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$199.00
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It’s not often that your own gear inspires something completely different, but that’s just what happened with our new La Brea Analog Tape Drive.
An all-analog drive pedal that uses multi-stage tape saturation techniques to create driven tones ranging from mild breakup all the way to full fuzz, La Brea also features high frequency filtering and a fully variable dry output that always stays in phase with the original signal.
Twelve years ago, our analog engineer Josh read the original white paper that Pete Celi wrote on the development of our popular Deco pedal. The paper inspired him to begin experimenting with some of the tape-centric techniques used in Deco in a full analog drive pedal design, and over ten years of tinkering later La Brea is the result.
La Brea feels completely natural to play, as the tape techniques create some pleasing natural compression along with the saturation and gain. Whether you’re looking to punch up some crispy open-string arpeggios or throw up a full wall of unique fuzz, La Brea can achieve it.
The inclusion of the phase-accurate dry path yields benefits that may not be immediately obvious, as it can help create an even bigger soundstage than saturation alone. The dry path can keep things clear and articulate if desired, and it can really help other drive pedals that are further down in the chain too, as some pedals need a strong transient to get the right sound.
La Brea’s operating voltage is internally boosted to 24 volts using a custom internal power supply, providing ample clarity and headroom. As a result the pedal can operate as a vibey clean boost if you prefer, or an all-out fuzz depending on where your amp and the Tape Sat knob on La Brea are set to.
Like all the other members of Series A, La Brea also features an internal jumper that determines the power-up state (moving the jumper to the second position will cause the pedal to turn itself on automatically when it sees power). This can really help if La Brea is buried under the second deck of a complex pedalboard, or in a rack drawer in a rack system.
Killer code only sounds killer when it’s hosted inside of an ideal analog environment, and even though we’re primarily known for our DSP prowess, our stuff wouldn’t sound the way that it does without our strong analog team.
The analog guys are always coming up with interesting designs, so we’ve launched the ‘Series A’ line of pure analog pedals to give them an outlet, with Fairfax being the first in the line.
The designs you’ll be seeing in ‘Series A’ are intended to offer something different from traditional Strymon offerings, with no MIDI, USB, firmware or digital processing. These will be pedals that are unabashedly analog, which means it could get really interesting! Keep an eye out for more ‘Series A’ pedals as we go forward.
I’ll Take Those Odds
La Brea’s Tape Saturation combines seamlessly with the harmonics from the cranked Marshall for a tone with plenty of sustain and grunge, while La Brea’s Shift adds some bite to a fairly dark amp.
Just Past The Edge
Medium output pickups pair with La Brea’s moderate saturation to push a clean Princeton slightly past the edge of breakup.
Moving In Sludgeo
A maxed-out Dry signal is paired with a highly saturated tape drive for an almost fuzz-like tone that retains its clarity.
Pickup Lines
Even with high gain, the Dry signal ensures all the notes speak clearly. Pickups are switched around to show the resulting changes in tone.
Bucketmouth
Take a neutral DI bass tone and add clarity, depth, and slight compression with La Brea.
Bend It Like Beck’s Ham
The amp is already crunchy, so the max Dry output and High Shift help keep the upper frequencies prominent, even with the Tape Sat knob at noon.
Ashes of My Cake
Bright, saturated tape drive adds gain and amp-like sag to Iridium for a tight, midrange-focused metal tone.
Monolith
Even at high gain settings, La Brea becomes transparent when you roll the guitar volume knob back.
Mountain Road
A significant dose of La Brea Tape Saturation pushes an already turned-up Marshall to create a heavily compressed 70s hard rock tone. La Brea’s Shift switch is set to High to add a bit of bite to the attacks.
Your Bloody Heartthrob
A slightly overdriven Princeton is pushed far beyond its limits by La Brea’s high saturation, and paired with Deco’s Auto-Flange for a sludgy, shoegazey sound.
Slightly Orbison
The combination of lots of Dry, relatively low Tape Sat and a Mid Shift gives the baritone guitar girth that never gets aggressive and an open top end.
Nowhere To Go
Set Gain to High and Tape Sat to its highest setting and Turn LaBrea into a semi-fuzzy firebreathing machine.
Supersaturation
La Brea transforms a dull and lifeless input signal into a rich and fuzzy percolated overdrive.
Tom & Tim
Guitar paired with a low bass octave feeds a saturated La Brea with a high Dry signal for heavy, clear and percussive RATM-inspired tones.
