Marshall ShredMaster

As far as this pedal goes for use. Yes it is tricky to get what you want from it. Tho its all very much worth it. Bass Treble Contour Gain and Level. I bought my second hand so no manual. The gain is superb tho at around 3oclock it starts to get a bit sensitive with the tweaking. Control of low gain tho is a sinch not a problem at all.

My set up is as follows

Japanese made Fender Jazzmaster > Marshall-Shredmaster>Electro-Harmonix-Big-Muff>T-Rex-Mudhoney>DevilsFXMod-Boss-SD1>MXR-10BANDEQ> Ernieball Volume;Tuner

---effects loop---- Line-6-Echo-Park>Boss-DD3>Ibanez-AD9>EHX-Holier-Grail>Digitech-Whammy-wh1> Ernieball Volume ----- Into Vox AC30cc2

The Shredmaster is ESSENTIAL to my sound. I have it set pretty low to give my tone a bit of an edge and dirt. It also still crunches and gives me a sound all of my own. Down low is where this pedal really shines. Plus with the Big Muff and Mudhoney infront of it you can really tear apart your sound. Shredmaster definetly

It is not noisy at all DEAD SILENT even all the way up ive never had an issue with the pedal. And as far as my tone goes it leaves my signals original sound untouched unlike some digital atrocitys ive played with

In reference to Jonny Greenwood yes he is my favorite guitarist of all time and he and Thom did use this pedal but why emulate his sound when you can create your own with this versatile tank? Its endless. Doesnt matter if you buy it coz u love the Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine or Radiohead sound this pedal can bring you into your own

Apart from a stick swith that corrects itself after a few seconds this pedal is completely reliable. Buying them now means buying second hand so you have to appreciate they are already torn up a bit when you get them. But i would be lost without this pedal although i trust it enough to not need a back up at all. Its never died on me once and i dont think it ever will when im depending on it

7 - for the sticky switch

Never had to deal with them

This pedal can suit almost any heavy loaded genre. If you want to tear apart your sound this is the pedal. It even does subtltys nicely aswell but i cant think of any one who would deny this pedals qualitys. If they do its simply narrow minded. The only thing you wont get is that calafornian metal sound but you dont really want that anyway and any1 who buys this pedal thinking they can get it from the unit obv hasnt done anywhere near enough research. Im hanging on to this pedal forever without a doubt. If it ever dies ill make sure its brought back to life its the only unit i can depend on for the sound it gives you cant really find anything else like it.

Its controls resemble Marshall's Valvestate amp line, having Countour control instead of Middle. Contour on the far left makes the sound less bassed and trebled with emphasized middle and by turning it clockwise, the sound gains in bass and treble and drops in middles. At the far right position the sound somewhat resembles Death's on "Human", which shouldn't be a surprise, since Chuck Schuldiner was an avid Valvestate head+cab user.

I used it with '76 Master Volume mk2 Marshall (pre-JCM800, sans FX loop) through the Low input and it sounded awesome. It also gets the best possible sound out of crappy amps, giving it the Marshall flavour, of course...

I own it for 10 years and it has always served me extraordinary!
The complaints I have are the footswitch, which fell apart internally (!). It is soldered directly through the PCB, so if you have a replacement that doesn't fit the holes, you'll have to widen them or search elsewhere. I had to widen the holes and never had the problem since.
My biggest complaint is actually the battery door, which is made of not so durable plastic. I see no point in making the whole pedal bullet proof and put the plastic battery cover! Of course, the latch has broken ages ago and now a piece of gaffer tape holds it in place.

Never dealt with Marshall

I play various forms of metal and rock and pedal suits these styles greatly. It was actually stolen from me 9 years ago at a gig and I immediately bought another one. Compared to Boss distortions it puts them to shame IMO...

A great versatile distorsion pedal. I Use it from more thant 10 years now, and i'm always surprised how the crunch can be warm and how the heavy distorsion can crush my ears.

This pedal can sound with every amp (pretty impressive with peavey bandit 112) and it works well too with my v-amp Pro.
Very great for recording, the by-pass is a true one and there is no noise when using a 9V battery.

