the Marshall Shredmaster

Personal revelation the other day: the marshall shredmaster is one of the best pedals ever. I was visiting my friend Dan Wiley, nerding out over distortion pedals, DS-1 mods as usual. I was testing them all out, he insisted on me hearing his favorite: marshall shredmaster clone. It doesnt really compare to RAT/DS-1/higain-tubescreamer/muff/anything. Its got its own sound and then the contour knob really makes it beautiful. The contour knob some kind of filter or midrange equalizer obviously but every position is a sweet spot. Sounds to me like changing a microphone position. You could probably get some real good use tweaking that contour knob while mixing for effect.

Some background on the marshall shredmaster,

Jonny Greenwood uses a marshall shredmaster, yes.
but Kevin Shields does not! This forum style quote below was posted in TOHEREKNOWSWEB, an unofficial MBV website. User evoluzione claims to be Kevin Shields's guitar tech for the Isn't Anything and Loveless tours.

just wanted to clear that up. Kevin Shields used the marshall guv'nor which looks exactly like the shredmaster, but isn't.

The original shredmaster is fairly overpriced($200) likely because of Jonny Greenwood and alleged Kevin Shields use, but there are several makers offering clones out there for about half what you would pay for the original.

try and find the MXR Classic Distortion

MXR has a guitarcenter exclusive pedal for $29. There's no info about it on the guitarcenter or dunlop websites. I'd already have one with my birthday money(thanks grandma and grandpa!) but its really hard to find, its not even available at most GC locations.

EDIT. Ive been to 3 guitarcenters now and none of them had it. I even had this $10 gift certificate they mailed me, it expired. I hate hate hate that place, all music stores that carry new stuff. Everyone uses their stuff anyway.

suprisingly musical use of a ring modulator

This electro harmonix blog upload of a long lost promotional flexi disc demonstrating the frequency analyzer sounds really good. The company is about to release a smaller version of that same pedal.

Devi's Zvex Fuzz Factory Story.

Devi Ever of Effector 13 is selling her custom made Zvex fuzzfactory, the story goes a little deeper than that, its a little eerie actually. I figure this eBay auction is gonna be history in 2 days so I'll preserve the information here

This is the copy/pasted text from the auction.

