Strymon Blog - news from the lab


A chorus of praise for Mobius!

Posted by Ethan

Mobius modulation pedalThe reviews for Mobius have been rolling in, and we’re very excited about what everyone has been saying!

Featuring 12 different types of modulations – chorus, flanger, phaser, a flexible rotary effect and more – “the amount of high-quality effects [Mobius] crams inside is amazing,” writes guitar blog GuitarNoize.com.

» Read the GuitarNoize review

Within each modulation type lays a wealth of mod effects that Premier Guitar magazine describes as “shockingly accurate.”Premier Guitar, The Deli, Guitar Noize, Sound on Sound magazine The “sonic undulations” of the rotary effect, PG continued, are “deep and complex, and at times sound impossibly real.” We’re deeply honored to have received the Premier Guitar “Premier Gear” award, which the magazine bestowed upon Mobius earlier this year.

» Read the Premier Guitar review

In its popular audio blog, The Deli magazine is “extremely excited” about Mobius’ release. It calls the mod pedal “super diverse” thanks to its wide variety of classic mod effects including “everything from lush choruses to pulsating tremolo as well as unlikely additions.”

» Read the Deli review

In a shootout versus some classic mod pedals, Mobius won Sound On Sound magazine’s praises for its “clarity, warmth, smoothness and depth.” With “sounds as glorious as its tech-spec suggests,” Mobius “more than held its own” against its predecessors. SOS ranks Mobius “among the best [mod pedals] of its type.”

» Read the Sound on Sound review

Our friends at Premier Guitar think “it’s getting harder to surprise folks with how good Strymon pedals sound,” which makes us really happy. Sound On Sound noted that we’ve “quickly gained a loyal following” in the three years since we began making pedals. And The Deli made us blush when they called us “one of the sickest companies making stompboxes right now.” Thanks, guys, we really appreciate it! :)




#strymonfavorite contest Honorable Mentions

Posted by Angela

There were just so many excellent entries for our recent #strymonfavorite contest that we decided to add some honorable mentions in addition to the three contest winners. These additional winners will receive a Tap Favorite and Strymon t-shirt! We hope that everyone had as much fun creating images and videos as we did looking at all of them.

The winners and honorable mentions will be added to this page—so please come enjoy with everyone that took time out to share their favorite thing about their sound.

Honorable Mentions:

bgriffANTH1

hairpinturns

mikeiskool

Instagram Photo

desertghosts

Instagram Photo

Ian Johnson (@wiggles837 Fun fact: playing with this group of guys is my favourite thing period.)

kevinglaudel

Instagram Photo

TD2243

AHotdogHorse

ejangi

Instagram Photo

ludoplastic

Jesiah Henricksen




And the #strymonfavorite contest winners are…

Posted by Angela

Just about a month ago, we asked you to show us your favorite thing about your music or your sound, and enter to win a Flint Tremolo & Reverb and a Tap Favorite combo. The contest entries have been great, and a ton of fun to look through, listen to, and watch.

I don’t think I can express how difficult it was to choose the winners for this contest. There were so many excellent entries. But as always there has to be a winner, so we sat down and picked one video winner, one photo winner and one Vine winner. Yep, that’s right, we added a third winner, because it was too difficult to just pick two.

But for now, I’m sure you are yelling, “TELL ME WHO THE WINNERS ARE!!”

 

Winner #1 (photo category) – Pat Morford

Pat emailed us this photo and said “I love the sound of playing outdoors.”

ieeeehdi

 

Winner #2 (video category) – Jon Carolino

 

Winner #3 (Vine category) – Jonathan Angulo

Be sure to mouseover the Vine video, and click on the speaker icon to unmute the audio!

 

Honorable Mentions

In the very near future we will announce several additional honorable mention prizes. T-shirts and possibly more. Stay tuned to check out the additional prize winners! :)

 




TimeLine firmware public beta 1.42

Posted by Ethan

TimeLine firmware updateWe always work hard to improve the experience our customers have with our products. We have been working on adding a few new features and improvements to TimeLine.

We are releasing this version as a public beta to allow additional testing in many different real world usage situations. This is not a required update— please feel free to continue using your current version. Should you choose to update your TimeLine you are always allowed the option to roll back.

