Monte Allums TS9 Mod Kit

The soldering and wiring itself is straight forward. Definitely use a uni-bit to drill holes. If you are too squeamish to do the mod yourself, you can send it to Monte Allums to have it modded. I modded my ts9 and ts808 with no problem. The are pretty much the same pedal now.

The controls are very easy to use. Great sounds all over the dials.

Excellent Sound Quality with the Tri-Gain/Presence-Clarity/etc. mod. I play a LP Studio and an '85 Ibanez Artist. My two amps are a Fender HRD LE and a 1984 Carvin X-100b (6l6) through an old 1978 Marshall 1960a. The sound quality is transparent, dynamic, and robust. I have already done several recordings with my new pedal and found myself utilizing just about all of the settings. I'm not the best with words, but I can say it sounds like gold.

I've been playing for over 25 years, everything from blues to metal. It is funny how a mod kit for under $30 makes me giddy to get home and play guitar. The sounds are truly badass and mature at the same time. I have to give it a ten because it is the best sounding and the most used in my arsenal. I'm sure that some will say there are better ones, but it is the best that I've had the privilege of getting to know.

This rating is totally up to the person doing the mod. I recommend taking your time. The pedal will last a lifetime if you do it right.

Very friendly service. Quick email responses.

I love my pedal now. I had acquired a ts808 months ago. What is funny is that before I had even heard of Monte Allums, I was doing side by side comparisons with my ts9 and 808 to see which one gets me "that sound." We'll that was a waist of a few hours. After my upgrade, The Tri Gain Plus Mod simply knocks the stock ts's dick in the dirt. The mod doesn't skew the tone at all, it makes it healthier, more musical. It also gives you a ample supply of additional gain and eq control. It's "Big Time" sounding.

I have to qualify this 10 with this: If you have experience with a soldering iron, desoldering braid, and swapping out electronic components, this is a very easy and fun upgrade. The instructions are very detailed and easy to follow. As stated in other reviews, the most time consuming part is drilling the holes for the switches. There's also the option of sending in your pedal to have them do the upgrade for your at a much more reasonable price than the competition.

Unreal! This upgrade takes you from standard TS9 tone into boutique territory. There are numerous tone options with this mod - enough so that you'd have to buy a couple of overdrives in addition to a stock TS9 to equal this one project. The tone is just unreal. Clearer overdrive yet it still retains the TS9 sweetness, just without the midrange hump, unless you want it. The gain structure is improved too.

Reliability isn't based on the manufacturer of the upgrade, but rather on the quality of the Ibanez pedal itself, and your skill at installing the upgrade. Do it right and you'll still have the Ibanez "built like a tank" reliability

I had no need for support during the installation. I contacted Monte Allums after the installation to express my satisfaction - he was very cordial and just plain nice.

The mod makes this pedal more versatile in that it gives you many more tone options, but also gives a near-transparent clean boost if you want to overdrive the front end of the amp. Great stuff!

I have the TS-9 Tri-Gain mod. I also have Monte Allum mods on my Boss DD-3, CS-3, GE-7 and BD-2. This mod took me about 45 minutes to do which is longer than the others mainly because you need to drill holes for the switches. Monte provides everything you need plus very detailed instructions. Anyone who has any experience soldering and desoldering should be able to do any of his mods with minimal effort. I actually find it fun doing them.

This mod is great! I have had a Keeley modded TS-9 since 2000 that I loved and it is still a nice pedal but the Monte Allum mod adds versatility that the Keeley never had. It goes from a transparent clean boost to a nice bluesy drive and all the way to an all out gain monster. And despite what I have read in other reviews this pedal is very transparent. Maybe even more so than the Keeley and for much less money.

This depends a lot on how well you do the mods. The parts provide are of a very high quality. He instructs you to test the pedal between every step, which is very prudent advice. I have not had any problems with any of my modded pedals

I have had no problems with my pedals after the mod. But I have had a couple of issues while performing them and I always found Monte to be polite and helpful and he responds very quickly to every email I have ever sent him.

This is Monte Allums and I'd like to respond to the review below. First of all, I have no beef with someone that doesn't like my mods. I know that it is virtually impossible to please everyone, even though we do try. But I have a real problem when someone makes false accusations about me. To say that I was and I quote "Lackluster. very short, vague and just plain snotty emails". Well, those that have ever spoken with me on the phone or had contact with me through e-mail know that that is not the way I do business. I am, however, short and to the point. If being short and direct is this guys idea of snotty then I guess I am guilty. I get hundreds of calls and e-mails a week. I DO NOT have time for chit chat. Other modders may have that luxury but I am one person and this is not my fulltime gig. I work a full time JOB also. So, trash my mods if you like, but don't throw false accusations around about me that are not true.