The greatest distorsion pedal i've ever heard. Nigel from Spinal Tap certenly loved to rate this with a 11/10 ....

the push/push knob is the only part of the pedal what can be broken. Change it yourself for a better one, and it's ok for decades of playing.

I can't play with another distorsion pedal now. It's a part of my sound for more than 10 years.

Playing Metal, you can get sounds from Hetfield to Dimebag.
Playing Rock, you can get sounds from AC/DC to the Stones.
Playng blues, you can get the crunch you want.
Playing anything else... You can always found something you want... Or By pass the pedal ;)

Very easy to use.

Well, it's almost the thing I'm looking for, but there's one thing that I find really annoying. The Shred Master cuts highs as some other reviewer told. It's really very stupid, because the sound would be very good indeed, if there only was enough high end. You can't fix this by using your amp's eq knobs, unless you keep the Shred Master on all the time (I don't). It doesn't matter which guitar or amp you use, it's still the same result. May be there's a wrong kind of a treble pot, who knows? I'd give it a nine if this problem wouldn't exist.

It's made of metal.

Anyway, I can find good sounds, too. If the highs were there, it would be much better.

Very easy to get a good overdriven, chunky tone. The manual is not needed as the pedal is very simple to use: gain, treble, contour, bass and volume.

My basic setup is either a les paul or a strat through the shredmaster into a 50W non-master marshall head driving a 4X12 greenback loaded cab. The pedal will exhibit minor residual noise at high gain levels but nothing I ever worry about. It has lots of gain on tap and is pretty good for palm muting. The contour control helps you get anything from a blues or rock tone to a super scooped metal tone. Many different sounds are hidden in this pedal waiting to be unleashed by fiddling with the contour control. Tons of deep bass can be dialed in or out without affecting the treble frequencies. The treble control can be a bit piercing when dialed up very high, but it's very smooth from 0-tomore than halfway up. Not a very loud pedal, but it does get much louder than the amp. Nicest thing about this pedal: it cleans up really well with the guitar volume control.

very dependable, although the weak link in this pedal seems to be the "smaller-than-standard" metal footswitch. Mine hasn't failed me yet and it's about 13yrs old all original. So, I'd say it's definitely roadworthy but needs to be checked from time to time. Just don't run it over with your truck and it'll be fine.

Dealt with the company direct on a couple of occasions, though unrelated to their pedals. They are helpful and friendly folks who promptly tended to my problems every time I called on them. I wouldn't send this pedal back to england for repair and korg - their US distributor is just pathetic... However, since this product is quite simple in design and parts, any decent tech could tackle any problems with it.

I play a mix of rock, blues and metal. The pedal suits me fine for all 3 genres - very versatile. Been playing roughly about 20yrs and gigged heavily the 1st ten. Although now I do just the occasional jam with old friends. Own lots of other gear. Among distortions and overdrives I own (boss DS-1, Blues Driver, tubes screamers, MXR Dst+, EH BigMuff) the shredmaster is by far my most favorite. If this one disappeared, I'd just build me another one - it seems simple enough. This pedal is a very versatile overdrive/distortion, solidly built, still cheap and fairly easy to find, with all analog circuitry and good-looking too. Definitely a pedal that makes me want to play more.

It`s got one knob for gain, another for volume and three for EQ.
All of them work pretty well and make the device quite easy to use - within a few seconds, I get the Shredder adjusted to my amp.

The sound quality is simply amazing. I would like to say that it`s the best-sounding distortion-box I`ve ever heard.
It offers very harmonic distortion and it was obviously designed to reproduce almost all of the classic distorted amp sounds that Marshall is know for. Besides, it offers tremedous gain allowing for endless sustain even with low-output pickups.
By just experimenting with the "gain" and "contour" controls, you may get anything from old plexis to jcm2000.
It may even only be used as a booster pedal to overdrive a tube amp, as it has such a good equalization function apart from the drive/gain itself. For guitar player who generally like Marshall, this is paradise ! Others - I think - won`t be too pleased, since it isn`t really versatile beyond the "Marshally" sounds. I got the impression of a pre-amp to simulate the sound of the classic stacks and combos, less of an ordinary disto stomp box.
For example, you cannot make it sound like a fuzztone or a metal-type box (e.g.Boss DS-1). It simply makes any tube amp sound like a Marshall.