Update instructions are included as a PDF with the download. If you have any problems updating, please take a look at these updating troubleshooting tips. :)

Download

What’s New:

  • MIDI Clock Sweep (MC SWP) global parameter:
    • We’ve added the option to keep or remove delay pitch artifacts when changing TAP tempo from external MIDI Clock source.
  • MIDI Clock Reset (MC RST) global parameter:
    • Now, you have the option to re-sync TimeLine back to an external MIDI clock source tempo after manually tapping in a new tempo or sweeping the Time knob on TimeLine.
  • Added new MIDI Commands for looper:
    • We’ve added two new absolute MIDI commands for Reverse and Half Speed looper controls. Reverse = 103
  • Changed MIDI Preset Recall Behavior
    • In older code revisions, recalling presets via MIDI automatically altered the bypass state of the preset to ON. Now, if your preset is bypassed before you send a new MIDI preset program change, the new preset recalled will remain bypassed.
  • Improved Swell Delay triggering:
    • We’ve made improvements to the way the swell is triggered when using the Swell Delay machine.
  • Global Tap Tempo per preset:
    • You can now turn Global Tap Tempo on or off per preset. Useful when you have some presets that require Global Tap and others that don’t.
  • “SUCCESS” indicator when installing factory/user presets:
    • Now, when a factory or user preset SysEx file is loaded into the TimeLine, the LED will display “SUCCESS” indicating a successful file transfer.
  • Preset Dump:
    • We’ve added a Preset Dump function in the Global menu. This is a great way to make a backup of your TimeLine presets.

What’s Fixed:

  • Improved looper design to remove audible ticks when controlling looper reverse and half speed functions with a MIDI controller
  • Fixed and enabled Global TAP per preset feature. You can now turn Global TAP Tempo on and off per preset. Useful when you have some presets that require Global TAP and others that don’t.
  • Fixed an issue caused when using the looper with the pattern delay machine
  • Kill Dry function now kills dry signal when TimeLine is bypassed
  • Fixed audible glitch in spillover from dBucket to Dual delay machine when in parallel configuration
  • Resolved an issue caused when utilizing the feedback loop while TimeLine is bypassed

If you come across any issues with this beta release, please email us at support@strymon.net. Thanks very much! :)

 




Our most listened to songs

Posted by Angela

Recently we asked on Facebook and Twitter for you to “go to your iTunes (or Spotify, last.fm, etc) and tell us your most listened to song.”

It was wonderful to see over one hundred songs mentioned and not one of them was a duplicate. There was such a great variety, and a lot of songs I personally had never heard before. I’m still going through and checking them all out.

I have highlighted our answers and some of yours. If you’d like to see them all check out the post on our Facebook page.


» Click here to read the rest of the article »




Lex Rotary keyboard demo with Peter Dyer

Posted by Ethan

Lex Rotary effects pedalWe recently met up with Peter Dyer (keyboardist for Mariah Carey, Aloe Blacc, Van Hunt) and he graciously put together a few audio examples featuring our Lex Rotary.

Signal path: Nord Stage2 / Dave Smith Instruments Prophet ’08 » Lex Rotary. All rotary sounds are created by Lex.

Want to learn more about Lex? Check out the Lex website. Learn more about Peter Dyer at peterdyer.net, and follow him on twitter at @peterkeys88.

Thanks again Peter for stopping by!

 




Enter to win Flint Tremolo & Reverb and Tap Favorite

Posted by Ethan

Contest has ended. Click here to see the winners. Stay tuned for other giveaways!

Enter to win a Flint Tremolo Reverb and Tap Favorite comboShow us your favorite thing about your sound or your music, and enter to win.

Show us your creativity! Take a photo or shoot a video of something that best represents your favorite thing about your sound or music. It can be anything that inspires you, or makes you enjoy playing… a piece of gear, a guitar, a pedal, your favorite chord, your studio, rehearsal space, a song you wrote.

Post it on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, or YouTube, and tag it #strymonfavorite. We’ll choose two winners who will both get a Flint Tremolo & Reverb and Tap Favorite combo.

Contest runs until April 13, 2013. Official entry rules are below. Have fun! :)

The rules:

    • Take a photo or shoot a video of something that best represents your favorite thing about your sound or music.

 

 

  • That’s it!

The prize:

The terms:

Contest has ended. Click here to see the winners. Stay tuned for other giveaways!




Tap Favorite – favorite switch / tap tempo pedal

Posted by Ethan

Tap Favorite - external tap tempo switch and favorite preset switchIntroducing the newest and smallest member of the Strymon family: Tap Favorite.

Want to store a preset of your Favorite settings on your Brigadier, El Capistan, Lex, or Flint? Or remotely tap tempos for your TimeLine, Mobius or Flint? Add our tiny Tap Favorite switch and connect to your Strymon pedal with the included 1/4″ TRS cable.

With the Favorite mode enabled, saving and recalling your Favorite preset is a snap. When you turn off your Favorite, it reverts back to the current knob states of your pedal. It’s like having two pedals ready to choose from.

