MaryRoberts
The artist behind Malice
The girl in the porthole began as one of Mary's paintings. Mary created her, and the dark, drowned world around her shaped this pedal, from its face to the underwater themes that run all the way through it.
From Austin to the coast
Mary grew up in Austin, Texas, and she's been drawing since she was a small girl. Today she lives and works in San Diego County, where she paints digital renderings stroke by stroke, the way you can watch her do it above.
More than 100,000 people follow her work. It's dark, it's strange, and it doesn't look like anyone else's, and that singularity is exactly what earns her the praise she gets.
It's also what shaped this pedal. Mary's art inspired the design of the Malice Madrigal and the underwater world behind every section of it, and the girl at its center, the one who became Malice, is her creation.
Real hands, in the age of the machine
We're living in the age of agentic AI. We use it, and we're glad to. But it's good to know real art is still being made by real people, and this pedal carries some of it. The creativity lives in two places: in the art on its face, and in the circuits underneath.
Music was never about perfection. Some of the best of it lives in what people call mistakes.
So while we embrace AI, we also embrace the human touch, fallibility and all. That goes for art, and it goes for music. A brushstroke that wanders, a note that bends a little too far, the take that wasn't supposed to be the keeper: that's where you hear a person.
No two alike
Malice’s processing path is analog, built from physical gain, filter and dynamics stages. That choice shapes how the sections interact. Component tolerances can produce small differences, which is why each build is set on the bench.
Made to last
The first edition brings the circuit and Mary’s artwork together in a numbered build. Each pedal comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by its builder.
Support real artists and musicians
We encourage everyone in the music community to back real artists and musicians as much as you can. Follow them, buy the print, go to the show, buy the record. It keeps the human part of all this alive.