Recording - July 2019 - 39

the space between the taps. You can have
evenly-spaced taps (hence even echoes),
taps spaced for triplet-swing timing, and
two ratios of tap differences that produce
uneven clouds of echo: the Golden Ratio
found on Strymon's DIG pedal, and a
very musical alternative called the Silver
Ratio. The Spacing control is continuous,
morphing between its four labeled settings
throughout its range of travel.
Mechanics and Wear allow you to dial
in the sonic defects of old machines, from
dirty heads to crinkly tape (or echo modulation in the case of Studio mode, which
is intended to be pristine-clean). Low
Cut does as it says, and Spring dials in
a spring reverb reminiscent of Strymon's
Flint pedal (a spring tank was common in
many Roland echo boxes). It's quick and
fun to set up beautiful echo patches.
A built-in Sound On Sound mode lets you
record onto a virtual loop of tape that lets
you add audio on every pass, while older
passes softly degrade and fade away (or
don't, in Infinite Hold mode). You can pause
the loop-with adjustable slowdown and
startup if desired-or reverse its direction for
psychedelic backwards-masking effects.

Under the hood

As is common on Strymon pedals,
there are many other features hidden
away inside the Volante for more experimental users. You can save patches
you like as 8 Favorites (one for each
tap button), but with MIDI Program
Change and Bank Select messages
you can save and load a total of 300
presets. You can send MIDI data from
the Volante and/or daisychain it into a
MIDI network. You can select buffered
bypass (to preserve echo tails when bypassing) or true bypass (if your setup requires it), and dial in deeper parameter
settings like Spring reverb decay time.
In addition to manual or tap tempo
setting, the Volante can sync to MIDI
over 5-pin or USB and respond to
MIDI commands for many of its functions in lieu of attaching a footswitch.
This offers expanded control capability over and above what can be done
on the Volante alone; for example,
you can change the panning of each
tap in real time, rather than simply
presetting pan positions and storing
them on the Volante itself.

In use

I cut my teeth on echo machines like the
ones modeled by the Volante, (too) many
years ago-I fought an Echorec, lusted after a Space Echo, and recorded a fair bit of
music using Eno's dual-reel-deck setup. This
kind of echo manipulation was my bread
and butter for decades, and I've missed
having a way to do this sort of thing live
in the studio or on stage without having to
dive through menus or use a mouse.
Volante sounds utterly gorgeous, modeling everything from spanking-new tape
over freshly cleaned heads to a warped
and stuttering drum bumping over gunkedup heads, from perfectly pristine to-well-
gross. It's become my go-to for all manner
of echo playtime, and lives on an Aux bus
of my studio console for use on everything
from guitars and vocals to synthesizers and
drum machines. I'm rediscovering a huge
chunk of my formative years as a composer
and engineer... and now all this magic is
easily available to you, too.
Price: $399
More from: Strymon,
www.strymon.net/products/volante

CMC3
MONITOR CONTROLLER

Low-proﬁle, compact
footprint.
Fully featured for any
size studio.
Rugged components
and transparent circuitry
built in the U.K.
USA MAP $649
US

Distributed in USA by TransAudio Group.
For a USA dealer list and more visit www.transaudiogroup.com

http://www.strymon.net/products/volante http://www.transaudiogroup.com

Recording - July 2019

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