Recording - May 2015 - 44

B Y PA U L V N U K J R .

We don't often review guitar pedals in
these pages, unless they offer something
unique for the studio. This month we have
one such pedal: The Strymon BigSky Reverb.
We first introduced readers to Strymon
back in our December 2014 Holiday Gift
guide when we looked at the El Capistan
Tape delay pedal, which in my opinion
rivals many of the best plug-ins for capturing
the true saturated sound and functions of a
classic analog tape delay. Part of the magic
of the El Capistan, while it was originally
made for guitar, was how easily it integrated with other sources-hardware synths, for
example, or most notably as a hardware
send and return effect in a DAW. This month
the BigSky Reverb does the same!

Strymon BigSky Reverberator Pedal
A big pedal brings a big sound to the recording studio-and it's not just for guitar
A highly expanded big brother to the
company's blueSky Reverb (which offers
a simpler control set and 3 reverb choices), the BigSky offers 12 reverb choices
from the simple to the strange with a full
complement of controls and footswitches.
Outside and in
On the top of the BigSky's 6.75" x 5.1"
surface lives a 6-character alphanumeric
LED display, a 12-position pushbutton/
selection knob, a continuously variable
pushbutton/parameter knob, and seven
additional fixed parameter knobs. This is
rounded out with three standard foot
switches that can hold three stored presets
or can further step through preset banks.
Like all Strymon pedals, the BigSky offers
a nice blend of an analog true bypass signal
path with the power of an Analog Devices
SHARC processor, which is what Universal
Audio uses for its UAD-2 DSP engines!
The BigSky is a stereo pedal; the rear
sports two pairs of unbalanced 1/4" ins and
outs, where using just the left jacks switches
the pedal to mono use. There is a 1/4" TRS
input for use with an external assignable
expression pedal, a cab filter that allows
the pedal to be used with a full range PA or
direct recording without an amp, and there
are also a pair of old school 5-pin MIDI ins
and outs for use with a MIDI controller (and
for possible future online editor software).
The unit is powered by a 9V DC wall wart
power supply.
44

RECORDING May 2015

Meet the verbs
The BigSky's twelve reverbs start with the
usual suspects like Hall, Spring, Plate and
Room. There are four relatively common
specialty reverb choices: Swell, Non Linear,
Reflections, and Magneto (a tape delay
based reverb), and there are four unique,
highly effected reverb choices: Bloom,
Cloud, Choral, and Shimmer. I would love
to detail them all here, but Strymon's web
site will do a much better job complete with
its online sound samples.
Each reverb has a number of common
parameters, controlled by five of the
seven knobs. Also note that the Value
knob offers deeper and more precise control over each reverb's parameters, as
well as global editing and setup access.
The seven knobs are:
1. Decay, with most reverbs offering 10
to 20 seconds, Cloud offering a full 50
seconds of decay time, and Magneto
offering only 1.5 seconds.
2. Pre-Delay offers up to 1.5 seconds for
most reverbs.
3. Tone sculpts the high frequency content
of each reverb, offering dark and lush
verbs at low settings and crystal clarity on
the high end.
4. A Mod control adds in modulation of the
reverb tail for vintage reverb emulation.
5 and 6. A pair of knobs marked Param
1 and Param 2 offer tweaks that are specific to each reverb type.
7. Lastly there is a wet / dry Mix control.

In use
Like the El Capistan before it, this
reverb box rivals-and in some cases
blows away-many in-the-box reverb
plug-ins, to say nothing of rackmount
reverb hardware in the mid-price range.
It's almost a "guitar pedal" in name only,
but to be fair to its heritage, we started
with a battery of guitar tests.
I had Josh, a good friend of mine and
frequent studio visitor, run his new Fender
American Classic Strat through some of
his boutique overdrive pedals, into the
BigSky, followed by a fully restored 1968
Fender Twin Reverb amp. Josh formerly
owned a Strymon blueSky and traded it
for a Strymon Flint tremolo-reverb pedal,
so he is no stranger to the Strymon sound.
Josh is a classic Ryan Adams-inspired
roots rocker; while he had a blast with many
of the more effecty reverbs, he still preferred
the simple and clean plates, rooms, and
spring most of the time. While he prefers
simplicity and missed the minimal straightforward controls of the blueSky, he proclaimed the BigSky to easily be the bestsounding reverb pedal he had ever used.
I recently had the chance to track some
Moog Voyager and Dave Smith Prophet
08 keyboard parts for a New Age /
Electronica album by my Atlanta-based
friend and Recording colleague Jim
Combs, a.k.a. Sensitive Chaos. During
the sessions, I had lots of fun pushing the
BigSky into deep space reverb territory!



Recording - May 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - May 2015

Contents
Recording - May 2015 - Cover1
Recording - May 2015 - Cover2
Recording - May 2015 - 1
Recording - May 2015 - 2
Recording - May 2015 - 3
Recording - May 2015 - 4
Recording - May 2015 - 5
Recording - May 2015 - Contents
Recording - May 2015 - 7
Recording - May 2015 - 8
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