This is a fairly complicated project for a beginner but anyone with a decent soldering iron and some patience can pull it off. I happen to have a good friend who's an electronics tech, and he did it all in about 5 minutes. Taking the pedal apart and putting it back together is probably the most time consuming, as there are a couple of hidden screws holding the 3 seperate circuit boards in. You dont have to remove the board with the gain/tone/vol knobs, but I would recommend while you have it down this far to go ahead and do so, so you can clean the pots. Also - there is a spring under the baseplate that just sits there, it holds tension on the battery door release lever. It will jump out at you if you're not expecting it, so watch out for it.

Here is where I'm going to piss some people off (mod kit sellers) and make some happy (people that save their money). I have an original, bought it myself brand new in'88 TS-10 Tube Screamer. I A/B'd them side by side between an SRV Strat (all stock) and a Blues Deluxe. They sounded EXACTLY the same before the mod. That's to say on the same settings, with new batteries in both. When I say exactly, I mean dead on, blindfolded you could not tell the difference. I did the Monte Allum mod note for note with his instructions, and when it was all done the results were completely.... uninspiring. I emailed Monte to clarify his instructions, making sure I had done it to the letter as they were a bit vague. He was short and still vague in his replies, not very helpful at all.

My final thoughts on this mod are: Did it smooth out the distortion? Yes, but a very small amount. Is it more "dynamic" "transparent" or any other overused pedal mod buzzword? No. A/B'd with a stocker, you wont notice the difference.

For the tests the Blues Deluxe Amp settings were 1st input, clean channel, vol 4.5, T-M-B all on 7, reverb on 3.5 and presence on 7, guitar controls all wide open. Initial SRV-ish Tube Screamer settings - gain 11 o/clock, tone 12, level 2 o/clock. The other A/B test settings were gain at 2, tone 12 and level at 11 and then 2 (o'clock).

Being that nothing was changed except for using a socket instead of a soldered in opamp chip (the PC4558P), it's the same rock solid unit it was before the mod. The chip socket could be an issue if you have you throw the pedal around, but that's it.

Lackluster. very short, vague and just plain snotty emails. Some were answered fast (15 minutes) some long (24 hours). Instructions are emailed and sent with the package. There are no instructions on pedal disassembly, you're on your own there. There are no instructions for electronics handling or soldering etc - you are assumed to know what you're doing on this level so dont think he's going to hold your hand there nor should he.

This is my first review on here, but I felt compelled to tell my story. I see a lot of reviews on here and have to wonder if they are either A: the person benefitting from the good reviews (the maker or seller) or B: the person benefitting from bad reviews (competitors). I am neither - I'm just like you - a guitar freak on a quest for the holy grail of tone. There are a lot of 'modders' out there these days all following in the footsteps of Robert Keeley, as he pretty much invented the industry. Monte Allums has some nice stuff, and I'm sure I will be trying his other stuff for other pedals. I plan on trying Humphrey and Whizzer too... But the Monte Allums (aka T-von) TS mod to my ears, just doesnt do enough for the price of admission... It's five bucks worth of difference at best, in my humble opinion.

This kit can be a little tricky, because there are components on different sub-circuit boards behind the main board to be changed... modding my SD-1 was easier.

But still, it's not rocket science. Unsolder, solder, repeat until done.

I did this mod on a TS7, but it's also available for TS5 and TS9.

In essence, this is a brown mod (ie 808 mod) with a less-common IC chip and a couple of creative capacitor changes that smooth out the tone a bit without getting too bassy either.

Quite good. Transparency is improved, as is gain and tone. The kit uses a less-common chip, the RC4558P. When most people think Tube Screamers, they think JRC4558D. Both were actually used in the original Tube Screamers ??? the TS7 comes with the JRC4558D stock if you decide to stick with the more popular chip. I tried them both out several times, and I prefer the RC4558P. It's a bit less nasal and a bit more natural, to my ears.

I've played around with different mods for the TS7, and I've found mixing the Monte allums mod with two additional changes yielded very good results.

After you've completed the Monte Allums mod, try adding the following:

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1: Change out one of the stock diodes (located near the IC chip) for a 1N4002 ??? either diode will do. This will make the clipping slightly asymmetrical, and more natural-sounding, IMO. I tried using a Germanium, but it didn???t sound quite right, for some reason. I might try two or three Germaniums linked together.

2: Change out R27 (also located near the IC chip) to a value between 22kohm and 27kohm. This will lower the minimum gain so that the TS7 may now function as a completely clean boost.