"This is one of those pedals that has a great story behind it, if you are into guitar gear lore.So here we go.In 2001 I had off and on worked on a website known as the Guitar Pedal Archive, attempting to catalog all the guitar pedals of the world into an online database. A few years before that I had purchased my first boutique guitar pedal, the Zvex Fuzz Factory (around 1998... not the fuzz factory in this auction). At the same time I was attempting the archive I was also trying to start a band. I put an ad out in the paper looking for like minded musicians and got a response from a girl named Ashley and we quickly hit it off online.I was supposed to meet her on 9-11-01, and then of course... 9-11 happened, but I was determined to keep my life moving forward, even if the world was going to hell, so we agreed to still meet each other, and while everyone else in the world was freaking out, we were listening to each other's rock tracks.We fell in love, started a band, and in a few years, I got into the guitar pedal business building strange fuzz pedals (this was around 2003). Through out all this I had become a devote follower of the Harmony Central Effects Forum. Ashley hated all the time I spent on the boards, but I eventually convinced her to get involved, and eventually she did.Sometime around the starting of my pedal business, originally known as Effector 13 ( or before hand) Ashley and I had split up, but were still friends, and we tried to do music, but it just wasn't working out. During this time, while she became more involved with the boards, she began communicating with a mysterious online gentleman known as Zachary Vex.So, while I was beginning to build up a business that in some ways was inspired by the likes of Zvex... and while my friendship was slowly drifting apart from Ashley, she was drifting towards Zachary. :) So much so that she decided to move to Minneapolis to work for him, and they fell in love.She left, I moved on with my business, and in a few short years was doing fairly well for myself. Her and I continued to stay in touch... I was privy to things I never thought I'd be privy to, and a lot of drama went on that I'm not at liberty to divulge the details of. Suffice to say, in the end, Ashley ended up falling in love with Jason Myrold and they have been living happily ever after since.Sometime during her stay at Zvex effects, a girl by the name of Laura Bennett began painting alongside Jason Myrold, and I was enamored by her work. Since Ashley and I were on good terms I decided to ask for a favor and get a custom painted Fuzz Factory done by Laura Bennett, and there you have it... in 2005, two years after starting my own fx biz (and around 7 years since my first boutique pedal which was a Fuzz Factory), I got a groovy custom Zvex pedal. :)Of course the story doesn't stop there. For reasons I shall not go into, Laura eventually left Zvex effects, and I asked if she would paint for my company Effector 13. For a while she did (there are very few and rare LB painted E13 pedals out there!), but shortly there after things weren't working out, and she decided not to paint for me any longer. Now she is painting for Penny Pedals I believe.So... fast forward to 2006 or so, and things start shaking up over at Zvex. The business manager (Amada), painter (Jason Myrold), and Ashley all decide to leave Zvex, and Ooh La La Manufacturing was born. Still being on good terms with Ashley at the time, I was asked if I wanted to have this new company build any of my pedals, and of course I jumped at the opportunity, selling my business name "Effector 13", and four of my top selling design to them, which they continue to build and sell to this day.This ultimately end up being a boon for Zvex as much as it was for myself, because since Jason left, he's hired on an entire team of amazing artists and they are busting out some incredible custom pedals the likes of which the boutique world has never seen! :)Who'd of thought that the girl I met on 9-11-01, and the business I started in 2003 would ever have been involved on such a strange journey full circle and back again!So there you have it... a guitar pedal with more mojo than you could possibly imagine, tieing together the lives of quite a few key people in the boutique business and then some! A true collector's item if there ever was one in the guitar pedal biz, and I'm usually not one to flaunt such things, but you gotta admit, this pedal hass some powerful meaning (kind of literally) written all over it.I'm done being sentimental with gear I'm not using, so I'm letting this, and many other pieces of gear go out into the world! Check my other auctions for other interesting oddities! :)"

EDIT: and for the closing price??

no judgements...

Interesting use of a boss rc-2 loop station.

I was just browsing around pedalboards on the internet, and found this.

I don't think I've ever heard Scott Henderson's playing but I found this pic of his pedalboard off his official website.

Notice the disconnected pedal, the Boss RC-2 loop station. RC-2, a relatively new boss pedal, is a compact phrase recorder with 16 minutes(!) of recording time. Scott Henderson uses the RC-2 during soundcheck to listen to what he would sound like to the audience, tweaking the sounds from there. And then he doesnt use the looper at all during the performance. Brilliant!

I personally don't have much interest in digital looping but Henderson's use of RC-2 is a great example of how digital recording can be advantageous to tone perfectionists/experimentalists. It completely solves my problem where I want to tweak knobs to but at the same time keep strumming. Taking his idea, I put a sample pack on my iPod to test out gear. If you have an iPod and audacity:

1)get some digital recordings of what your guitar(s) sound like, just a few minutes of the kind of riffs that you play, recorded direct from the guitar. It will probably seem too quiet, but that is a good sign.
2) keep those recordings on a special album your Ipod. Don't be shy, keep the files quiet so guests wont turn it on at a party. You can patch the iPod into your pedal board or amp to soundcheck or dial in the proper settings on the confusing gear. You might even have the iPod on you when you want try out a distortion pedal and your guitar is at home. oh yeah and it would especially help at gig I suppose(not that I play em),

the Mellowtone Wolf Computer.

This pedal is getting some buzz lately, I don't know where to get one or how much it costs but there are plenty of youtube videos that demonstrate the amazingness. I was doubtful when someone told me it is better than zvex fuzz factory, but the videos show that pretty much , yes. It comes down to havign TWO crazy not-so-predictable control knobs, bias and sag, where as most crazy fuzz boxes only have one crazy knob. It really excels at those cheesy videogame sounds, where the attack of your guitar turns into simple octave-fifth variant arpeggios. I think the folks at Mellowtone have coined the phrase "motorboating," for a self oscillation setting where playing guitar sounds very similat to accelerating a motor boat; which is previously a totally undesirable tone but now that you call it motorboating... I want it!(?)

