pedals, they found that almost every one had a Toshiba TA75558 IC chip rather than the JRC chip commonly found in TS808s. “Since 90, 95 percent of TS9s had that chip,” says Lomas, “that’s what we decided to put back in it.” He recalls with a hint of nostalgia the way the company boasted about the reissue when it finally came out—about how it was made in the same factory as the original. “It was even built by the same middle-aged ladies. It was a dead, nuts-on copy,” he says. Even the manual was identical—dated 1981, for authenticity. More than 5,000 sold within weeks of the release, and Ibanez estimates it has sold 10,000–12,000 TS9 reissues each year over the last decade.

1992-Present
Model: TS9 Reissue
Series: 9 Series
Knob Configuration: Overdrive, Tone, Level
Notes: Faithful reproduction of the original TS9
Country of Origin: Japan
1998-Present
Model: TS9DX
Series: 9 Series
Knob Configuration: Overdrive, Tone, Level, Mode
Notes: Offers traditional Tube Screamer tones, as well as three additional modes with increasing amounts of volume and bass response.
Country of Origin: Japan

With the success of the TS9 reissue, the TS9DX seemed like a no-brainer. According to Lomas, the company watched, a glint of envy in its eye, as Dunlop multi-load wah pedals flew off the shelves. Hoshino felt it needed a Tube Screamer with different modes for output and distortion, and it seemed the only thing to do was to get in on the action.

So, in 1998, Lomas designed the DX for players who craved more volume, distortion, and low end. In addition to the Drive, Tone, and Level knobs that had already become Tube Screamer staples, he added a fourth knob with four mode positions: TS9, +, Hot, and Turbo, each one adding low end and increasing volume to some degree. The circuit is exactly the same as that of the original TS9, but the mode switch changes certain components’parameters via clipping diodes and tone capacitors. The + mode is grittier than the original TS9, whereas Hot yields a crunchier tone with boosted mids, and Turbo, the most powerful of the four modes, projects a thicker, more modern sound.

“I wanted to come up with something that would be as true to the Tube Screamer tonality as possible, so that at least in one position it would be a classic Tube Screamer,” says Lomas. “That’s where I came up with the concept of varying the clippers. I didn’t want any digital simulation because, in my mind, it just wouldn’t be a Tube Screamer then.”


Read more: http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2011/Nov/Green_Giant_History_of_the_Tube_Screamer.aspx?Page=4#ixzz2O4cLraNx