Made of solid steel. I gig and practise very often, and I`ve been using it for about 7 years without any problems at all.

I have never contacted Marshall.

I play Blues and Psychedelic Rock and I am very much influenced by Hendrix' and Trower's tones (Strat through lots of effects into a tube amp at high volume levels).
I use different Wahs which come first in the effect chain, along with an old 2-stage phaser behind them. Then comes the ShredMaster and some chorus and delay at the end of the chain into a 50-watts Laney tube-amp with a 4x12 cabinet (75 Watts celestions).
The tubes of the Laney are just about to distort slightly when I turn it on to about 50% (Preamp and Master at about 12 o'clock), and that`s a good job for the Shredder: It fits perfectly with the amp's own distortion and offers endless sustain while keeping the tone quite clean and defined.

Well 5 knobs is trickier than most pedals so it gets an eight.

This pedal is not for everybody. This pedal is basically JCM-800 distortion in a box. This pedal sat in my closet for the last 9 years during which I felt it was redundant to my JCM-800. I actually tested this switching between the overdrive channel on my amp and the shredmaster. They are of the same genes.

I rediscovered this pedal after purchasing an Orange AD30 amplifier. I was considering selling the shredmaster and thought I?d pull it out and see if I could find enough redeeming qualities to keep it around. I put it in-line with my favorite distortion pedal, an old russian Big Muff Pi.

The AD30 and big muff are very warm, full, and rich. The AD30 and Shredmaster is comparatively lo-fi. Like the signal is being compressed. This is not an insult to the pedal. I find the sound strangely appealing. There is a lot of versatility in this pedal. You can get some nice sounds and some really, really crappy ones.

You should also note that this pedal does not sound good with all amplifiers. I have plugged this thing in-front of two different solid state amps (one fender, one peavey) and they both sounded terrible.

I bought this pedal new over 10 years ago. It sat in a closet unused for 90% of its life. The pots crackle when you turn them and it adds noise to your signal. Points deducted for using shoddy parts.

Some will like this pedal, others will definitely not. With the price these things are fetching now you may want to try before you buy. One thing I can say for sure, this pedal has some unique tones. One of them may be your sound.

I play indie rock and blues rock. I think I'll keep around. Maybe?

Its pretty easy to use, but like most people have said the contour knob may take a lil bit to get use to, and by a little bit I mean 5 minutes tops.

I use a 76 Twin so i get all of my distortion from pedals. And i have tried so many differnt types of pedals, and i could never find one that was completly what i wanted. And i had 3 distortion pedals in my line until i got my shredmaster. I had a Boss Turbo Distortion, Boss Metal Zone, and a Mxr Distortion +. This Pedal by far is the best sounding. It sounds so much like real amp distortion, i love it. The only complaint is it is a noisy little box, but its worth it because it sounds soo good. You can get a lot of differnt sounds. They should have named it something differnt, because the Shredmaster title makes it seem like it should be a metal distortion, and its not.

I dont think ill have a problem with it.

I play all differnt kinds of music, and this thing is great. This is a pedal for anybody that plays rock music besides heavy, heavy metal.



www.jeffersoncolby.com

this is an update to an earlier review

one thing I'd like to note is even with the gain on max, which is the only way I like to run this pedal (in my opinion it doesn't sound that great at lower settings), the noise is pretty minimal.

