Strymon BigSky MX

[Solarflares]

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

Necro reply, but I don’t care, as you know already.

I work with the idea that every sound source in a mix should have it’s own localised ambience and stereo spread - if we are portraying it in a stereo image.
The Accutronics approach is interesting - used by Ken Scott when recording The Tubes “Young and Rich”. Everything recorded in stereo. I took that as an inspirational starting point.
So what I do, is to take my mono guitar track, and use a Waves Chambers plugin to give it some thickening and stereo-width, with short room-decay. Still in a narrow band, I then apply any delays I wish, and pan them outside that first image - which I tend to perceive as a ‘bubble’.
I then apply a longer stereo reverb to the overall image, delays included, but I reverse the pan, so that a delay on the right will reverb on the left etc.
Now, I can have that whole image as wide or narrow as I wish. So I have a bubble inside a larger bubble, with delays dancing around outside the smaller bubble, but inside the bigger one - the reverse reverb giving extra movement and drama.

As for ‘real’ spaces on guitar tracks - why shouldn’t I have the number 2 Abbey Road room available as a short thickener - and have the choice of an Austrian Concert Hall or whatever to encompass it? We are talking complex algorithms capable of way in excess of 14,000,000 convolutions. I wouldn’t be grabbing a pedal for any of that.
A rack unit maybe.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

 

[Orvillain]

Necro reply, but I don’t care, as you know already.

I work with the idea that every sound source in a mix should have it’s own localised ambience and stereo spread - if we are portraying it in a stereo image.
The Accutronics approach is interesting - used by Ken Scott when recording The Tubes “Young and Rich”. Everything recorded in stereo. I took that as an inspirational starting point.
So what I do, is to take my mono guitar track, and use a Waves Chambers plugin to give it some thickening and stereo-width, with short room-decay. Still in a narrow band, I then apply any delays I wish, and pan them outside that first image - which I tend to perceive as a ‘bubble’.
I then apply a longer stereo reverb to the overall image, delays included, but I reverse the pan, so that a delay on the right will reverb on the left etc.
Now, I can have that whole image as wide or narrow as I wish. So I have a bubble inside a larger bubble, with delays dancing around outside the smaller bubble, but inside the bigger one - the reverse reverb giving extra movement and drama.

He died.

 

[Solarflares]

He died.

Like most of my posts.

So, it’s a real necro reply then?
A first for me.

 

[Whizzinby]

Got about a half hour in on it this evening. Only made it through the first 15 or so presets. Some really nice stuff so far.

The Meris box I had felt very cold and clinical, and I just couldn’t connect with it. My Empress Reverb is nice, but it’s almost too clean and pristine. You kind of have to work to remove the hifi-ness. The MX just immediately feels more inviting. Strymon really tune their shit in a pleasing way.

A really promising thing is that out of the first dozen or so presets only one has shimmer on it.

I love a big monster ethereal reverb as much as the next guy, but I just can’t do the P&W verb thing.

There is a plate IR verb in one of the early presets that’s just awesome, especially hitting it with an analog delay.

A couple cool rhythmic verbs too with the nonlinear and magneto algos. Def will need to mess with those when I start rolling my own presets.

Cloud verb is always pleasing. I have a lot of time with that using the Cloudburst, but some of the early “standard” verbs sound really nice. I feel like most of these big boxes ultimately become novelty acts if you can’t get a good basic plate/hall/spring for the times you don’t want to levitate on big galactic verbs. If they nail the rest of the “natural” verbs, I trust that the fantasy verbs will slap.

So far so good.

 

[Whizzinby]

Made it through the end of the presets. (Which was a battle of will by the end) A couple observations on the way.

I think I’ve become so accustomed to Eventide and Chase Bliss recently that I actually consider the Blue Sky MX to be a Gentlemen’s Reverb. There are a couple massive verbs and some kooky shit can be dialed in, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like it wants to pull me in that direction. (Whereas something like the H90 always feels like it wants me to go in the galactic-meth-fueled-rampage-verb direction)

I greatly prefer the natural verbs on this over the Empress Reverb. Not even close. They sit really comfortably under your playing, and they are clean without being too hifi. (Which is my minor quibble with the Emp) Kind of hard to go wrong with the room/hall/plates, they are tuned great.

