It’s somewhat unexpected to see a new dirt box from Hungry Robot Pedals, a boutique manufacturer that has built its reputation through creative effects ranging from the spacey to the synthy. But The Lumen, a FET-based overdrive, is a device that still bears Hungry Robot’s trademark quirkiness, in particular thanks to the introduction of a State Variable Filter – more commonly used in synths – within an overdrive circuit.
This filter splits the signal in three EQ ranges which are boosted separately through individual knobs: Low Pass, Bandpass (for the mids) and High Pass. At zero, these knobs leave your signal unaffected – they don’t do cutting.
The gain section of the pedal is comprised of cascading gain stages and features a Clean knob that allows to reintroduce the original un effected tone to reintroduce some dynamics or to create really interesting semi-overdriven tones.
