Maxon Reissue Series OD808 Overdrive

Product Information

All said, if you’re a collector and “have” to have an original Ibanez or Maxon 808, look to spend some serious dollars, most of which will have nothing to do with sonics but rather collectability. The amounts of gain, tonal control, and voicing of your new pedal will need to be taken into account, as well as whether you'll be using it as a clean boost or not. Bandwidth acts as a mode selector, ranging from thinner, lower gain sounds to fatter, higher-gain tones.

a highly tweakable Tube Screamer inspired pedal from Belarus that features a bass boost toggle switch and an asymmetrical clipping mode that gives you a slightly crunchier tone. But the pedal also gets clean at lower guitar volumes while retaining a lot of the tight low end and crisp, airy highs you hear at full roar. Maxon developed the OD808 circuit more than 40 years ago, and since then it’s become the most used, most imitated and most lauded overdrive circuit of all time. EDITOR’s NOTE: I’ve examined the OD-808 and discovered that the output resistors are truly the same as those found in the TS-9: therefore the circuit matches the original and reissue TS-9 except for inclusion of the JRC4558D chip rather than the TS-9 reissue’s Toshiba chip**).

Another thing to consider is whether you'd like a more traditional pedal over something more modern-sounding, or vice versa. The Green Mile has two working modes –‘warm’ and ‘hot’– both providing smooth, tube-esque levels of dirt. Two 3-way toggle switches offer three different amounts of low end (right), and three clipping modes (left).

Please note that in this article we try to stick to products that are currently available (we make exceptions only for really peculiar devices). If you currently own a TS-9 reissue and even if you don’t necessarily want to convert it to TS-808 specifications, do yourself a favor and at least get a new-issue JRC4558D chip in there to hear a nice improvement. According to Godlyke (distributors of the Maxon OD-808), the circuit is identical to the original units produced in the ’70s that are also identical to the Ibanez TS-808.The tone is another potential reason as to why a clone would suit you better than the original pedal.

Use the OD808 as a standalone effect going through a clean channel, use it to boost your overdrive channel even further into filthy saturation territory, or even go the way of using two of the pedals together to help you blast out those dynamic riffs with conviction. It will be interesting to see how the recent-issue JRC4558D chips sound in this circuit compared to earlier production varieties. The “808” sound overall is famous for its bluesy transparency, touch-sensitivity, and smooth overdrive tone. Based on the late '70s original, the TS808 brings smooth, sweet and sophisticated overdrive to the party –although it'll set you back the best part of 200 bucks. Differences in the tone can be accounted for and will be affected more by variations in component tolerences in the circuits (esp.As far as Tube Screamer clones go, the Hudson Sidecar takes care of a slightly different end of the market. Maxon play off being the original makers and charge lots of money, and Ibanez are the original brand. It’s something that, as a player, you’d probably get used to, but something to consider all the same. I have had mine for 3 years but don't use it as much as my OD820, but I still have kept it around so long because it's such a great pedal. 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.