TS808 questions

eggman6 · July 26, 2008, 12:30:53 PM

Just built a tube screamer, and added the Keeley mods, but left C9 as 0.22uf since i didn't have a 0.18uf cap, and i have also used a 1M drive pot. The unit sounds fine, but its not very touch responsive in the sense that picking soft still sounds pretty distorted (compared to the silli face 2). Is this normal?

Makes me wonder how Stevie plays how he does, I'm guessing one of his two 808s was set for the clean tones which must had have gain near 0.

overall i like the sound but was expecting it to clean up better, I've got a tl072 in at the moment would a TI 4558 make much difference as far as it cleaning up goes?

Also is there anyone who prefers the unmodded ts circuit (with the midrange hump) since I've read on HC that people have missed this aspect after mods, i suppose this is the marmite aspect of the circuit.

jimbob · July 26, 2008, 12:52:27 PM

Quotesuppose this is the marmite aspect of the circuit.

Marmite is the name given to two similar food spreads, a British version produced in the United Kingdom and South Africa and the other in New Zealand. Marmite is made from yeast extract, a by-product of beer brewing, and is suitable for vegetarians and vegans

eggman6 · July 26, 2008, 01:08:22 PM

Just in case anyone isn't aware the slogan to marmite is "Love it or hate it", hence the mid hump is something you will love or hate. It didn't occur to me the limited span of countries this product is advertised in.

John Lyons · July 26, 2008, 01:12:34 PM

What Diodes did you use?
Try LEDs
Two silicon one way and one the other way.
Two silicon in each direction.
Two LEDs in each direction etc etc etc etc etc etc ...
The more diodes in each direction or the more the forward voltage the more clean volume you'll get.
Make the pot smaller 500K and you'll get more clean range.
Lots posts on this...

john

Gus · July 26, 2008, 01:31:00 PM

Keeley mods?

eggman6 · July 26, 2008, 01:41:13 PM

Just used 1n914's and ordered some diffused red leds. I didn't know i could mess around with the directions of them, i will give this a go.

Quote from: Gus on July 26, 2008, 01:31:00 PM
Keeley mods?

http://www.robertkeeley.com/product.php?id=31

Gus · July 27, 2008, 10:23:37 AM

Check to old ampage archives for TS stuff

Barcode80 · July 27, 2008, 01:14:11 PM

FYI, Keeley obviously never touched SRV gear. don't put in mods if you are looking fo SRV tone, he used a stock ts808. also, you would have to put guage 13 strings and bass frets on your guitar...

eggman6 · July 27, 2008, 03:14:58 PM

I'll try, the ts stock, but i still doubt it will be much better. And i wasn't after a pure srv tone, just a unit somewhat more flexable than this. At the moment i'm running into a crappy crate amp, but i must admit when i was using a sd-1 with a jmp, i cant say i much cared for it, and this is pretty much the same thing.

About the GGG 808 files, whats their stock circuit based on, becasue in their modification pdf, it gives you values for a ts808, i thought it was based on that anyway.

soulsonic · July 27, 2008, 06:09:25 PM

the diodes are a good thing to play with, like John said. I definitely second him on the LED suggestion. LEDs bring some good mojo to the sound.
If you want greater interactiveness with the guitar, you can drop the input buffer. Alot of the boutique stripped tube screamers are based on that concept (they stole the idea from Jack Orman's Son-of-Screamer and other DIY experiments that came from here and Ampage) and it definitely does alot to make it more interactive with the pickups and volume control.

Gus · July 27, 2008, 06:49:01 PM

I leave the input buffer it gives another tuning place in a TS.
I do a simple change that I have not shared it is simple thing that I have not seen on the web or done by the "gurus" But then it is for live sound on stage at higher volume.
I wonder how many "modded" ones are used live.

m-theory · July 27, 2008, 06:54:50 PM

I'd second (third) the red LED suggestion, and would also second the stripped down variations suggestion. I personally can't stand the original TS, and think that the TS tone is the weakest that SRV had, but that's just me. It robs his real tone, imo, and swaps it with TS tone. There's no denying that the basic elements of the circuit are outstanding as a means to produce a distorted sound from an op amp and clipping diodes, but from what I've seen and heard for myself, generally speaking, the fewer the components, the better the circuit sounds and responds.

Barcode80 · July 28, 2008, 12:00:25 AM

Quote from: eggman6 on July 27, 2008, 03:14:58 PM
I'll try, the ts stock, but i still doubt it will be much better. And i wasn't after a pure srv tone, just a unit somewhat more flexable than this. At the moment i'm running into a crappy crate amp, but i must admit when i was using a sd-1 with a jmp, i cant say i much cared for it, and this is pretty much the same thing.

About the GGG 808 files, whats their stock circuit based on, becasue in their modification pdf, it gives you values for a ts808, i thought it was based on that anyway.

to answer your question, the ts808 and ts9 are the same circuit save a couple resistor values. ts808 really is served best in front of a tube amp, as it is engineered more to drive the amp into OD, and just provide some mild extra clipping before. the ts9 is more suited to SS amps. likely, the "stock" values at GGG are for a ts9, though i can't say as i have never looked. no pedal will shine through sub-standard amp... there isn't any "magic" in a pedal to make a bad amp sound good. if you don't like the sound of the amp without the pedal, you won't like it with...

eggman6 · July 28, 2008, 06:34:54 AM

Theres plenty of units that can give an adequate sound from a rubbish amp, the fuzz i built, produced a decent enough sound to keep me playing longer than i normally could stand on the crate. Just because theres no magic doesn't mean it cant happen.

The changes in the ggg pdf must just be some different mods, theres no info on them. Differs significantly from the actual 808 schematic, and ts9.

Barcode80 · July 28, 2008, 09:26:56 PM

check out the tonepad version. i'm fairly certain that his is dead on. if it matches the ggg one then ggg is probably the correct schem. also there are some great build reports on there that might help as well.

slacker · July 29, 2008, 06:18:22 AM

Quote from: eggman6 on July 27, 2008, 03:14:58 PM
About the GGG 808 files, whats their stock circuit based on, becasue in their modification pdf, it gives you values for a ts808, i thought it was based on that anyway.

If you build it using the components listed in the BOM then it's a TS808. It's had the electronic switching removed but that doesn't affect the sound at all.

eggman6 · July 29, 2008, 01:12:26 PM

The GGG ts is the same as the tonepad one, i just missinterpreted the way it was presented, due to the header of the page i thought they were mods reverting to a stock 808, when they are just some random mods.

JHS · July 29, 2008, 03:25:06 PM

For improving the touch response on a TS (and all the clones and wannabees) swap the I-buffer for a 3dB boost (similar circuit ilke the COT50 w/o the diodes).

The TS wasn't designed as a high gain OD, if you add gain by increasing the gain pot all you'll get the crappy non dynamic FD-2 boost tone (the 1st stage will be compressed to death at full gain) . Good high gain drives have FB-Clippers in combination with a hard clipper or cascaded stages with filters, each adding a bit distortion, similar to tube amps, and ICs with a slewrate <12V/us. Neccessary compression can be adjusted to taste in the recovery stage.

JHS

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TS808 questions