Seymour Duncan Shapeshifter review

The Shapeshifter gets revamped

  • £249
  • €259
  • $325
Reviews
By
( )
published

MusicRadar Verdict

With a massive feature set, you can conjure up a wide range of tremolo sounds with this pedal.

Pros

  • +

    Wide range of sounds.

Cons

  • -

    No volume adjustment.

MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.

This is a recently launched revamped version of the original that adds stereo operation and a channel phase knob that can adjust the phase between left and right output channels from 0 to 180 degrees, which results in some interesting sonic variations.

The shape of the tremolo waveform here is continuously variable from sine wave through triangle to square wave, and you can also tweak the shape, so there's load of variations - from familiar vintage tones to extreme helicopter chops.

While the depth knob works as you'd expect, you can adjust the speed in three ways - either conventionally with the knob or via the tap tempo footswitch, either as tapped or by engaging the ratio switch to dial in speeds up to four times faster than your quickest tap. The sound sits well when engaged, but there's no apparent boost and no volume adjustment.

Trevor Curwen

Trevor Curwen has played guitar for several decades – he's also mimed it on the UK's Top of the Pops. Much of his working life, though, has been spent behind the mixing desk, during which time he has built up a solid collection of the guitars, amps and pedals needed to cover just about any studio session. He writes pedal reviews for Guitarist and has contributed to Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Future Music among others.