I found the secret Jonny Greenwood tone I've been racking my brains trying to get...it's a simple trick!...read below! the result is so creamy and smooth, it knocks my socks off. maybe another pedal would come close, but I haven't really tried any other high gain pedals with my new trick

you can get some passable sounds with this pedal on its own, with off axis mic placement when recording, but for live in the room in your ears sounds I much prefer to run it as described below

OK, the Deluxe 85 is a pretty good sounding amp, one of the best solid state amps I've played. I like it better than both of the newer generation amps which I have owned (Deluxe 112, my first amp, and Deluxe 90, my sister's amp) bright fendery cleans, a bit too glassy for me, so when I want clean i run my overdrive pedal at low gain to fatten things up...but I do this on all my amps, you might like this sound. exception: humbucker guitars sound good to me with or without the overdrive pedal. (the hot rod deville sounds to my liking without needing any pedals). the gain channel on the Deluxe 85 is just horrible, fizzy weak and crappy (the deluxe 90 has a decent sounding gain/more gain channel). what I really use it for is to run pedals through it on the clean channel.

HERE IS THE SECRET JONNY GREENWOOD TONE:

the trick is to take the marshall shredmaster, which on its own is bright and fizzy (marshally I guess?) and RUN IT THROUGH AN OVERDRIVE PEDAL set for low gain. (putting the overdrive first in the chain doesn't really change the tone much at all) Jonny uses a boss SD-1 (that's S.D., not D.S.!...yellow, not orange); I use a reverend drivetrain II (love it). this shapes the tone, taking away the fizz and imparting a smooth, smooth, focused sound that's great for rhythm or lead. turning down the treble knob on the shredmaster does NOT accomplish the same thing. through my selmer treble n bass mk II and celestion loaded avatar cabinet (Vintage 30 and G12H30) (recommended), the sound with these two pedals is a bit creamier and more vintage sounding...through the Deluxe 85, it's a bit more shreddy and modern, hard to describe. both are good, useable sounds. through my silvertone Twin Twelve, the sound is nasally/boxy, not very good, but passable, so speaker selection is important! (my big muff, however, rips through the silvertone/jensens and sounds like butt blooz through the celestions) I think this two pedal whammy sounds great with single coils or humbuckers, whereas normally using one pedal at a time, I prefer humbuckers for high gain, and generally single coils for low gain.

my settings: deluxe 85: (clean channel) bass on full, treble at 3 o'clock, volume wherever. shredmaster: contour and treble at noon, bass and gain max, volume wherever. drivetrain II: drive 9 o'clock, treble all the way off or up to halfway up (my drivetrain has the "smooth cap" mod), bass to taste (noon to 2:00), volume wherever. of course you can find your own settings, but these give me sounds that I love through my amps...perhaps a starting point for you...use your ears!

This thing is easy to use. You really do not be needing to read a manual to operate it. Controls are self explanatory. Except perhaps the contor. A mid freq scoop control.

The sound out of this is very flexible. Classic rock tones through to 90's Metallica. Well almost. With low gain you can get some nice bluesy tones as well. As someone else mentioned. When you turn the contor to boost the mids, the thing gets quite a bit louder. Just one to watch.

I'd say this thing is pretty reliable. Well never had a problem anyway. Only week point is possibly the battery cover. Other than that the knobs are flush with the metal body of the thing, so can't knock them too easily. As the thing's metal it's pretty rugged. If you manage to break this by chucking it around, you're a bloody ideot. I'm giving a 7 due to the battery cover thing. However, I think all battery covers like this are easily snapped. 9 valt. Never seen a particularly stirdy one.

Never dealt with Marshall

I've been playing 10 years and don't really use this pedal often as I have a Marshall Valvestate amp which has the same sound. However, I'm not selling this thing at all, despite the prices you can get for them on Ebay.
Other gear I use is.
Ibanez JS-1000
Ibanez RG
Fender Mexican Strat Deluxe.
ELECTRO Harmonix Holier Grail, reverb pedal.
For recording on a PC. I use a Johnson J-Station amp modller. To lazy to mike up the Marshall in my small living room.
To sum up though. This is an excelent distortion pedal. Very flexible. I've no idea why Marshall stopped making them. I'm hanging on to mine so if I have to play on a non marshall amp, I can still get that over drive when I need it. I actually think the thing looks quite cool as well. I compared it to a couple of other distortion pedals. A Boss something and another thing which was more like a preamp at your feet. Anyway for me this wins because I'm a Marshall man. if you like that sound this is the pedal for you.