Most of us can remember the first piece of
gear that made a lasting impression—
whether it was an old Strat in a pawnshop or a
classic Marshall calling from across the room.
For me, it was an old Ibanez AD9 Analog
Delay—its warm sound and funky look drew
me in immediately. But it was a temperamental beast, and that’s an understatement.
The delay time was way too short because
of its older “bucket brigade” chips, which
were also used in the other analog delays of
the period, like the Boss DM- 2 and Electro-Harmonix Memory Man. The bucket brigade
term came about because of how the echoed
signal was produced. The signal was passed
from one capacitor to another like buckets
being passed man to man in early firefighting brigades. Even though these chips
sounded great, the delay time was usually
very short because, as the signal was passed
from one capacitor to another, clarity was
lost. Adding more capacitors would have alleviated this issue, but at the cost of fidelity.
Strymon seeks to correct these headaches
with a combination of modern and old-school
technologies. Their aim was to design a
digital chip that recreates the entire analog
bucket-brigade chip—tonal nuances and
all—and that drastically increases delay time.
Strymon calls the technology dBucket, and
they’re using it in three of their five pedals in
an attempt to combine the best of the analog and digital worlds. Here we’ll take a look
at all three dBucket pedals—the Brigadier
Delay, the Orbit Flanger, and the Ola Chorus
& Vibrato—as well as the gorgeous-sounding
Blue Sky Reverberator. Each features an
attractive, anodized-aluminum case, front
panel jacks, and a 9-volt DC adapter socket.
Brigadier dBucket Delay
The Brigadier was designed with the best
analog delays of the past in mind. Strymon’s
dBucket chip is in two of the other effects
reviewed here, but the Brigadier is where it
really shines. But for a pedal with so many
features, the control layout is very simple.
There are two footswitches—one for Tap
Tempo and the other for Bypass—
three-way Mode and Tap switches, and five knobs
labeled Time, Mix, Repeats, Mod (
modulation), and Bucket Loss (which is a tone filter
for the delay repeats). Mode selects between
short, medium, or long delay times, and Tap
selects quarter, dotted quarter note, or triplet
delay patterns. When Mode is set to Long,
the pedal is capable of generating a whopping five seconds of delay time. Connector
jacks include input, stereo outs, and an
expression pedal input.
To test the Brigadier, I used a Nick Huber
Orca singlecut and a Vox AC30 reissue with
the reverb switched off. With all knobs at
noon, Mode set to medium, and Tap set
to quarter notes, the Brigadier immediately showed what it was capable of, tonally. The pedal’s delay tone isn’t a dead-on
Rating:
you’re in the market for a fan-
tastic digital delay with a unique
analog voice.
Buy If...
Skip If...
you’re after a softer analog delay
tone with a mushier voicing.
Strymon
Direct $299
strymon.net
CLICKHere…
or use a mobile
device to read
this QR code
to download
audio examples
of the pedal at
premierguitar.com/jul2010
PRODUCT REVIEW
representation of an old analog delay, but
it has strengths beyond its analog ancestors. One of the biggest frustrations of older
analog delays is how dull they can sound in
a mix. The Brigadier has that cool, lo-fi vibe,
but with a much stronger, healthier projection in its repeats. Even with the Bucket Loss
control cranked to maximum, the delay tone
was much more vibrant than most vintage
and vintage-reissue analog delays I’ve come
across. In their quest to craft a delay that
captures prized analog tones while remedying their faults, Strymon seems to have come
across a distinctive new sound. And the more
I dug into the strings to push the envelope of
clean fidelity, the more I was convinced that
was the case. There are lots of analog delay
modelers on the market, but most of them
don’t provide the feel of playing a true analog delay. The Brigadier nails it.
Orbit dBucket Flanger
When it comes to flangers and phasers,
I’m usually a little more critical than I am
of other effects. To me, they can become
tiresome much quicker than delays or even
other time-based effects. However, there are
times when they can add some magic if you
use them sparingly. For example, I own a
vintage Ibanez FL9 Flanger that I absolutely
love, but only for one specific sound. But
the Orbit opens up a lot more possibilities
in the modulation realm. And that’s because
it sports an array of controls for altering the
speed, width, regeneration, mix, and delay
time of the flanging. You can also change the
phase of the wet/dry mix and significantly
alter the range of the effect with the three-way Feedback switch.
PREMIER GUITAR JULY 2010 189
But the three-position LFO switch is the
Orbit’s coolest control. It selects between a
logarithmic sweep (even frequencies), a linear
sweep (which speeds up through the high
bands and slows down through the lower
ones), and Thru 0, which phases in and out
of high and lower fidelities. Fittingly, you can
save your favorite setting by holding down
the Favorite footswitch, and you recall it by
simply stomping on the switch again. You
can also use the Favorite switch to assign the
expression pedal. Hold it down while plugging in the pedal, and the first knob you turn
is the one the expression pedal will govern.
That means any control can be assigned
