NPD/ Ibanez 35th Anniversary TS808 Review

To those reading this, I have no affiliation with Ibanez, I just really like TS808 Tube Screamers

Over I went to my local Sam Ash with a buddy. He wanted to try some stuff out and I decided to tag along, with the intention to just hang out and not buy anything. I was looking through the pedal cases seeing if there was anything new, and I looked in where they keep the Tube Screamers and they had one I didn't know existed, the 35th Anniversary model. Now I would like to think I keep up on what's new with gear pretty well, but I had not heard anything about this. So naturally, being as into 808 Tube Screamers as I am I decided to try it out. I already had an Analogman Silver Mod TS808 and another 808 that started life stock and that I have been modding (I'm not done with it, but so far the results are promising and I intend to be starting a company to mod pedals, but I'm getting ahead of myself, I still need to finish the pedal). So naturally I was curious to try out this new 808. I tried it with a 335 they had in the store as well as 2008 Gibson Les Paul G0 Historic, and I was pleasantly surprised.

The differences with this pedal is that it is housed in a narrow box like the original European versions of the pedals. It has the Flying Fingers graphic on the side, and (I haven't cracked it open to confirm, but) Instead of a 4558 Chip, this pedal has a pair of 1458 Chips (and I would assume there are some other changes to the circuit as well due to the accommodation of different chips as well as change in the physical layout of the board that had to take place to fit the circuit in the narrow box). Also the color of the pedal is slightly darker, the volume knob is labeled balance like the originals, and the pedals are being produced in a limited run of only 1500 pedals, and each one is individually numbered.

Now onto the sound...

I played this pedal through the new Silverface '68 Reissue Fender Princeton. To me the pedal seems a little darker than most tube screamers. It also doesn't cut the low end as much and like all 808s it smooths out the high end in a very musical way. The gain of the pedal is a little less subtle than the standard 808 and a little less symmetrical sounding (more like natural tube breakup). Like other 808's this pedal's sound is dependent on the eq and gain structure of your amp. While using this pedal your sound stays true to the sound of the pedal bypassed but with a slight roll off of low frequencies and a smoothing out of highs, but without an awkward mid hump that plagues some tube screamers. I've been practicing some Eric Johnson and Joe Bonamassa tunes for a group I'm playing with now and this pedal gets you there very easily. The rig I've used the pedal with is my Historic LP, Danelectro Reel Echo, Wampler Faux Spring Reverb, into an Egnater Tweaker 40 which is powering a Fender GE112 cab (the one with the metal grill). It was fairly easy to EQ the amp and other pedals in a way that gave me the tones I was looking for (currently EJ/JB).

Basically to sum this all up.

It is a great sounding pedal and is worth checking out, and for $20 more than a regular 808 I would say it is worth it.