Inspiration & Art
Hi Scream™ had to be our first pedal to bring to life, and became the first in our Art Series of vintage clones.
Inspired by the tone of the legendary TS-9 Tubescreamer, and married with the iconic painting The Scream by Edvard Munch.
We sourced a digital copy of one of the early charcoal drawings, and Maria modified this to work on the busy format of a screaming pedal!
At its heart is a warm vintage tube screamer overdrive, but with massively extended Drive range, coupled with three clipping circuit options, making it almost three overdrive pedals in one.
It offers sublime plucking tones, stand out of the mix edge, all the way to crunchy, dirty distortion.
Hence Hi Scream!
Designed for guitars, it’s also massive fun as a recording outboard processor, adding rich harmonics to pretty much anything, but especially snare and clap samples.
Tone & Controls
Hi Scream has the familiar overdrive control pots – Drive, Tone and Level – to which we have added an additional mini toggle switch to select one of three clipping circuits, labeled S, D and A.
Clipping options:
S – Single silicon diodes in each direction (typical overdrive circuit)
D – Dual silicon diodes in each direction (twice the signal amplitude clipping)
A – Asymmetric silicon diodes – dual one way / single the other (harmonic variations on the above)
Drive
The drive control offers around twice the gain of other overdrives, so it can easily take advantage of the different range spans offered by the three diode clipping circuits – and create unique tonal variations that different sound sources can ‘squeeze’ through the clipping stages. Note that not all (especially high) ranges in all clipping stages will sound musical – it’s called Hi Scream for a reason!
Tone
Tone emphasizes bass frequencies (counter clockwise) or brightens the treble mids / highs (clockwise).
Level
Level is used to set the output volume level. With even a relatively low value of Drive, higher Level settings can be used to drive the input stage of your amplifier, creating overdrive from the amp itself, and further the range of tones. Level can boost a signal massively.
Getting started with the Hi Scream
Whilst there are no hard and fast rules, (and we explore more options in our blog) here are the basic steps to start discovering the tonal characteristics of the Hi Scream overdrive pedal.
Start with the S clipping option, Drive at minimum (or no more than 9 o’clock), Tone at middle / 12 o’clock, and Level around 9 o’clock, or set to match the bypassed volume.
Increasing Drive (small amounts) will add those rich harmonics, especially good for warm plucked sounds.
Now start playing with the Level, and the interplay with your amplifier. Tweak Drive as Level increases – to hear the pedal effect as the amplifier responds to the Level signal. Higher Drive settings will create a much more saturated / dirtier sound, and potentially huge amounts of crunch and noise, depending on the material!
Now adjust Tone to taste – counter clockwise to emphasize lower tones, and clockwise for a brighter tone.
The Drive (gain) control has more than enough range to get the most out of the three diode clipping settings. Generally, lower Drive settings will work with the S setting, and higher values with the D and A settings, but there are no rules. Changing from the S to D or A setting will allow more of the original signal through and clip in new ways. Always adjust Drive when changing settings to find the best settings for your material. We encourage experimentation, and your feedback!
Functional Details
Hi Scream features true bypass, with a pop-free, clean, modern design, but incorporates some of the same components found in the hard-to-find, expensive 1970s original.
Power can be stand-alone with a 9V battery, or via the DC jack. Power consumption is 6mA.
The circuit is powered-on when an input jack is inserted, and the DC power jack disconnects the internal battery when a plug is inserted.
Proudly designed, hand assembled, screen printed and tested in house, in California, USA.
Available now in our online store.
Customizations
Hi Scream utilizes an innovative clipping circuit with six silicon diodes, and as such is hugely customizable. We already have another pedal design in the works that mixes silicon and germanium diodes, but we can also tailor Hi Scream to your own requirements. If you would like to have a unit modified to your own specs, we are open to exploring ideas.
Sounds & Demos
Great review from Sounds Terrible – I always appreciate this guy’s feedback –
Really nice jam by Brock Davisson featuring the Hi Scream –