Being able to instantly impact which вЂ™TapeвЂ™ playback heads are active, and which have feedback assigned is really just perfection. As Boss learnt with their Dimension C - people love an easily intuitive interface. There are a few features that really make this pedal essential for me, and foremost among those is the 8-button interface right in the centre. In essence what you have here is a much improved and expanded sort of Deluxe El Capistan - with a tonne of extra features in all areas. In this instance I feel they have got the balance pretty much spot on - with a couple of provisos I will make later. Those of us who really like Strymon - mostly appreciate the вЂ™SheenвЂ™ but would occasionally like some way to slightly override that - which is not always possible.

I usually typify this as the вЂ™Strymon SheenвЂ™ and itвЂ™s of course quite evident here. And this is another area really which mostly pleases me - in that Strymon very significantly tune the вЂ™RangeвЂ™ of their dials - meaning itвЂ™s very difficult to make things sound even slightly discordant or ugly - pretty much all settings sound musical and refined. While other similar effects are slightly rawer with less EQ manipulation - I believe Strymon apply some really smart High Pass and Low Pass filter algorithms to ensure optimal sound quality throughout their given dial ranges. Unbeknownst to some - Strymon pedals very much have their own kind of slightly polished tone / sound signature - they have quite a distinct frequency curve I believe as they very neatly tweak the output and throughput of the affected signal to remove unnecessary harshness. For veteran Strymon owners this is really just more of the same - by which I mean another really smartly and intuitively interfaced delay pedal with some significantly clever built-in tone-sculpting.

Please.So I at last managed to get a hold of one of these from a UK dealer - looks like Sound Affects Premier were amongst the first to receive a sizeable delivery of Volantes on this side of the pond. With that in mind, we picked two such beasts that we had at our disposal, so please donвЂ™t be posting comments moaning about why we didnвЂ™t compare it with this, that or the other. Please note: There have been many, many different kinds of tape and drum echoes over the years, and they pretty much all sound different, not least with the passage of time / different states of repair etc etc etc. Should I replace my TimeLine or El Capistan?.What about the best of the modern, pedal format versions of those effects? We pick two for comparison.Does it sound like those old units? We have a couple for a quick comparison.It also does multi-head tape and studio tape delays too. The Volante adds a whole new voice to StrymonвЂ™s echo choir, namely the vintage, multi-head drum echo sound made famous by the Binson Echorec.

Strymon of course has enjoyed phenomenal success with its delay pedals to date, particularly the genre-defining TimeLine and much-loved El Capistan. In this video we welcome perhaps the most anticipated pedal of 2019: the Strymon Volante.

Volante pedal