Marshall ShredMaster Review

Despite being out of production for a number of years, the Marshall Shredmaster pedal has always enjoyed a rabid and enthusiastic following. It effectively emulates the sounds of overdriven Marshall amps, but it has great range and allows for subtle and nuanced changes to be made to the level of distortion a guitar player wants.

The Shredmaster is a high gain pedal. As its name indicates, it was aimed at the shredding audience but some of the famous guitarists to have used it are not exactly known for shredding, like Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, and Graham Coxon of Blur.

Controls

The Marshall Shredmaster has six controls: gain, bass, contour, treble, volume, and switch. The gain controls the intensity of the drive, allowing a player to achieve sustained lead sounds as well as strong crunch rhythms. With a full gain setting, you can achieve a more saturated attack, while dialing it down is great for bluesy rhythms. The bass is important to adding lower frequencies, crucial to tightening the response or allowing for deep rhythms.

On the other hand, the contour control is a little less obvious, but it is the real heart of the Shredmaster. It can add some weight for fat blues rock, or be increased to enhance the treble and bass simultaneously, which creates a ferocious attack that evokes the feeling of lightning striking – think the “K-chunk” sounds Greenwood makes in the song Creep. The treble control deals with high end response, while the volume acts as a boost. Then there is a switch that activates or bypasses the pedal.

Conclusion

The Shredmaster is truly one of the first “Marshall in a box” pedal. With proper setup and plugged in a good tube amp, it can really do wonders. It can cover almost any type of sound from blues to classic rock and 80s shredding alike while retaining a true Marshall color.

Watch the demo of Marshall Shredmaster below.

Here’s a video of Radiohead playing the song Creep live in 1994. Jonny Greenwood used a Marshall Shredmaster on this.