[OWEN PLAYING LICK WITH BBE GREEN SCREAMER BYPASSED]

[OWEN PLAYING LICKS AND RIFFS THROUGH BBE GREEN SCREAMER]

OWEN O'MALLEY: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. we're taking a look at the BBE Green Screamer. The Green Screamer has been around for a little bit. They've just updated the graphics on much of these pedals, and I got to say I kind of dig most of the graphics that are on the new BBE effects pedals.

This is basically just a Tube Screamer clone, and it's a pretty decent sounding pedal, and it's a really well built pedal. If the BBE pedals have anything going for them, it's the construction. They feel like they could just take years and years of cruel, cruel abuse, purposeful abuse almost. The pots feel great. They feel like they'll never break off. They won't accidentally slip out of place and yet they feel smooth. It's true bypass, they come with a 9-volt power supply and a 9-volt battery.

This is our clean tone here. We're playing through a '59 Bassman reissue, and the controls on here are basic. They're just your basic tube screamer controls. We've got our level which is the overall volume, we've got gain which is obviously our gain, and our tone control, Let's just listen to the gain and tone difference.

We're going to keep our level the same.

[OWEN STRUMS A CHORD WITH BBE GREEN SCREAMER ON]So this is with the gain almost all the way up. We got it dimed here [OWEN PLAYS RIFFS AND LICKS WITH GAIN CRANKED AT HIGHEST SETTING]. So you can hear the Green Screamer and the Tube Screamer, they're not distortion pedals. They're not heavy metal pedals. They're made to emulate an overdriven tube amp, and they do it pretty well and this one does it pretty well too. It's a dual op amp design.

[OWEN PLAYS RIFFS WITH GAIN CRANKED AT HIGHEST SETTING]

Let's play with the tone a little bit here [OWEN TWEAKS TONE TO LOWEST SETTING AND PLAYS RIFFS]. I'm still on the bridge pickup here. If we bring the tone all the way up, it gets very, very bright [OWEN TWEAKS TONE TO HIGHEST SETTING AND PLAYS SOME LICKS].

I could see this pedal being used to kind of brighten up a sort of dull-sounding amp. If we dial back the gain a little bit here, we get more mild more overdriven tones. [OWEN PLAYS RIFFS AND LICKS WITH SLIGHTLY LOW GAIN SETTINGS] And the pedal, it responds pretty well to picking dynamics here [OWEN PLAYS LICKS TO DEMONSTRATE PICKING RESPONSE]. So that's basically it. That's the Green Screamer.

Why don't we, while we've got it here, plug it in to an Ibanez Tube Screamer and just see how they compare. Why not?

Okay. So we've got a TS-808 hooked up. It's called the Overdrive Pro. This is Ibanez's sort of recreation of their vintage pedal once produced by Maxon in Japan with the square button, so this is their vintage reissue version of it. Let's pair them up and hear what they sound like.

Now I've tried to get the controls basically to sound as similar as possible. I've got the gain dimed on both of these pedals, brought the tone to as close as where I can hear where they sound the same, we'll play with it a little bit, and the level is basically the same. Let's listen to the Green Screamer first.

[OWEN PLAYS RIFFS WITH BBE GREEN SCREAMER]

Now, let's listen to the Tube Screamer.

[OWEN PLAYS RIFFS WITH IBANEZ TUBE SCREAMER]

[OWEN PLAYS A CHORD WITH BBE GREEN SCREAMER]

[OWEN PLAYS SOME NOTES WITH IBANEZ TUBE SCREAMER]

[OWEN PLAYS SOME LICKS WITH BBE GREEN SCREAMER]

[OWEN PLAYS SOME LICKS WITH IBANEZ TUBE SCREAMER]

[OWEN PLAYS SOME LICKS WITH BBE GREEN SCREAMER]

Let's do some chords again here.

[OWEN PLAYS A CHORD PROGRESSION WITH IBANEZ TUBE SCREAMER]

[OWEN PLAYS SAME CHORD PROGRESSION WITH BBE GREEN SCREAMER]

So you can hear who. You can hear a lot them along here. But anyway, you can hear that the BBE version is maybe a brighter sounding pedal. They're definitely different. The Tube Screamer is maybe a little bit gutsier, a little ballsier sounding. It's got a little bit more of that sort of lower mid range gut kicking frequency going on, but they're both decent pedals. Definitely different sounding but perhaps the Ibanez has a little bit more oomph.

Anyway, you've been watching Gearwire.Com. We've been reviewing the BBE Green Screamer. Just before we go, I guess one sort of nice selling point about the Green Screamer as opposed to the Tube Screamer is that the Green Screamer has a very standard centered negative 9-volt input here whereas the Tube Screamer has one of those old-school, jack style. But anyway, both of these guys are running on battery power just as a sort of fair example, fair shootout here both on fresh 9-volt batteries.

Anyway, you've been watching Gearwire.Com. I'm Owen O'Malley. See you later.