...oh and it can do tasteful/expected overdrive and fuzz sounds too.

mellowtone's official website

and some videos:

1 a pretty in depth demo of the wolf computer deluxe(same pedal, just has an extra booster at the end)... if you stay tuned for (or skip to) the end there is a bonus extra noise the pedal can make.

and then this video is kind of annoying how it is not a real video and actual settings are not shown, but it does have some more examples of sounds wolf computer can make

those behringer copies

Cons:
-The buffered bypass has a noticeable high cut. It’s not a huge deal but then again it’s the first time I’ve actually noticed a buffer bypass on my tone. You’d think they would put an excitor in their lineup because you might need one using a couple of behringer stomps.
-The knobs feel bad. It will move around and remind you that you only paid $13 as you turn the knobs for a setting. It doesn’t affect the pedal’s sound but I would prefer a regular potentiometer and knob.
-No resale value. If you don't like it anymore get into circuit bending.
Pros:
the price. And it completely outweighs all the cons. Because of some legal issues, they couldn’t give the pedals the same names as the original products so I’ve done my best to clarify what each behringer pedal is supposed to be using the listings of http://behringer.com/ and http://bossarea.com/ and other sites with my own judgement

ULTRA OCTAVER UO300 & ULTRA OCTAVER UO100 – Boss OC-2 Octave w/ added range control.
ULTRA ACOUSTIC MODELER AM400 – Boss AC-3 Acoustic Simulator

BASS OVERDRIVE BOD400 & BASS OVERDRIVE BOD100 - Boss ODB-3 Bass OverDrive

BASS SYNTHESIZER BSY600- Boss SYB-3/5? Bass Synthesizer

CHORUS SPACE-D CD400- Boss DC-3 Digital Dimension

DIGITAL REVERB/DELAY DR400- Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay

DIGITAL REVERB DR600- Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb

DYNAMIC WAH DW400- Boss AW-3 Dynamic Wah

ECHO MACHINE EM600- Line 6 echo park?

DIGITAL DELAY DD600-DD-5 Digital Delay (doesn’t seem to be an exact copy)

FLANGER MACHINE FL600- line 6 Liquaflange

FILTER MACHINE FM600- line 6 otto filter

ROTARY MACHINE RM600 line 6 roto-machine

REVERB MACHINE RV600 - line 6 verbzilla

ULTRA METAL UM300 & ULTRA METAL UM100MT-2 Metal Zone

SUPER FLANGER SF400- Boss BF-3 Flanger

SUPER OCTAVER SO400- Boss OC-3 Super Octave

SUPER PHASE SHIFTER SP400- Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter

ULTRA SHIFTER/HARMONIST US600- Boss PS-5 Super Shifter(...wow)

ULTRA CHORUS UC200 & ULTRA CHORUS UC100 - Boss CH-1 SUPER Chorus

ULTRA VIBRATO UV300- Boss VB-2 Vibrato

ULTRA WAH UW300- Boss AW-2 Auto Wah

ULTRA FUZZ UZ400- Boss FZ-3 Fuzz

VINTAGE BASS VB1- EHX Bass Balls envelope filter


DISTORTION-X XD300- Boss XT-2 Xtortion

SLOW MOTION SM200- Boss SG-1 Slow Gear

ULTRA TREMOLO/PAN TP300 PN-2 Tremolo/Pan

SPECTRUM ENHANCER SE200SP-1 Spectrum, is not an enhancer(excitor) effect

SUPER FUZZ SF300FZ-2 HYPER Fuzz

PHASER PH9 mxr phase 90 (w switch for r28 mod?)

