Old School Tube Screamer Clone - The TS808

Along with the Big Muff Pi, the venerable Tube Screamer is one of the cornerstone effects pedals in the market. Both are available in a wide array of versions from the original manufacturer, and both have spawned a myriad of clones, modifications, and variants over the years. A couple of my favorite overdrive / boost pedals are Tube Screamer variants including the Tone Geek's version of the TS10 (my Velociraptor Screamer) and the Vemarum TSV808 (the Secret Spinosaurus). For this build, however, I'm going back to where it all started, the original TS808!

The PCB I'm using this time is another one I picked up as a part of the Effect Pedal Community's efforts to support Ukraine in its ongoing struggle. This PCB is by Loud Cancer, and was made available to anyone willing to provide a donation to Ukraine. While this is a vintage pedal, for the first build / board validation I wanted to use modern components to ensure functionality, and by and large I did that. The resistors are generally 1% metal film resistors from KOA Speer and Yageo. I was short one of the values, but had a 5% carbon film resistor, so I went ahead and used it (the one tan resistor sticking out like a sore thumb in the upper right corner). The film capacitors are a mix of new production WIMA and older production Panasonic, but the electrolytic capacitors are all new Nichicon. I used the original style JRC4558D op-amp socketed on the board, and 1N4148 diodes. I also went ahead and used 2SC1815 transistors. The diodes are 1N4148s (apart from the 1N5817 added as reverse polarity protection).

While the board was originally set up to go into a 1590B enclosure with bottom mount jacks, I tend to prefer 125B enclosures with everything top mounted, so I modified the drill template and generated my own Tayda drill coordinates in Photoshop. I was then able to use the modified drill template to build the illustrator art for the pedal. The off board wiring follows the my normal AionFX-derived star ground on the input. All of the jack connections are wrapped in heat shrink tubing as well. 

I've done a couple of steampunk themed pedals, and decided I'd go that route again with this pedal. I picked turanoceratops because I had some appropriate steampunk art, and the first to letters of Turanoceratops and Tube Screamer are the same. It's a stretch, I know, but it's what I came up with. I added the Mk. 808 to make the connection to the original Tube Screamer more obvious. The enclosure itself is one of the new Glimmer Brown Sugar ones from Tayda. I'd done cream around steampunk ones before, but this new color was sort of bronze-ish - so I wanted to give it a try. I like the end effect!

In terms of the sound, it's a good solid overdrive pedal with a very old school feel. It lacks the sophistication and depth of the TSV808 - or even the versatility of the TS-10 mods, but that's okay - that's not what this pedal is designed to do. I honestly like it a lot, and it will likely find a home on my travel board.