SRV And Effects February 7
Although Stevie Ray Vaughn wrought most of his tone out of his fingers, he did employ a couple of effects that were important aspects of his overall tone - the Ibanez Tube Screamer and the Crybaby Wah-Wah pedal.
Stevie Ray Vaughan used both the early TS-808 and the later TS-9 Ibanez Tube Screamer stomp boxes in his career. The TS-808 is easily distinguished from the TS-9 by its small black knobs, smaller stomp button, white script on the housing, and darker green color. They have become a particularly coveted distortion unit and command high prices these days, due in great part to Stevie’s association. The Tube Screamer was his primary distortion device. He employed it to overdrive the front end of his tube amps and to add a natural tube-like saturation and sustain to his lead voice.
Throughout his career Stevie Ray Vaughan alternated between the Crybaby wah-wah pedals and the vintage Vox wah-wah pedal. A superb example of his wah-wah playing can be found on the track “Say What” from Soul to Soul. Other notable SRV wah-wah pedal examples include “Voodoo Chile” and “Come On”. While the use of the wah-wah pedal is fairly rare in the blues genre, Stevie made it sound like the most natural thing in the world.