POWER OVERDRIVE PO300 PW-2 Power Driver(the one boss pedal to have dumb names for knobs)

DIGITAL MULTI-FX FX600 & DIGITAL MULTI-FX FX100-their own original idea. sounds crazy and very digital, the chorus is wild, id never use this but its cheap and weird.

HEAVY DISTORTION HD300- Boss MD-2 Mega Distortion

HI BAND FLANGER HF300- Boss HF-2 HiBand Flanger

SUPER METAL SM400 & HEAVY METAL HM300 these have to be boss hm-2 and hm-3 heavy metal pedals. I’m not sure which because they have similar controls. Id know if I could hear them both because HM-2 is a good sounding fuzz pedal and the HM-3 is like a mid scooped huge bass scratchy highend tone.

INTELLIGATE IG9- MXR smart gate

DIGITAL DELAY DD400 and DIGITAL DELAY DD100 -seems to be their update of a Boss DD3 digital delay adding more delay time)

ULTRA FEEDBACK/DISTORTION FD300- Boss DF-2 SUPER Feedbacker & Distortion

COMPRESSOR/LIMITER CL9. ? If it is supposed to be boss it is a boss cs-2, but the “9” makes me think it is supposed to be the ibanez 9series compressor

CHORUS ORCHESTRA CO600- Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble

DYNAMICS COMPRESSOR DC9 MXR dynacomp

ULTRA BASS FLANGER BUF300- Boss BF-2B Bass Flanger

CHORUS SPACE-C CC300- Boss DC-2 Dimension C

WARP DISTORTION WD300 Hughes and Kettner Warp Factor

VINTAGE DELAY VD400 WTF, is this supposed to be a boss analog delay? In high school I would've done anything for a dm-2/3 clone... kids have it so good these days.

VINTAGE TIME MACHINE VM1 EHX deluxe memory man

VINTAGE PHASER VP1 EHX small stone phasor

VINTAGE TUBE OVERDRIVE TO800 TUBE OVERDRIVE TO100- ibanez tubescreamer

BASS CHORUS BCH100- Boss CEB-3 Bass Chorus

BASS GRAPHIC EQUALIZER BEQ700 GEB-7 Bass Equalizer and NOT the GE-7B Bass Equalizer

BASS LIMITER ENHANCER BLE100 LMB-3 Bass Limiter Enhancer

BLUES OVERDRIVE BO100- Boss BD-2 Blues Driver

INSTRUMENT/AMP SELECTOR AB100 seems to be an original design. If you ask me, a cop out from the boss LS-2 line selector.

ACOUSTIC MODELER AM100- Boss AC-2 Acoustic Simulator

COMPRESSOR/SUSTAINER CS100- Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer

DISTORTION MODELER DM100, it has modes for boss ds-1, mxr distortion plus, and proco rat, but I’ve heard it sounds like not really any of those.

DIGITAL REVERB DR100RV-5 Digital Reverb

GRAPHIC EQUALIZER EQ700 GE-7 Equalizer

NOISE REDUCER NR100 NS-2 Noise Suppressor

OVERDRIVE/DISTORTION OD100 OS-2 OverDrive/Distortion

HELLBABE HB01- dunlop crybaby from hell

VINTAGE DISTORTION VD1 EHX big muff pi

ULTRA DISTORTION UD100- Boss DS-2 TURBO Distortion

ULTRA FLANGER UF100- Boss BF-2 w/ some extra switch

ULTRA PHASE SHIFTER UP100- BOSS PH-2 SUPER Phaser w/level control

ULTRA TREMOLO UT100- Boss TR-2 Tremolo

all those pedals should sound comparable to the original products, save for different parts different bypass buffers, (and maybe different ADA converters for the digital pedals). So far, all the ones I've tried are close enough to the real thing.

and then I'm in the dark about what these pedals supposed to be, but they're also in the behringer line:

PREAMP/BOOSTER PB100??

VINTAGE TUBE OVERDRIVE VT911 realtube bluetube?

