Description
A Beautiful, Tiny 808 Overdrive Classic
Few overdrive pedals are so well regarded as the TS808 Tube Screamer. In terms of tone, it’s unrivalled, and is a strong contender for the pedal most heard on recordings since its introduction in the late 70s.
Saint Blues takes this fantastic tone machine and crams it into a tiny, stylish blue box. With a lifetime guarantee, and available at a fantastic price, Saint Blues is the 808 overdrive your pedalboard deserves. Have a listen to the Tone Demo video to find out why we’re so confident Saint Blues will replace overdrive pedals many times its price:
808 Overdrive Pedigree
Saint Blues is a true, point-to-point, fully analogue recreation of the TS808. It replicates the circuit completely, including the same clipping diodes, tantalum capacitors and resistor values, and even the “holy grail” IC chip, the JRC4558D. The choice of IC chip doesn’t have as much of an effect on tone as many would have you believe, but we’ve gone the extra mile to ensure that Saint Blues recreates every nuance of an original, vintage TS808.
There’s many ways to use Saint Blues, including but not limited to:
1. Full Overdrive into a Clean Amp
Just like the old blues pros used to do, you can build your drive tone from Saint Blues alone. He’s got a full, rich, mid-boosted roar, characterised by symmetrical negative gain feedback diode clipping, which sounds amazing on any amp but especially on cleaner-than-clean Fender amps. You can hear this tone on countless records from back-when, including Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather and some of Joe Bonamassa’s early output.
2. Pushing a Crunch Amp
A personal favourite here at Vein-Tap.com, Saint Blues sounds amazing when used at mid-gain levels in conjunction with a fairly driven amplifier. On the tone demo video above we pushed the orange channel of a Dual Rectifier amp set to Vintage mode, and the results speak for themselves. With a hump in the mids, this allows a crunchy amp to cut through a band mix without sounding harsh, and adds a beautiful extra sparkle to a crunch channel that even the highest-end boutique amp can’t achieve by itself. You can hear this tone on almost any mid-gain rock record you care to mention, including songs by John Mayer, Gary Moore and Noel Gallagher / Oasis. It was by doing this that Billie Joe Armstrong was able to create the huge range of guitar sounds on Green Day’s early records.
3. Tightening a High Gain Amp
Ask any pro hard rock / metal engineer, and they’ll all agree: the best way to create tight, chugging, responsive metal tone is to tame a high-gain amp’s low end with a Tube Screamer. Crank the Volume, drop the Overdrive control to minimum, and set the Tone control above midway to taste, and your metal tone goes from good to pro. This is because the mid hump inherent in 808 overdrives tames the low end, so that the bass and bass drum sounds don’t swallow your tone, and the slight negative feedback clipping adds just a hint of extra aggression to your tone. It doesn’t change the character of the brutal sound coming from your amp, it simply refines it, allowing your stage and studio metal tones to sing clear, savage, and present. This tone can be heard on every single hard rock / heavy metal album you own.
So Why Choose Saint Blues?
It’s an excellent question: if Saint Blues is an 808 overdrive, why choose it over a TS808 Tube Screamer?
The answer is easy: it’s smaller, lighter, costs far less, looks at least as beautiful, and is covered by Vein-Tap.com’s Lifetime Guarantee. You could add another small-factor pedal in the space you save with Saint Blues over a Tube Screamer, and it’ll make your pedalboard lighter – essential for any gigging musician. A brand new Saint Blues is half the price of even a used TS808 – and with its Lifetime Guarantee, you can rest assured that this really could be the last time you drop coin on an 808 overdrive.
It’s also made with true bypass footswitch circuitry to ensure when he’s on, he’s on, and when he’s gone, he’s gone.
Buy the Saint Blues 808 Overdrive Now
It makes more sense than actually going to gigs! (Well, kind of.)
£59.95Add to basket
Covered by the Vein-Tap.com Lifetime Guarantee
grange.jon (verified owner) –
I’m really happy with this pedal.
I play a strat into a slightly crunchy Fender amp, and the Saint Blues absolutely makes it sing. Seriously, it’s a delicious tone!
I’ve also tried it into the clean channel, and that’s also stunning.
Careful use of the amp channel, the guitar volume, and this pedal gives me every possible drive tone I could ever want.
Perfection!
Neil (verified owner) –
Finally got around to checking out my Saint Blues 808. I already own a Vein Tap II & a Separator & they are very well made. For the price it’s a ‘no brainer’ & great to have a locally made pedal on my board. I’m using it as the main overdrive to beef up my strat through a 65 Deluxe Reverb reissue for blues/ rock & also to tighten up the bass on my Les Paul through a H&K Tubemeister 36 for heavier stuff. It stacks well with other drive pedals & can give that mid push that helps cut through the mix in a band. Very pleased & well worth the money. Get one!
James (verified owner) –
O Yes! This is the little box with the BIG sound. There are a range of uses for this versatile overdrive, I’ll tell you about mine. I go into a clean (and I mean clean) amp, a range of effects and a dual overdrive already going in. But I wanted more options for stack-able gain stages. The dual overdrive gives me high gain and boost for solos but anyone in that set-up knows that the compromise is often a thinner clean tone as the clean amp provides no grit. Well add the Saint Blues and the edge, the sharp, gritty, lovely Robin Tower-esque/Ronnie Baker Brooks-ish edge cuts right through the mix. It also plays nice with other overdrives and stacks well with my dual overdrive for some extra options. You could easily run this as your high gain overdrive too of course, but some other reviewer will have to gush about that. If you’re looking for that Stevie Ray edge, look no further.