Boldly branded “the ultimate metal preamp pedal”, Solar’s premiere effects pedal features a three-band EQ, versatile high and low frequency controls and a built-in noise gate
(Image credit: Solar Guitars)
Solar Guitars – the brand founded and headed up by YouTuber shredder Ola Englund – has announced its first foray into the world of effects pedals by debuting the Chug distortion pedal.
With the company coming up to its fifth anniversary later this year, Solar Guitar has branched out of the electric guitar and bass guitar worlds for the first time, ushering in a new era for the metal-friendly brand.
The pedal itself is seemingly a nod to Englund’s ongoing YouTube series, Will it Chug?, with the feature-packed pedal doubling down on Solar Guitar’s commitment to delivering high-gain tones to fans of the genre.
The Chug’s electronics have been in development for the past two years, and the pedal itself is the result of “testing thousands of pedals, amplifiers and plugins” in a bid to create “the ultimate metal preamp pedal”.
According to the company, the Chug has been optimally voiced as a preamp, meaning it’s intended to take the place of a high-gain preamp circuit channel in a guitar amp. In operation, the signal passes through a series of high frequency and low frequency filters, and is said to offer “an enormous amount of gain and overdrive”.
In practice, the pedal flashes four multi-purpose control knobs and two single-function parameter controls that cover an array of tone-tweaking parameters. At the heart of it is a three-band EQ, comprising Mid, Bass and Treble controls – the latter two also have an extra dial, which curate Depth and Presence settings.
Elsewhere, the Chug features a dedicated Gain knob, as well as a dual-action Low Frequency/High Frequency Gain control, which allows for “supreme tailoring of tightness in any tuning or amount of strings”.
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(Image credit: Solar Guitars)
The final control, a master volume knob, is joined by a built-in noise gate controller – indicated via the color-changing LED – that promises to be “tight and fast” when triggered by the input signal.
As well as serving as a standalone pedal, the Chug also arrives with a free custom IR file, which lets guitarists plug the pedal directly into an audio interface to record convincing high-gain tones without the need for an amplifier.
Likewise, Solar Guitars says the Chug excels both when run through a combo amp, and when positioned into the power amp or FX Loop section of an amplifier.
Matt is a Senior Staff Writer, writing for Guitar World, Guitarist and Total Guitar. He has a Masters in the guitar, a degree in history, and has spent the last 16 years playing everything from blues and jazz to indie and pop. When he’s not combining his passion for writing and music during his day job, Matt records for a number of UK-based bands and songwriters as a session musician.