I got both of these mods from this site:

http://members.aol.com/audiokt88/ts7mod.html

The Monte Allums kit by itself is good. These two mods make it even better, in my opinion. Try it for yourself!

Monte is quick to answer questions.

Well I bought the unit and waited for my buddy to the the work -IE- unsolder the old parts and solder the new parts. So in short, labor is involved, but it only takes a few hours at best...

Here it is...The stock TS-9 have very poor output, muddy overdrive, and the tone control did very little..After the mod, the unit had great output(small amount of noise, however vintage sounding), crisp overdrive and the tone control actually works now...Sounds to me best when it is slight cranked (the pedal)...Seems like the more I turn up the pedal, the more I like it....

Should be fine, better parts than the original.

He is there, will e-mail if needed...

Super, best bet if you can do the work. If not spend $200 to get the same thing from company X....Great product, great results...

The kit is as well documented as it can be. I liked the way each "mod" is layed out in steps. This makes it much easier to troubleshoot if you have a problem. You must be able to solder neatly in order to successfully complete this kit.

Frankly, I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of this kit. I had acquired a used TS9 which just didn't sound very good at all, in fact I thought it was beyond hope. I figured it was good mod bait.
The kit transformed the sound from a thin, farty, obtrusive sound to a much fuller, musical, and transparent sound. I own many boutique pedals and my modified TS9 can hang with any of them. I had previously owned a TS9 which I had modified by analog man to "TS808" specs (a JRC4558D chip and two resistors) and my current TS9 is way more musical. Monte's kit includes the parts for the "TS808" mod along with an extra RC4558P chip and several capacitors to upgrade your screamer. I found both chips to be very useful and plan to change them back and forth for a little variety. The capacitors really do make a very big difference.

Should be very reliable. About as good as your solder job.

I purchased my kit through an ebay auction and had an address screw up. Monte was kind enough to resend the package. Highly recommended.

I can recommend this kit without reservation. I have had several tube screamers in the past and have made several tube screamers clones of my own. The kit has produced by far and away the best production screamer I have owned. A tremedous value.

Ok there is a lot of talk about the 808 chip mod that I won?t go into about.
All that I?ll say is this; this mod assumes that you already possess the famous Ibanez TS9 or the reissue tube screamer and the rest of the review is about the actual TS808 Deluxe Plus More Modification itself.
You can send your pedal in to get it done for you or order the parts and do it yourself. I recommend doing it yourself as it isn?t too hard, it?s cheaper and I found it really enjoyable. Go to http://www.monteallums.com/Product_links.html for more info.

This mod is not just a new chip and the famous ?brown Mod?, they are a part of it but there is more. This kit includes 10 modifications all up that will turn your TS9 into a TS808 with vitamins!

You get the Texas Instrument RC4558P chip. This chip is the exact same chip that was used in the original Tube Screamer.The Brown Mod - 100-ohm Resistor & 10k-ohm Resistor to replace the old resisters with. And 7 other mods including "The Richer, Smoother Saturation Mod" This adds a very warm smoothness to the gain that is both Fat & Smooth.

Well what can I say? My old pedal has new life and sounds creamy, full, and dynamically rich and I can (for the first time) hear the original sound of my guitar within the effect. I can hear the bottom end punch that the pedal originally lacked.
That warm fat old tube sound that Stevie Ray made famous with his Strat is in there also.
I use an Ibanez RG 770 and this pedal is first in line on my pedal board. I get that ?chunky crunchy biscuit? sound (brownish sound) with my old Marshall. It sounds quiet and the tone control does what it supposed to do, "clean up the top end" not "muffle your sound".
The drive is clean but with plenty of grunt but not like a distortion or fuzz, it sounds like "the real deal". Two of these together would be great!
Seriously guys? ? It is the best overdrive sound! ? Try it!

This pedal was alway reliable! I?ve had mine already for 26 years as a standard TS9. I hope to have it for another 30 years.
I always keep back up pedals but I only have 1 of these mods so I'll have to get another one - :-)

The kit comes with easy to read instructions and there is some good advice in there like doing 1 mod at a time then testing it.
There are no guarantees for any poor quality work if you do it yourself but I suggest practicing soldering first if you have not done this kind of thing before.
I'm sure that they would do a top job if you asked them to do it for you.

I live downunder and I have been playing guitars for 32 years and I know what sounds good. I have a Fender Telecaster that sounds great with this pedal but I mainly use my Ibanez RG 770 and I must say that it rocks with this thing!
I play anything really but I love bluesy guitar rock and 80?s hard rock with a touch of shred when I feel like it.
I have been waiting for this sound in a pedal all my life! It is a great mod, it is cheap and fun to do yourself, Try it, you will love it!