West of Western
Adjusting your guitar’s volume knob and picking dynamics can push La Brea from transparent drive to blasted out fuzz. Note how the initial dry sample is similar to the light picking, rolled back volume sound.
Not Sweet But Low
The Dry signal adds immediacy to the saturation, giving the baritone a forward character that pops through the mix.
Fuzzy Line
La Brea has more than enough gain on tap to easily push the Marshall into full-on fuzz territory, with La Brea’s Tape Sat contributing harmonics to the amp’s tube saturation.
Strum And Get It
Here La Brea is used to thicken and smooth the tone, without adding a ton of aggressive character.
Probably Unwise
Zero Dry and full Saturation with a crunchy amp creates a compressed and aggressive lead tone that gets right in your face.
Buffering
La Brea acts as a clean buffer to help brighten up the sound of the humbuckers and prevent the volume pedal from loading them down.
Golden Hour
Add analog warmth and fullness to clean tones with La Brea, with reverb and tremolo courtesy of Flint.
Bread & Sputter
A gainy Fairfax feeds into La Brea for a highly saturated explosive tone that retains a high level of clarity.
One Last Job
Tape Saturation from La Brea creates an aggressive tone while a high Shift setting makes sure all the bite of the Strat’s bridge pickup is delivered through the warm Marshall.
Who’s Fuzzy Lookin’?
La Brea provides a harmonically rich and concise crunch to a Princeton already being overdriven by a high output P90 pickup.
No More Fingerprints
With zero Dry and a bit less gain, La Brea glues all of the bent notes together.
Pretty Plain Chicken
La Brea adds a rounder and more defined compression effect to the very clean single coil input signal without breaking up or creating noticeable overdrive.
Because it uses pre-emphasis and de-emphasis techniques similar to a magnetic tape deck, La Brea imparts a warm smoothness to anything you run through it (much like our beloved Deco pedal). Notes in plucked chords are glued together nicely, and lead lines poke through the mix with authority that feels great under your fingers.
This is the main drive control for the pedal, and determines how much tape saturation gain is applied to the input signal. With the Gain switch set to “high” and Tape Sat set to max, La Brea morphs into saturated fuzz territory – notes get smoother the harder you push them, NOT harsh or abrasive.
This three position switch enables the use of two different high frequency contour filters. The “high” setting acts as a smooth high frequency boost to open up the top end a little bit, while the “mid” setting adds midrange to the high frequency boost to help notes poke through the mix more prominently.
La Brea features a variable control that determines the level of Dry signal that appears at the pedal output (it goes all the way to zero output). The Dry signal always remains in-phase with the wet signal, and the juxtaposition between the Dry signal and the softer saturated signal can really make things sound big. It’s a far more powerful control than it appears to be at first glance.
A master Level control sets the output of the Saturation side of the pedal. The knob goes all the way to zero for no output, or you can crank this control to the max to pummel the input to your amplifier and create otherworldly levels of fuzzy gain.
La Brea’s Gain switch determines the gain range for the Tape Sat control. The “high” setting generates significantly more gain than “norm”.
Use the interactive dots (+) to learn more about La Brea’s knobs, switches, and inputs/outputs.
SHIFT
Accentuates the high frequency content on both the saturation and clean signal paths.
high: increases the high-end for added sparkle.
flat: provides flat full-frequency response.
mid: increases the high midrange for added bite.
TAPE SAT
Adds soft-clipping, tape-style saturation. Lower settings add light overdrive and mild taming of transients. Higher levels provide heavy distortion, sustain, and fuzz textures. Use the GAIN switch to select the knob’s range.
LEVEL
Adjusts the output level of the Tape Saturation circuit.
GAIN
Sets the TAPE SAT gain range.
high: enables higher gain.
norm: provides low to medium gain levels.
DRY
Independently adjusts the clean signal path level from off to +6dB of boost.
Blend clean signal into a saturated tone for added dynamics. Or, decrease LEVEL to minimum to use the DRY on its own for a cut or clean boost.
FOOTSWITCH
Engages and bypasses the pedal. A lit amber LED indicates the pedal is engaged. Bypass is true bypass.
INPUT
High impedance JFET buffered mono instrument input.
OUTPUT
Low impedance mono output.
9VDC
Use a power supply or an adapter with the following ratings: 9VDC, center negative, 500mA minimum (sold separately).