VINTAGE TUBE MONSTER VT999 ehx hot tubes? looks like an amazing pedal, the best one in the line. it even has a thick metal casing and real potentiometers, not to mention the actual tube distortion.

V-TONE GUITAR GDI21

V-TONE BASS BDI21

V-TONE ACOUSTIC ADI21

OVERDRIVE OD400?? could be a lot of things...

TUBE AMP MODELER TM300??

Devi Ever's DS-1 bend

I found this in the depths of devi ever's effector 13 website. It is just a bend for the ds-1 but can make tremolo sounds. I have a DS-1, I have a soldering iron. I'll post a review whenever I get around to it.

behringer to800 vintage tube overdrive and behringer to100 tube overdrive

The 800 is the green one and 100 is the blue one. I was 99% sure these are supposed to be clones of Ibanez tubescreamer ts808 and ts9, but the to800 sounds exactly like the to100 so maybe they are some other tubescreamer variant. They sound really good though. They work really well together or after some other distortion pedals.
It doesn’t seem like my behringers are going to break. The plastic knobs and pots are questionable, but it seems sturdy enough for home use. I’m definitely going to get some more dirt pedals from this line. It’s extremely cheap and though they might not hold up on a tour, I’m not on tour.

Between the to800 and not the to100, the 800 looks a lot cooler and it is green like a tubescreamer should be. They sound the same though.

DOD FX76 punkifier review

Really I think most distortion/OD/fuzz pedals can fall into two categories: the ones that sound good for chords and ones that just sound like a bunch of noise with chords, some are both. The DOD punkifier falls into both categories for a different reason; its an overdrive and a fuzz in parallel. The company gave the controls weird names, from left to right the controls are, PUNK( blendbetween fuzz and overdrive) SLAM(gain for the overdrive section) SPIKES(overall tone, can get really really shrill if you want) and MENACE (overall volume).

First back off the SPIKES(tone) knob, for some reason DOD always allows you to add way too much high range, which is cool if you need it. The overdrive section sounds really good to me, its like a lowfi sound, and then if you have the gain past 3oclock it gets pretty nasty sounding. Sounds to me like a mild distortion sound but playedback from a tape portastudio. The fuzz sound is crazy, doesn't handle chords well, doesnt even handle single notes too well. It somehow has a bad tracking octave type sound going on, but theres no octaving. I imagine the fuzz will be really useful for some overdubs, the overdrive section Im already incorporating to my main guitar sound.

I kinda dont like to use them blended together, which is a negative because you can never quite do away with either effect. The blend knob goes from 2% to 98%. You can always hear that fuzz sound if you really listen for it. Other than that, two sweet pedals in one!

BBE Sonic Maximizer vs. Boss EH-2 enhancer

Some background. If you want, skip this whole section to the stars ***:
Enhancer/excitor/maximizer(/whatever-your-company-calls-it), is NOT the same thing as a bright switch or top boost. Its more like a doing the opposite job of a compressor for the high frequencies. Different dynamics make noticeable differences in tone, whereas a standard equalizer doesn't have that effect. Enhancers are commonly shunned by tone purists and noise makers alike, but please keep an open mind here.
Apparently you're supposed to run excitor last in your pedal chain/mixing routes; but it sounds completely awful to me. It takes your favorite distortion sound and gives it that iPod earbud tone. *Cringe* I'm running these excitors BEFORE anything else. It really helps to prepare the signal of a pickup or microphone for running into some good distortion/fuzz/OD pedals.

***
BBE SONIC MAX vs. BOSS EH-2
BBE Sonic Max sounds great for guitars. I wish there was more control parameters, but then again it sounds perfect as is. The extra bass control(pretty sure this is just a bass frequency boost; not excitor) helps a lot too. Kind of expensive but if you're playing a polyphonic or somehow sonically dense instrument you might want to consider it.

