I use mine this way from time to time, but the filter is so great that it feels like a waste not to employ it. You don’t get the same amount of tone control as a Hot Tubes due to there only being a frequency knob with resonance control, and with the resonance down, the tone control is extremely slight; you can, of course, also turn up the resonance to get the half-cocked wah type tone in the demo. This works out perfectly because it allows you to get a frequency response as wide or narrow as you wish.
There’s way more gain onboard than I would ever use, and it can get a little spitty at higher input gain settings, but with the input gain set to a moderate level, it’s a great sounding overdrive/distortion that’s a nice change of pace from time to time. Also, it reacts extremely well to DI recording, which is more than I can say for any Tube Screamer I’ve ever played.
Hope it helps!
