Best Tube Screamer clones: top alternatives for all budgets

The BOSS OD-1 might have coined the term "Over Drive", but the Tube Screamer made it a classic effect. From blues to tech metal, there's no genre untouched by the original lean, green machine. In addition, a whole family tree of pedals descended from it make up a huge chunk of the pedal market.

Still, there's a lot of players that hunger for the original, and companies are happy to oblige. Tube Screamer can mean a number of different things, as even the original has changed many times since its introduction in 1979. In this guide, we're going to cover some of the best Tube Screamer clones, reproductions and adaptations on the market.

Now, saying something is the ‘best’ is obviously subjective – but the eight pedals in this guide are the ones that really ‘spoke’ to us. Whether it was amazing value for money, impressive durability, great looks or ridiculous tone, the following pedals stood out as the very best of the bunch. We’ve included some in-depth buying advice at the end of this guide too, so if you’d like to read more about the best Tube Screamer clones – and the famous pedal they're based on – then that’s the place to go. If you’d rather go straight to the products, then keep scrolling.

Best Tube Screamer clones: Our top picks

Although all of these pedals are fantastic for their own reasons, our number one best Tube Screamer clone pick has to be the JHS Bonsai. At $249 it’s one of the more expensive options here, when you consider just what it can do, it’s actually quite a reasonable price tag for a 9-in-1 Tube Screamer clone. The sheer versatility of this pedal, along with some of its replications of rare pedals and mods, makes this our top choice.

If you’re on a budget, our pick would be the EarthQuaker Devices Plumes. While there are even cheaper pedals in this guide for those who really want to cut costs, we feel that the Plumes offers the best compromise between tone and budget. That being said, there’s no real compromise – the Plumes is a versatile tonal monster, with a fair range of tweakable parameters to help you sculpt your favorite tones.

Best Tube Screamer clones: Product guide

JHS creates a vast range of single-mode overdrive and distortion pedals which have nearly all become fan favorites. For this reason we’d have expected the Bonsai to take the form of nine separate TS-inspired stompboxes – but this love letter to the Tube Screamer, in its 9-in-1 format, is guaranteed to go down as one of the best JHS pedals – and one of the best TS clones – of all time.

The main volume, drive and tone controls – while fairly self-explanatory – offer the user a pretty vast range of tones to work with. Finding your favorite tone on the Bonsai is surprisingly difficult, which is mostly down to the abundance of choice, but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable experience altogether. Imagine having a pedalboard full of TS-style pedals – including some of the most rare, sought after options on the market. It’s a real treat.

The nine TS modes on offer (OD-1, TS-808, TS-9, MSL, TS-10, EXAR OD-1, TS-7, Keeley Mod Plus & JHS Strong Mod) are replications of iconic pedals released between 1977 and 2008 – many of which are still available to buy as standalone pedals today. JHS has gone to the ends of the musical earth to authentically recreate these tones with hardware components, meaning that when you turn the rotary selector, you’re actually activating the specific parts necessary to recreate your favorite drive tones. No emulation here!

EarthQuaker Devices has a reputation for making some pretty wacky stuff, so their introduction of a fairly sensible-seeming take on the famous green pedal was a departure from the EarthQuaker norm. Thankfully, this pedal is also mental – and well worth a try.

For under a hundred bucks, this pedal can emit some pretty incredible sounds. The level, tone and gain controls provide a pretty impressive range of tonal variation, making finding the perfect tone fairly straightforward. The ‘mode’ toggle switch is the Plumes’ main point of interest, however – and the difference each mode makes to your tone is spectacular. Mode 1 provides symmetrical LED clipping, adding more crunch and compression to your tone in a Marshall-esque manner. Mode 2 is a clean boost, and works well if you’d rather preserve your amp tone when in tonal nirvana. Mode 3 is the more ‘screamer’ option; an asymmetrical silicon diode arrangement but with a little more clarity for that ‘transparent’ drive tone we all talk about.

For the money, we’re thoroughly impressed with the Plumes. Through a mid-scooped amp it really comes into its own, and if you’re in the market for a TS clone that can do a little more then this should be on your shortlist.

Read the full EarthQuaker Devices Plumes review

So the Maxon OD808 is not really a clone. Ibanez's parent company Nisshin was the brand to develop the original Tube Screamer circuit and pedal in the early 1970’s, producing Ibanez branded pedals. Nisshin also released their own line of effects under the Maxon brand. The OD808 and the TS808 are, for that reason, identical pedals – so if you’d rather avoid having ‘mainstream’ brands on your ‘board, then a Maxon OD808 could be exactly what you need. 

