Strymon BigSky MX

[Orvillain]

I love this stuff! You should definitely get a bandcamp thing going with them!

Cheers guvnor. At one point, I was much more of a "soundscape-ist" than a guitarist. My how times have changed. Maybe once I get my SLOGANYEAR project properly off the ground, I'll re-release this under it.

 

[norminal]

Checking out the videos Strymon posted on their YouTube channel.

This thing sounds amazing. A little too steep for my wallet, but some damn good sounds in there.

 

[woody]

All the sheep will be selling their big skys now . A bargain to be had if they are your thing. I personally think there are a lot better reverb units out there .

Which reverbs do you like better?
I never owned a strymon pedal, but I am thinking about buying a Bigsky in the coming purge...

 

[Orvillain]

Checking out the videos Strymon posted on their YouTube channel.

This thing sounds amazing. A little too steep for my wallet, but some damn good sounds in there.

No doubt it'll sound amazing. The BigSky v1 pedal is one of the best sounding reverbs out there, even 10+ years after its release. Feature-wise it doesn't quite offer the full complexity of something like the Meris MercuryX, or the Source Audio Ventris+editor combo... but a lot of people don't need or even want that kind of complexity. So ... it is what it is I guess.

 

[Eagle]

Which reverbs do you like better?
I never owned a strymon pedal, but I am thinking about buying a Bigsky in the coming purge...

Lexicon PCM tones are still my favourite . Harder to say in pedals. I still prefer the Boss RV500 to most pedal reverbs. I like a reverb that sounds like an environment rather than an effect. I have never liked TC or Eventide for verb at any price point.

 

[fuyume]

1. It's too expensive for what it does.
2. It's too big for what it does.
3. What it does it pretty sweet, though.
4. There is no Number 4.
5. The only people who are going to buy this are the Strymon True Believers who already have a BigSky on their board, so they don't need to make additional room for it. They will also buy the TimeLine MX and Mobius MX, even though those will also be too expensive, too big, and sound great.


I will say one very good thing about the BigSky MX. It brings a long duration IR/convolution engine into the the mainstream of the effects world, and because Strymon has chosen to do this, they have pretty much ensured that all their competitors will follow suit in their next generation of products.

Currently, the only long duration IR pedals I'm aware of are the Logidy EPSi (defunct), the Poly Effects Verbs, and the Tasty Chips Integral. All other IR pedals on the market only accept short duration IRs (200 ms or 500 ms).

Meris, Boss, Line 6, Fractal, and Source Audio have just been put "on notice". I'll buy the Boss GT-2000Core, when it comes out. It will be better, smaller, and cheaper than the Strymon BigSky MX, just like the Boss 500 series pedals are better, smaller and cheaper than the first gen Strymon pedals.

 

[fuyume]

Two reverbs simultaneously?
Isn't that like putting a swimming pool in the middle of a lake?

It's more like catching up to what Boss did 7 years ago at half the price. From 2017, behold two reverbs at once.

 

[JiveTurkey]

 

[fuyume]

cringe meme

Not my fault you can't get a good sound out of your gear.

 

[fuyume]

Makes me wonder what the next gen Timeline and Mobius will look like and cost. Mobius is likely to be cheaper because you don't need as fast processor for modulation usually.

Except that it doesn't make sense to buy different batches of processors and build different hardware. These embedded SoCs are not cutting edge hardware. It's not the hardware that's holding Strymon back, it's the business model.

 

[fuyume]

Those sweet, sweet days of $50 pedals (in full agreement on pickup cost)

FTR, the Boss RV-2 was never $50. It's was $69 on *clearance* when they blew them out in the early 1990s, because no one wanted them. Before the clearance, they cost a shit ton more than that.

 

[fuyume]

Does anyone outside of P&W even use these sorts of things?

Obvously, they do, but yeah, super effected reverbs delays and mods are going to be super popular with religious cultists precisely because they sound so bloody unnatural. The transcendence/denial of reality is kind of the point for them.

 

[fuyume]

Lexicon PCM tones are still my favourite . Harder to say in pedals. I still prefer the Boss RV500 to most pedal reverbs. I like a reverb that sounds like an environment rather than an effect. I have never liked TC or Eventide for verb at any price point.

I do like all of those reverbs, but my current go-to is the Boss "Ambience" algorithm in the GT-1000Core, which is *not* in the RV-500 or RV-200. It's very natural sounding, and sounds like a good convolution IR of a real space.

"Simulates an ambience mic (off-mic, placed at a distance from the sound source) used in recording and other applications. Rather than emphasizing the reverberation, this reverb is used to produce a sense of openness and depth."

 

[JiveTurkey]

I didn't realize I was saying it was your fault? I made an entire EP and all sorts of clips with boss Gear. Guitar and amp modeling as well as synthesizer stuff. I've also gigged it numerous times over the years.

 

[fuyume]

I'm actually surprised it's taken this long for convolution reverbs to get some mainstream attention at the pedal level. I've been using eMagic's Space Designer IR comvolution reverb (included free with Apple Logic Pro v7) for over 20 years on a Power Mac G5 2.0 GHz Dual Processor with 1 GB RAM.

Emagic Space Designer

Convolving reverbs are coming down in price as more manufacturers make their own. We check out Emagic's new plug-in, which is one of the more affordable ones around, but still allows you to create your own reverbs from favourite spaces.

www.soundonsound.com

Now that Strymon has given the idea mainstream legitimacy, all their competitors are going to be compelled to follow suit, and that can only be good for the industry and for us as musicians.

 

[Eagle]

It's more like catching up to what Boss did 7 years ago at half the price. From 2017, behold two reverbs at once.

And the quality is there.

 

[came the rain]

Depending on how exactly the routing and I/O work, you could run a spring reverb in front of amp (like an amp's reverb would be) and a hall reverb after. Not at all uncommon to have separate pre and post reverbs.

Doable.

“you can position the two reverb blocks either in series or in parallel, and you can independently pan either of them.”

—anonymous

 

[Eagle]

Doable.

“you can position the two reverb blocks either in series or in parallel, and you can independently pan either of them.”

—anonymous

Like the RV500

 

[came the rain]

Like the RV500

Except it’s way cooler. Like a Knaggs!

 

[Orvillain]

It's more like catching up to what Boss did 7 years ago at half the price. From 2017, behold two reverbs at once.

The problem there is, the RV-500 largely sounds like metallic ass. I like the RV-3 and RV-5, but I don't want 12 models that all sound like those two pedals. There isn't enough variety on the RV-500 at all, despite the different modes. They all have the same character and same core Boss tonality. Also the 10second limitation for the decay length puts it firmly into the bread-and-butter category. It doesn't compete with the BigSky at all really.

The Source Audio Ventris allows two reverbs at once, and sounds better than the BigSky and the RV-500!!