Scott Henderson's Signature TWA SH9 Smooth Sustaining Distortion has been perfected for upper frets legato playing

If you watch Scott Henderson’s below featured video you will get a good idea of the intense development process that went into evolving and improving the SD-9 Sonic Distortion circuit to reach Scott’s exacting standards. As a Jazz Fusion player he tends to do a lot of upper fret legato playing - where the ability to hold focus and sustain on those higher notes is of critical importance to Scott’s signature sound.

Underlining all of this is a full frequency science / theorem proposed by Mike Landau - which espouses the need to retain a full-frequency register even as you travel up the fretboard. This means retaining a significant degree of low-end weight - which is then what lets the notes ring out in such a way that they optimally cut through the mix.

It has to be noted that Scott is exclusively a Single Coil pickups guitar player - per his usual Signature Suhr Strat - and the SD-9 / SH9 has always sounded great on those brighter styles of pickup. Playing the SH9 reminds me a lot of the dynamics of the ThorpyFX Dane Overdrive - which was of course developed for mainly Telecaster player Pete Honoré. So both those drives / distortions have a certain low-end heft / density to them to balance the typical single coil brightness.

This doesn’t translate as well to Humbucker style guitars as that low-end heft can become somewhat boomy on those guitars, and where the Tone control is a relatively conventional type, rather than the sort of Tilt-EQ you would need for full Humbucker satisfaction.

There’s a lovely rounded tone to the distortion - and that beautifully smooth and sustaining tonality, but it definitely has some low-end heft to it which is not that well suited to Humbuckers in its raw state. I get around this by utilising the EQ on my JA Bloom - where that is always used to cut low-end - as a sort of balancing EQ for particularly heavy low-end accentuated pedals.

Another way to deal with this is to use a Treble Booster / Rangemaster - which brilliantly brightens the Distortion further for Humbuckers - while attenuating low end frequencies.

In terms of its core tone and timbre though it’s beautifully calibrated and wholly meets its desired aims in making those upper fret notes as focused and sustaining as they need to be. In Scott Henderson’s video you can hear him complaining about the SD-9 - that it doesn’t always render those notes to his satisfaction. While a lot of iterating with the SH9 finally got this version of the circuit to play consistently well within the area of the fretboard Scott likes to make most use of.

It certainly has a very distinct tonality and timbre - with a pretty unusual low-end gravity.

Controls - Distortion, Level, Tone.

Scott’s preferred settings - Distortion @ 2 o’c, Level @ 09:30, and Tone @ 10 o’c.

My preferred settings are with all 3 dials @ or near 3 o’c, and as mentioned with a Bass Cut EQ deployed.

In its current state this pedal is a marvel on Single Coil guitars and has been specifically optimised to generate Scott’s preferred tones and timbre. While if you mainly play Humbucker guitars you will definitely need to deploy auxiliary pedals as described - either some kind of EQ or Treble Booster ideally.

There’s no disputing the wonderful core nature and distinct tonality of this pedal.

The TWA SH9 is of course available direct from TWA and Godlyke Webstores, and at International Dealers - where it goes for $299 and equivalent.