When using Tap Tempo mode, you can place your TimeLine, Mobius, or Flint anywhere on your pedalboard and tap in your tempos remotely. Perfect for large rigs or boards with pedals fighting for real estate.

Learn more at the Tap Favorite site.




Flint Tremolo & Reverb receives the Guitar Player Editors’ Pick award!

Posted by Ethan

Flint Tremolo and Reverb effects pedal

Sweet! We’re excited to announce that our Flint Tremolo & Reverb pedal has received the Guitar Player Editors’ Pick award.

“Featuring a powerful SHARC processor and a wonderfully voiced analog front-end, the Flint captures the magic of three different classic Fender-style tremolos as well as three different reverbs. From the phasey throb of the ’61 Harmonic Trem to the ’80s Reverb setting, the Flint is unbelievably musical and infinitely usable. It captures the surfy spring of Fender reverb combos from the ’60s and its take on early digital reverbs yields beautiful ambient options with every guitar and amp setup. Its small size, stereo outs, expression pedal input, and jaw-dropping digital renderings of hard-to-capture analog classics make it one of the most impressive boxes I’ve heard in a long time.” – Guitar Player, February 2013

We’re very honored that Guitar Player has deemed Flint worthy of their coveted award! New to Flint Tremolo & Reverb? Check out a few of our demo vids below.




Guitar Noize loves Flint Tremolo & Reverb!

Posted by Ethan

Flint Tremolo & Reverb - GuitarNoizeJon over at Guitar Noize spent some time with our Flint Tremolo & Reverb. We’re very happy to report that he really liked what he heard, and put together this extremely in-depth and well thought out video review.

“Simply put I love this pedal…” – Guitar Noize

Read the article, and check out the video demo below!




Pete Thorn’s Flint Tremolo & Reverb demo video

Posted by Ethan

If you haven’t seen and heard Pete Thorn’s amazing Flint Tremolo & Reverb video demo, you’re missing out. Take a listen!

Make sure to pick up a copy of Pete’s album, Guitar Nerd.




What Does a Pedal Sound Like?

Posted by Ethan

What does a pedal sound like?Our very own DSP Engineer Pete Celi recently had the opportunity to contribute an article for the March 2013 issue of Premier Guitar magazine.

“Unlike a tree falling in the woods, a pedal won’t make a sound unless an amplifier is there to amplify it. (If no one is there to hear the amplifier, that’s a different philosophical discussion entirely.) This may seem a bit obvious, but when we talk of a pedal’s tone we need to discuss it in the context of a particular rig. This is particularly relevant when discussing overdrive, distortion, and fuzz pedals.”

Head on over to the Premier Guitar site to read the whole article:

Read the article

Premier Guitar March 2013




Mobius factory preset settings PDF

Posted by Ethan

Mobius factory preset list PDFHi Mobius users—many of you have asked us to put together a detailed list of the Mobius factory preset settings. Here is a PDF that contains settings for all of the factory presets. :)

download the PDF

 

 




Mobius receives the Premier Gear award!

Posted by Ethan

Mobius - Premier Gear awardWe just read Premier Guitar magazine’s review of our new Mobius modulation— and we we’re extremely excited to announce that Mobius has received their coveted Premier Gear award!

Here’s what they had to say:

“The Mobius is a pedal of very deep capabilities that exponentially widens the sound potential of a pedalboard, opens up studio and production possibilities, and can inspire whole tunes.”

“The sonic undulations are deep and complex, and at times sound impossibly real—to the point of being confounding. Just how is a 4′ tall Leslie with wildly spinning drum and horn speakers hiding behind that practice amp?”

“The quality of the Mobius is superb. It’s dead silent—quiet enough to use for outboard mix buss duties. And it’s difficult to imagine a modulation unit doing much more as capably as the Mobius does.”

“If you’re an incurable studio tinkerer, session expert, or a gigging guitarist who plays in a classic rock cover band one night and a post-rock project the next, the Mobius gives you just about every modulation weapon you could ever need.”

Check out the full review below:

Read the review!




Building Mobius pedals!

Posted by Ethan

We’ve been hard at work building Mobius pedals! We’re busy shipping out pre-orders to our North American customers, and will be making a large shipment to our international distributors in early January. Here are some photos of our recent activity:

Circuit boards complete!

mobius_boards

Chassis anodized and ready to go.

mobius_chassis

Final assembly!

mobius_withboards

Audio testing and programming. Jorge keeping it real.

mobius_jorge

Just waiting for knobs.

mobius_nearcomplete

Getting ready to box up!

mobius_boxes






 
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