The OD808 was the pedal that gave Stevie Ray Vaughan that tone – an impressive feat when you consider just how simple the control layout of this pedal is. Drive, tone and balance dials are all you get on the OD808 – but we’d argue that’s all you need. The OD808 produces an exceptionally warm, organic overdrive sound with stunning mid-presence, and this current version has been tweaked further by Maxon to produce even less background noise. 

Other than the reduced background noise however, it’s hard to see where the Maxon OD808 can offer you a different experience to the TS808. If you want something tonally different to the Ibanez model, then you won’t really find it here – but if you’re someone who enjoys having something different on your ‘board to everyone else, then the Maxon could be the one for you.

If you’re after that iconic Tube Screamer sound but struggling to justify the price tag that can come with some TS-style pedals, then the East River Drive by Electro Harmonix could be your new favorite drive pedal. 

Like most Tube Screamer clones, the East River Drive is a simple but tonally impressive affair. With volume, tone and drive knobs laid out in a fairly standard fashion aboard the heavy duty metal enclosure, this pedal feels like something which should cost a whole lot more. The possible variation in tone is huge when you take into consideration the fact that you’ve only got three tweakable parameters, and it’s one of the many reasons why we speak of the East River Drive so highly. 

This pedal channels its inner TS808 with some real energy, and once you’ve set the gain to sear, you’ll understand why. It’s obviously built with longevity in mind – both with its timeless overdrive tone and hefty metal enclosure, and will endure pretty much any gigging scenario you can throw at it. It’s not quite as high-brow as some of the more expensive options on this list, but if sophisticated overdrive is what you want, then you probably won’t get it from a Tube Screamer.

The Palisades is an absolute unit of a Tube Screamer clone. There's a host of options available. Of course, there are gain, level and tone controls, but also a second channel gain control and an output boost. On top of that there's a bright mode, and the option to disable the buffer. 

It's in the voicing that the pedal has the most flexibility. Rather than just allow you to select the version of Tube Screamer you want to use, EQD has split down the constituent blocks of the tone. There's a voice control, which essentially changes the clipping diodes, as well as a bandwidth control, which controls the gain and tone. This gives a greater deal of control over the amount of compression and EQ profile, as well as the effect of clipping.

There's a footswitch to activate the pedal, and one to switch to the second gain channel. Finally, there's a third footswitch, allowing you to engage the output boost.

Watch our Earthquaker Devices Palisades demo video

Way Huge pedals – especially their range of killer overdrives – have been seen on pedalboards what seems like the world over. The Green Rhino has been one of their best-selling drive pedals, with its green enclosure giving us a good idea of where it draws its tonal inspiration from – and this MKV ‘Smalls’ version channels all of that ‘screamer goodness into one small, compact and convenient box.

The Smalls Green Rhino MKV may be a little pedal, but you can rest assured that the tone it creates is pretty huge. Even with the fairly basic volume, tone and drive dials, this pedal has scope for a large array of driven tones – anywhere from slight breakup to thick high-gain. Along with these three main controls, the Smalls Green Rhino is equipped with ‘Freq’ and ‘Curve’ dials which enable even more tonal experimentation through a 100Hz or 500Hz cut and high-end roll-off respectively.

We love compact pedals here. They’re super convenient and easy to cart around, and give us extra pedalboard space – which means more pedals. One point to consider, however, is how accurate your feet are. We found that when engaging the Smalls Green Rhino – especially mid-song – it was quite easy to knock the dials on the pedal and accidentally mess with our tone. It’s something that, as a player, you’d probably get used to, but something to consider all the same.

Mooer is quickly becoming a household name in the world of guitar effects and accessories for their impressive multi-effects pedals, electric guitars and guitar amps, but their popularity first came to the fore as a result of their mini pedals – one of those being the Green Mile.

Like any green overdrive pedal you can get your hands on nowadays, its inspiration is fairly obvious – but as a result, the tones you can achieve from this unit are seriously impressive. The Green Mile has two working modes – ‘warm’ and ‘hot’ – both providing smooth, tube-esque levels of dirt. As you’d expect, ‘warm’ mode imparts a natural-sounding drive which is fairly touch-sensitive, and ‘hot’ mode takes the gain levels up a notch for more crunch.

