Monster Effects’ John Spears
on the Mastortion
“The first design I presented to Brent was a little too subtle,”
remembers Monster Effects John Spears. “Or, as he put it, ‘This
thing sucks.’ After that, my goal was to make an overdrive with
sufficient gain, a big bottom, and a butt load of volume.”
Built off Spears’ favorite Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer with
a JRC4558D chip, the Mastortion came to fruition after a long
trial-and-error process during which the designer experimented
with various capacitor values to work past the pedal’s mid-
range hump. At his friend Bob Starr’s suggestion, Spears used
Panasonic ECQ-B capacitors and a circuit board
with a huge ground plane to keep noise at a
minimum. Other features include a rectifier that
enables the pedal to work with positive or
negative center-pin power adapters, volt-
age protection, a choke that smoothes the
current, and power-switching on the output
jack that prevents a popping sound when a
1/4" cable is unplugged during operation.
“When Brent came over to check out one
of the final prototypes, he just smiled and
kept playing,” says Spears. “I knew we’d
achieved customer satisfaction.”
LEFT: An early Mastortion prototype. ABOVE: Hinds at home testing the
final design through John Spears’ Atom Amp Metroliner. ABOVE RIGHT:
The Mastortion, features artwork by Brian Papa.
