Tube Screamers

Are these things sustainers? or distortions? Either way, do they sound good? I'm looking for a clean, crisp, overdrive, with lots of mids and highs.

And a good sustainer, I know alot of sustainers come as compressors too, but I'm looking for something that sustains more than it compresses.

The TS9 aren't really meant to improve sustain or compress the sound at all, though they do improve the sustain quite a bit.

I used them a lot to boost my tube amp a bit before I switched the the DOD250. Think of it as just kind of hot rodding your gain a little bit, nothing tremendous but a great sounding helpful boost (very natural sounding).

I'd say as far as mids and highs go, its fairly even across any range of frewuencies.

I have the turbo and love it, really nice bit of kit !

I had a TS9 for about a week, but found that it did basically the same thing as turning up my amp on the clean channel or using the dirty channel on my Traynor YCV40.

So I returned it. Bought a Boss CS-1 instead and it works pretty decently.

Thats perfect then! Thats what I'm looking for, huge sustain and smooth overdrive, not distortion.

the Tubescreamer (regardless of its various manifestations) have nothing for those who intend to use it as a stand alone pedal, more so as a primary source of distortion. It’s simply because the pedal is a very weak overdrive source. It’s better off as a booster, like what SRV did to his tone.

Thats what I do, I always use my amp distortion as the base. Then add to it, I use my Blues Driver as a "bright" tone boost. I'm just looking for more pedals to shape and find a few tones that will be very useful to me.

You wan't sustain...get a Les Paul, end of story, nothing more to say, debate closed, Lester has spoken.

As for the tube screamer...I've got one...it's a distortion stomp...I like it but seems to behave differently when used with different amps.

I simply hate the way it sounds with a transistor type amp (my practice unit) but when in front of my Mesa...oh baby! (neighbors come a knockin')...the over tones produced by the pedal when applied to a tube amp really comes alive...something a transitor amp can't do as well.

imho,
punkin

Duh, almost every pedal sounds different when used in different setups. And buddy, I have a Les Paul, thankyou very much.

And I bought the TS7, and I love it. Nice and smooth.