I'd been hoping for a UK stockist to get their hands on more SHSL pedals, and was delighted when an email from Pedal Jungle dropped into my inbox letting me know they had just four pedals, each in different finishes. I'm a fiend for the slightly industrial look, so jumped at the opportunity to grab the 'Raw' finish with the black faceplate and I'm glad I did because it looks lovely.
Early explorations of the pedal are really positive - the preamp has a warm but gritty vibe that isn't quite like any of the other preamps or drive pedals that I have. Running it with some slight added grit and the volume at unity gain fills out and thickens sound in a very nice way, whilst running it all-out gives a unique drive/distortion character. The volume also runs loud enough to act as a bit of a boost, which is a handy bonus!
The main draw of the pedal of course is the way that preamp interacts with the high and low pass filters and their corresponding resonance controls. The best thing I can say is that this feels and works like a really good synth filter, which makes sense considering it's inspired by the Korg MS-20. My favourite uses so far are severely cutting the bass and combing with heavy reverb, which gives some lovely early GY!BE quiet-before-the-storm kind of vibes; creating strange swells, ebbs and flows in loops with an expression pedal; and messing with the resonance controls to create some gnarly feedback. I haven't tried the CV input yet, but I expect them to open up a whole world of fun with synths and/or a DAW. If you're in the market for an easy to use, great sounding filter and/or preamp with something a little different, then this could well be it.
All in all a great pedal by a company that's still managing to create under really tough circumstances.
And as always, fantastic service and follow-up from the Pedal Jungle - keep doing what you're doing!