The layout of the Green Mile is impressive when you consider its small footprint, with the large ‘overdrive’ control making tonal adjustments on the fly nice and easy. If you’re not so accurate with your feet however, you may find yourself nudging this dial when engaging or disengaging the footswitch. The lack of a battery compartment means that this pedal needs to be used with an external power supply – which isn’t included with the pedal. It’s not the end of the world though – and for this budget-friendly price, we can’t expect too much in the way of extras.

As far as Tube Screamer clones go, the Hudson Sidecar takes care of a slightly different end of the market. The Sidecar isn’t green, and it’s got more than three knobs, for a start – but tonally, the Sidecar just does more. If you like a slightly less than traditional approach to your Tube Screamers, then the Sidecar could be for you.

Largely based on the classic TS808, the front end of the Sidecar is designed to provide a greater low-end response, a wider range of gain and a little more headroom than a standard 808 – enabling any player to achieve some pretty impressive tone-sculpting feats. There are two germanium diodes in the clipping section of the Sidecar which deliver a slightly softer response, keeping your dynamics and feel intact rather than slamming the signal with loads of dirt early on.

Having a treble and bass control alongside the drive and level dials is a lovely touch on the Sidecar, and it’s one of the things which sets this pedal apart from most 808 clones. It’s capable of anything from a clean boost and light gain to dirty, velcro-style fuzz – and that’s the main reason why we’d love one. If you’re into traditional TS clones, then we’d realistically avoid this pedal – but it’s so fun. It is a big pedal, so if pedalboard space is limited then you may struggle to fit this one on – but we feel it’s worth the hassle.

Best Tube Screamer clones: Buying advice

How to choose the best Tube Screamer clone

Let's assume it's a given that you want to buy a clone. That could be because of price, or it could be because of features not found on the original. Maybe you want authenticity, but even then a clone might be the best choice. You might assume that an Ibanez model would be the most authentic, but there are many different units. In fact, the original manufacturer on behalf of Ibanez was actually Maxon, meaning that the Maxon 'clone' is a more authentic Tube Screamer in some ways than modern non-reissue Ibanez units.

The first thing to decide on is how close you'd like the clone to be to a Tube Screamer. After all, most originals are buffered, so if you want a true bypass Tube Screamer, then an otherwise faithful clone might be your best bet. There's a broad spectrum of clones, from those that are more 'inspired' by the pedal than direct clones, to ones that are a part-perfect recreation of a particular era of the pedal. You need to decide where on this spectrum your tastes lie, and how flexible you need it to be. If in doubt, as always, let your ears be your guide.

The second thing to pick is what era of Tube Screamer interests you the most. Of course the most classic is the original, the TS-808, but some players prefer the TS-9, produced from 1981 to 1985. Fewer people are going to die on a hill for the merits of the TS-5 Soundtank or TS-7 Tone-Lok, but every iteration of the Tube Screamer has something slightly different to offer.

The third thing to choose is the tone and clipping set-up. Of course, the one thing that Tube Screamers almost universally have in common is their 'mid bump' and soft-clipping diodes. 

However, especially in the clones market, even that isn't a given. The most obvious example of this is in using the pedal as a boost. Many metal players use the Tube Screamer with the gain down and level up to kick a high-gain amp into further saturation. As a result, a common option added to clones is the option to remove the clipping diodes from the circuit entirely. This leaves the pedal as a characterful boost and EQ-shaper.

How we choose products

At Guitar World, our team of seasoned musicians has extensive experience playing and testing various guitar products, including boatloads of Tube Screamer clones. As passionate guitar enthusiasts, we understand the importance of achieving the right sound and tone, so we draw on our knowledge gained from using these products in live performances, studio recordings, and rehearsals to identify the best products for our guides.

To create our list of top Tube Screamer clones, we use a combination of practical experience, user reviews, and in-depth discussions with our editorial team to reach a consensus. We evaluate factors such as pricing, features, ease of use, and durability to ensure that we showcase the best products currently available.

As guitar players ourselves, we appreciate the value of having the right equipment to deliver a memorable performance. Thus, we are committed to providing reliable and knowledgeable recommendations to help guitar players find the perfect Tube Screamer clone to suit their specific needs and preferences. Our ultimate aim is to empower guitar players to unlock their full potential with the best products on the market.

Find out more about how we make our recommendations and how we test each of the products in our buyer's guides.

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