Infinite mode set to latching is the shit too, when you want to do the Cloud/Bloom thing. Reverb just floats along following you.

The think I’m going to dual-lock it down.

Only question is do I send the Empress packing, or load the Empress Delay firmware on it, and turn it into a multi-delay.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Only question is do I send the Empress packing, or load the Empress Delay firmware on it, and turn it into a multi-delay.

Yeah, I bought that AM4 so I could send my Axe Fx III packing. Yeah. It’ll save me money. That’s how this will work…

Glad it’s working out for you and can’t wait to hear what you think of the Empress Delay!

 

[Whizzinby]

Yeah, I bought that AM4 so I could send my Axe Fx III packing. Yeah. It’ll save me money. That’s how this will work…

Glad it’s working out for you and can’t wait to hear what you think of the Empress Delay!

It’s beyond cool as hell that Empress allows you to swap FW between their devices, so I think I’m going to do that out of respect.

 

[Aleksi]

Made it through the end of the presets. (Which was a battle of will by the end) A couple observations on the way.

I think I’ve become so accustomed to Eventide and Chase Bliss recently that I actually consider the Blue Sky MX to be a Gentlemen’s Reverb. There are a couple massive verbs and some kooky shit can be dialed in, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like it wants to pull me in that direction. (Whereas something like the H90 always feels like it wants me to go in the galactic-meth-fueled-rampage-verb direction)

I greatly prefer the natural verbs on this over the Empress Reverb. Not even close. They sit really comfortably under your playing, and they are clean without being too hifi. (Which is my minor quibble with the Emp) Kind of hard to go wrong with the room/hall/plates, they are tuned great.

Infinite mode set to latching is the shit too, when you want to do the Cloud/Bloom thing. Reverb just floats along following you.

The think I’m going to dual-lock it down.

Only question is do I send the Empress packing, or load the Empress Delay firmware on it, and turn it into a multi-delay.

I struggled at first with how well-behaved and "transparent" the normal reverbs in the Big Sky MX are, because I love drenching everything in these huge character verbs. Now it's often pretty much my go to reverb, but I go elsewhere for my intergalactic journeys. I haven't yet gone too deep into the shimmer, but probably should.

And of course Magneto and impulses for springs are awesome. I don't really care much for impulses otherwise.

 

[Orvillain]

Blue Sky MX to be a Gentlemen’s Reverb

I actually agree with this a lot. The BigSky was dope back in the day, but these days next to some of the competition, it seems a bit too polite in many ways.

I've already got the RV-5, MXR, and Meris MercuryX on my board. I do have room for the BigSkyMX but I sorta wonder why I'd bother really. It's a great pedal to have, as is the Ventris... but it doesn't really have a signature sound on it that makes me want to dedicate the space for it.

 

[Whizzinby]

I struggled at first with how well-behaved and "transparent" the normal reverbs in the Big Sky MX are, because I love drenching everything in these huge character verbs. Now it's often pretty much my go to reverb, but I go elsewhere for my intergalactic journeys.

Transparent is a good way to put it. The new natural space algos are really good. They sound/feel like a really clean open space versus an effect.

They work really well with other effects because they aren’t getting in the way and are just adding depth. You kind of forget the work they’re putting in until you turn it off and you wonder where all the awesome went.

I could float in the DimC + Dig + Hall stack forever.

I actually agree with this a lot. The BigSky was dope back in the day, but these days next to some of the competition, it seems a bit too polite in many ways.

I've already got the RV-5, MXR, and Meris MercuryX on my board. I do have room for the BigSkyMX but I sorta wonder why I'd bother really. It's a great pedal to have, as is the Ventris... but it doesn't really have a signature sound on it that makes me want to dedicate the space for it.

Yeah, the Cloud/Bloom/Shimmer are kind of well established at this point, so I suppose it’s a matter of how much you want access to those plus the new natural algos as daily driver type verbs.

The magneto is dope, sorta UltraTap’ish. You can diffuse the hell out of it to get some cool pinging verb movement.

I haven’t gone too far down the stacking rabbit hole yet. I think that’s probably where big character verb potential will probably be.