Ibanez bass tube screamer sounds great through my computer but not through my preamp tubed ampeg?

f59bassman

f59bassman

Aug 2, 2011
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Chattanooga, TN
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#1
So, I recently purchased an Ibanez bass tube screamer, and knowing it would really only work with tube amps, I assumed it would work great with my ampeg svt 3 pro, being as its preamp tubed. It sounds like fart noises on my ampeg, but sounds friggin amazing running through my computer.... why would this be? Thanks for your help and comments!
 
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#2
There's an eq on your pedal and one on your amp (actually 2, the passive/active tone stack and the graphic eq) use em.
If it sound like fart you're probably using too much bass, turn em down. Just because you're playing bass doesn't mean you have to max out the bass on your EQ, most of the time you actually have to cut em (at least the annoying sub bass).
Also
f59bassman said:
knowing it would really only work with tube amps
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jfbd6ox.jpg
 
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#3
Well, the bass and treble are set at the center stop. No cut no boost. The amp is set bass at 11 o’clock, mids at 12 o’clock and treble at 2:30. I did just replace all my preamp tubes thinking it was a tube lol. My bass is a Mexican standard jazz bass. Bartolini b-axis j pickups. Maybe this pedal just doesn’t like my rig lol. Idk why it sounds so amazing through my computer though. High pitched fart noises on the amp but sounds like I’m playing through a killer tweed amp on my computer
 
#4
First, forget the numbers on the dials. Just like playing your rig with a different bass, that pedal signal will like different settings.

Turn down the gain on the head. The TS will likely be hot coming in so it'll be gain on top of gain. Either that or turn down the output (level) on the TS. One of them has to give.

Try that and get beck to us. My overdrive and fuzz both sound fine going into hybrid or all-tube heads. I'm guessing you're just coming in hot so it an overdriven signal (TS) causing the preamp to overdrive itself again.

Stacking overdrives is ninja level and should only be attempted by guys in black pajamas.
;)
 
#5
Well, the amp gain and tube gain are at 8 o’clock, the master is at 11 o’clock. The gain on the pedal is at 9 o’clock and the level is at 11 o’clock marching unity gain. I’ve got everything set low on gain so that’s not the issue
 
#6
Just plugged up to my divided by 13 and it makes high end fart noises with Guitar too! Lol. That’s so strange. I wonder if the previous owner had this pedal modded for solidstate or something? Or maybe the pedal was broken. Oh well. It was $30 lol
 
#10
Not all tube screamer circuits are equal, and ironically it seems like the company that invented them make one of the worst ones for bass.

Even the fulltone bassdrive (which I love) gets "farty" with certain basses and it's sorta bass friendly. I run it through a clean blend if on "vintage" not to lose definition, "comp/cut" mode is fine but I use that to push my amp into more drive like how they were originally designed.
 
#11
Gotcha. I may check out the fulltone bass drive. I’m not looking for it to get full on distortion or fuzz, but just a subtle edge of breakup kind of sound with a dramatic mid hump. I use my wren and cuff pickle pie b for big distorted/fuzzy tones. I do like a clean blend that’s built into the pedal, so I save real estate on my board. Could I build a clean blend into my ts808 pedal? I wonder if that would do the trick
 
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#12
f59bassman said:
So, I recently purchased an Ibanez bass tube screamer, and knowing it would really only work with tube amps, I assumed it would work great with my ampeg svt 3 pro, being as its preamp tubed.
Click to expand...

f59bassman said:
Just plugged up to my divided by 13 and it makes high end fart noises with Guitar too! Lol. That’s so strange. I wonder if the previous owner had this pedal modded for solidstate or something? Or maybe the pedal was broken. Oh well. It was $30 lol
Click to expand...

Huh? It shouldn’t matter at all whether your amp has a tube or a solid state preamp stage. Where did you get the idea that a Tube Screamer could only be used with a tube amp - or one with a tube preamp in it?
 
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#14
Well, the tube screamer was made to push tubes. My ts808 sounds awful on solidstate amps and not useful at all without tubes. Though that’s with Guitar. I’ve never put my ts808 on bass, so I don’t know if that’s true or not with solidstate bass amps. It’s pretty common knowledge though, that a “tube” screamer really only works to its full potential with tube amps, or as far as I’ve ever known them, and years of experience with those pedals. Though this is my first bass tube screamer, so it had me stunned that it worked so good through protools, but not through any of my amps lol.

