Strymon are one of the biggest names in pedals, and have garnered a fanbase that fervently believes in their products. Bringing the best of analogue and digital, Strymon produce digitally-controlled pedals that offer more routing, presets, and configurability than anyone else.

They rocketed to fame with the success of their BigSky, TimeLine, and Mobius pedals, before branching out into more specific sounds with the likes of the Iridum amp modeller and impulse response pedal, the Compadre dual-voice compressor and boost, and more recently, the Zelzah multidimensional phaser.

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What makes Strymon unique is not only their pedals featuring some super powerful DSP processing via digitally-controlled chips, but their attention to detail when recreating more analogue sounds. While being mostly digital pedals, Strymon continue to offer sounds that slide easily into existing, more analogue pedal chains. They’re a company at the top of the game – so whose coat tails are you chasing when you’re a market leader? Your own of course!

Strymon recently unveiled their Next Generation series of pedals, re-invigorating six classic pedals (and entirely necessary sounds for every guitarist), all housed in more pedal-board friendly sizes. The Next Generation series features revised versions of blueSky, Deco, DIG, El Capistan, Flint, and Lex Rotary. While the sounds that pedals like the BigSky, Timeline, and Mobius are massive, so are their footprint, and as digital processing grows, the size of their processors shrinks, allowing them to become smaller and smaller.

Across all six Next Generation pedals, Strymon now offer TRS MIDI/Expression for expressive control of parameters. This 1⁄4” jack can be used for expression, or using a MIDI Interface (such as the Strymon Conduit), you can connect to other MIDI controllers using standard MIDI cables. If you want to get super creative, you can connect it straight to your DAW to take your MIDI integration one step further. What’s more, Strymon have taken it to another level and made some of the control pots used to control effects into useable MIDI encoders, so it can all be clocked to a master to ensure optimal digital integration. The Next Generation series also features USB-C that can give and take MIDI information if you’d like to use the TRS MIDI jack for something else!

The inputs for the Strymon Next Generation pedals have been upgraded to JFET transistors, some of the best in the market for handling Hi-Z signal from your guitar and bass and ensuring converters inside the pedal are receiving optimum, healthy signal. The inputs of the pedals also now feature a mono/stereo toggle, which isn’t a new feature per se, but the ease of access of the switch on the outside is! All these features are plenty, but Strymon haven’t stopped there. Each of the six pedals individually are new and revised!

blueSky

The blueSky is Strymon’s flagship reverberator. Shimmering space to short sharp rooms, the blueSky could do it all, but the Next Generation blueSky can do it all and more. Reverbs are one thing, but the addition of a dedicated shimmer knob, mod switch, and new spring reverb algorithm allows you to create immersive, modulating, or springy sounds respectively.

Modulation can give reverb a lot of depth, especially when subtly blended, and massive upgrades to this area are a welcome addition to the blueSky.