The folks at Mercuriall Audio Software have released a new tube screamer pedal plugin that’s based on the ever-popular Ibanez TS-808.
The plugin is called the Tubes Creamer 808 Core—making tubes creamier since 1808—and it’s available for free for PC and Mac in VST, AU, and AAX formats.
Here’s the link to download the TSC tube screamer plugin directly from Mercuriall’s website, no signup or account setup required.
They have some other free gear on that page too, including some preamp and cabinet simulations.
I’ve been trying out the Tubes Creamer 808 pedal and it’s quite a bit different than other tube screamer pedal plugins. It sounds nothing like the free TSE-808 pedal. Mercuriall’s TSC has a lot more grunge to it in 808 mode, even with the drive set to minimum.
It seems to color the tone a bit more than other tube screamer pedals, but it sounds quite good with the Mercuriall Tube Amp U530, Mercuriall’s free Engl E530 amp sim.
Unlike most tube screamer pedals, the TSC has a switch to toggle between the default sound of an Ibanez TS-808 pedal and a “MOD” setting for a cleaner sound with slightly more bass when the “Drive” knob is set at minimum.
The TSC plugin also offers stereo and mono modes, along with a low and high quality setting to switch between no oversampling and 4x oversampling.
I was a bit confused by the default 3.3 input gain setting on the TSC pedal but it’s explained in the user guide. You can use whatever sounds good to you but here’s a general guideline of what to set the input gain to:
1-2 for single-coil pickups
2-4 for low/mid-gain humbuckers
5-6 for high-gain humbuckers