Boss eh-2 enhancer. this pedal is a lot more interesting than I was expecting. Its cheap and easy to find on eBay. The controls are hard to understand, but its the kind of pedal you will spend a bunch of time tweaking to get the perfect tone. Notice that the mix knob can go into inverse. On some setting I was getting slight wah effects when I changed my strum patterns... never found it again but its there somewhere. Boss EH-2 can really be one of those secret weapon pedals like that.
When testing pedals I always finish by doing a cliche rockstar move, finishing a set by engaging all pedals and putting the guitar up against the speaker. Boss enhancer is pretty unpredictable in this setting especially when you mess with the knobs. Kinda reminiscent of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. It can make chirping clicking beats wild stuff, I should upload a clip of it. As an added bonus, EH-2 has an extra LED that turns brighter the more processing is happening; which looks really cool.

CONCLUSION: BOSS EH-2 WINS

BBE sonic max is great if you are in the market for a guitar excitor. However, Boss Enhancer is a whole lot cheaper, more tweakable, and (with some other distortion pedals) will satisfy your home-alone feedback fetish needs. Plus: it has the discontinued boss pedal cool factor.

who spends $449.00 on a Big Muff?

I was watching a big muff auction on eBay. (item #130263809320, which will be ancient history by the time anyone reads this). A protected identity ended up buying it for $449! pics:





someone should really take their million dollar fuzz pedal collection on tour. Bring your guitar and $5 and you can have 5 minutes alone with the pedals in the isolated amp room in a guitar center.

Ibanez Soundtanks

I forgot where I found these but they're not on the internet anymore so thought I'd share(click to enlarge):

Those six are the original soundtanks that came in metal casing, not the cheap plastic casing. Can you see the bogus-looking oscilliscope data underneath each one?

the ZVEX cloner.

This friendly shop owner who lives on my block is currently building zvex pedal clones
"just for fun." He has no inventory or anything so I'm not selling through this blog. And I'm protecting his identity just in case mr.vex's people are reading. I scored a woolly mammoth clone for less than a third the official zvex price! it even has
real cheap looking marker graphics. check it out:
It sounds crazy, crazier than the actual zvex pedal featured in his demo video(youtube link).
In the video, the guitarist can play chords through the pedal with the pinch knob active. On mine the pinch knob will completely destroy any chords. Power chords barely survive, mostly come out like a sizzle and a rumble. It suits me fine because I otherwise don't really like to use gate for anything. sounds good as normal fuzz settings too, lots of low.

fuzz pedal documentary

This is a documentary about fuzz pedals, more specifically vintage and boutique. There's a really good segment about the word transparent, where some big pedal makers and modders try and explain what that means. Then it cuts to J Mascis [of dinosaur junior] who, in gravelly mumble, says "transparent... that's an awful word. why would you buy it if it doesn't do anything?" J is pictured with his insane closet full of dozens of EHX big muffs.

Justin Meldal Johnson [of Beck's crew] is a total fuzz freak. JMJ offers some of the best advice "I find that its not actually what the pedal does so much as the sequence you put 'em in that really makes the new sounds."(none of these are direct quotes btw...)

The coolest part of the documentary is probably the guided tour of the Death by Audio workshop, which actually looks more like the ninja turtles hangout. The death by audio guys have bands and run shows out of their building space but the real income is from the custom effect pedals they design and build for other musicians.
death by audio's official website

here is a different video of the death by audio workshop

important people missing from the movie:
kevin shields of my bloody valentine? I thought he might be easy to reach now that hes got the reunion thing going on.
Devi Ever of effector 13? puts out fuzzes that are crazier than Z Vex and Death by audio combined. and she has like 50 different models, effector 13 is hardly even mentioned and never demonstrated.

first post

I made this blog because I spend way too much time (and money) on signal processors. I like to mostly play rhythm style guitar so my main obsession is distortion-overdrive-fuzz boxes. Anything interesting I find in the realm of stompboxes or rack processors for instruments or audio processing I will post about. Please do not take take offense if my opinions go against your own artistic choices, I will try to be open minded.