You know, my guitarist uses a VL sparkle drive mod and it does sound like a tube screamer. I may have to get one for the hell of it!:)
 
#15
I do think it’s safe to say that I may have gotten a lemmon lol. Oh well. Maybe I can get in it if I can find a schematic, and maybe see if I can repair it, or it could just be the nature of the beast. I do appreciate all of the comments and help. Truly strange but I’m glad for forums like this, to help trouble shoot and such. Though I rarely post, I do dig getting on and reading others experiences.
 
#16
f59bassman said:
Well, the tube screamer was made to push tubes. My ts808 sounds awful on solidstate amps and not useful at all without tubes. Though that’s with Guitar. I’ve never put my ts808 on bass, so I don’t know if that’s true or not with solidstate bass amps. It’s pretty common knowledge though, that a “tube” screamer really only works to its full potential with tube amps, or as far as I’ve ever known them, and years of experience with those pedals. Though this is my first bass tube screamer, so it had me stunned that it worked so good through protools, but not through any of my amps lol.

You know, my guitarist uses a VL sparkle drive mod and it does sound like a tube screamer. I may have to get one for the hell of it!:)
Click to expand...

NOPE NOT AT ALL ! The tube screamer was designed to emulate the overdrive of a cranked tube amp as opposed to the fuzz boxes available at that time and to avoid having to crank a 100 watt tube amp without master volume.
However it is true that tube screamers are widely popular used as boost into a tube amp (gain on zero, level on max), but it's not what it was designed for.
You think when it was designed in the 70's people thought that they would be used by metalheads to tighten up their Dual Rectos and 5150's.
Nope they were made for the blues rock crowd who wanted tube overdrive without hearing loss.
And they sound just as good through a SS amp than through a tube one.
 
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#17
f59bassman said:
I do think it’s safe to say that I may have gotten a lemmon lol. Oh well. Maybe I can get in it if I can find a schematic, and maybe see if I can repair it, or it could just be the nature of the beast. I do appreciate all of the comments and help. Truly strange but I’m glad for forums like this, to help trouble shoot and such. Though I rarely post, I do dig getting on and reading others experiences.
Click to expand...

can you upload a clip of your "farting noise" it might help figuring out the problem
 
#18
My thought is that the Bass Tube Screamer is just a crummy overdrive for bass to start with. There are a few builders that have made tube screamers for bass that are a bit better than the Ibanez but on the whole it isn’t the first circuit I would turn to for bass overdrive. It’s not like the RAT in my opinion where the stock Rat sounds amazing on bass but loses lows - the tube screamers mid focus just doesn’t work for me.

Now as to why you like it on your computer and not through your Amp - for me it has to be a question of stacking the Tube Screamer with your ampeg’s preamp. For whatever reason, the settings that you like sans-tube screamer don’t work stacked with the tube screamer. It could be the EQ, it could be the gain, it could be how hard you are hitting the front end, etc. It’s possible you could come up with some adjustments on your Ampeg to improve the sound but it would likely come at the expense of your favorite settings and isn’t worth it for a mediocre, at best, overdrive pedal.
 
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#19
If you want to start exploring some of the more highly thought of bass overdrives on this forum, here’s a couple worth considering:

- Dunwich Volt Thrower (rat variant with a no clipping option and tons of bass - my favorite ever)
- Broughton Audio Terraformer (original design with a blend and very very smooth silicon clipping - quite transparent)
- Southampton Fifth Gear (based on the Speaker Cranker with some great extra controls for heat and gain)
- Broughton Audio Azure Drive (BJFE Blueberry based with more gain and sensitivity options plus a better tone control)
- Fairfield Barbershop (original design - excellent for light breakup and transparent gain)
- Dunwich Olde Dirty Bass (OCD based with no loss of lows and cool options - if you are looking for a more grindy sound)

A few popular ones that I haven’t tried include the Electronic Audio Experiments Longsword, Claymore and Dagger; the Damnation Audio MBD-1; the Glacial Zenith; and many others.
 
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