rwl
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This is a report on my build of a Marshall Shredmaster pedal. I worked off of the BYOC Shredder build doc when laying out the PCB. This is a nice-sounding, quiet, but gainy overdrive (not a contradiction). You can download the gerber here.
Inspiration
This was a tough one. I resorted to looking around on eBird and found the Red-Masked Parakeet, a relatively obscure parakeet from Ecuador and Peru. I figured "Red-Masked" was close enough to "Shredmaster". Ha. I'd just gotten back from a visit to Mexico City and figured a luchador theme might be a fun one (to really lean into the "mask" name). Does it work? I think the look is sorta awkward, so this is not my favorite design, even if I do like the name. Perhaps I should have gone with a portrait to emphasize the luchador look more, or a more chaotic/DIY-style design. Or maybe a luchador mask on a bird jusut looks weird!
The design is UV printed on Tayda winked silver.
The Build
I ended up having to order the PCB twice. The first order, if I recall correctly, I had the wrong knob ordering (I think I'd reversed gain and volume) and wasn't entirely satisfied with the layout, hence a second order. Besides, that, it's a pretty straightforward build. I went with shielded wiring for the input and output because of the high gain. I'm giving the build four stars, just because I had to order the pcb twice.
The Pedal
The tone is pretty good and unique on this one, it has intense clipping. The tone is fairly raspy - it's maybe reminiscient of a thicker Jack White tone, without an octave. I can't recall another pedal I've built with similar tone. However, the overall volume is really quiet! I think that this is just typical of the Shredmaster - as a few reports I've read online confirm that it's an unusually quiet pedal (but maybe I mis-populated the pedal, or the BYOC schematic was off). Also, it's not really a "shredder" kind of metal pedal.
It's also got a pretty high noise floor, so it really feels like it needs a noise gate and to crank the amp to be useful. As a result, I don't think it'll be on my board very often.
Probably the most notable user of this pedal is Johnny Greenwood. I suppose it's not particularly widely used - because Greenwood is mentioned in basically every review or reference to the Shredmaster. Overall I like it but it probably won't make it to my board all that often.
Firsts
Pedal rating: 4/5
Inspiration
This was a tough one. I resorted to looking around on eBird and found the Red-Masked Parakeet, a relatively obscure parakeet from Ecuador and Peru. I figured "Red-Masked" was close enough to "Shredmaster". Ha. I'd just gotten back from a visit to Mexico City and figured a luchador theme might be a fun one (to really lean into the "mask" name). Does it work? I think the look is sorta awkward, so this is not my favorite design, even if I do like the name. Perhaps I should have gone with a portrait to emphasize the luchador look more, or a more chaotic/DIY-style design. Or maybe a luchador mask on a bird jusut looks weird!
The design is UV printed on Tayda winked silver.
The Build
I ended up having to order the PCB twice. The first order, if I recall correctly, I had the wrong knob ordering (I think I'd reversed gain and volume) and wasn't entirely satisfied with the layout, hence a second order. Besides, that, it's a pretty straightforward build. I went with shielded wiring for the input and output because of the high gain. I'm giving the build four stars, just because I had to order the pcb twice.
The Pedal
The tone is pretty good and unique on this one, it has intense clipping. The tone is fairly raspy - it's maybe reminiscient of a thicker Jack White tone, without an octave. I can't recall another pedal I've built with similar tone. However, the overall volume is really quiet! I think that this is just typical of the Shredmaster - as a few reports I've read online confirm that it's an unusually quiet pedal (but maybe I mis-populated the pedal, or the BYOC schematic was off). Also, it's not really a "shredder" kind of metal pedal.
It's also got a pretty high noise floor, so it really feels like it needs a noise gate and to crank the amp to be useful. As a result, I don't think it'll be on my board very often.
Probably the most notable user of this pedal is Johnny Greenwood. I suppose it's not particularly widely used - because Greenwood is mentioned in basically every review or reference to the Shredmaster. Overall I like it but it probably won't make it to my board all that often.
Firsts
First luchador pedal
First parrot/parakeet pedal
Pedal rating: 4/5
